Natalie’s passion, power and persistence is the creeping entwined vine which forms all that is, The Bride Stripped Back.
“I really feel like I can play this album and be so proud of what myself and everyone who contributed has achieved. This has been one of the most wonderful opportunities for myself and many other players to be involved in.”
In the beginning, there were three young uni students enjoying life together. They each shared their interest in music with each other, partying at gigs and festivals, having a good time while studying Nature Tourism. Natalie learnt to play the guitar and began writing her own songs influenced by her favourite artists at the time, which included Cat Stevens, the Rolling Stones, Alanis Morrisette and the Superjesus. She provided the initial spark of enthusiasm to get something going, and the band Euphony was formed. This was a very undeveloped prototype for the band as it is now, but they got a performance together, got gigging, made a rough recording, and went on to win the Macedon Ranges Battle of the bands in 2005. While playing with the band, Natalie had found opportunities for solo performances, and went off to record a solo EP titled, “All in your hands” at the local TAFE studio in Bendigo. Later on she came back to performing with the band, and with a decision to change their name to Searchlight, they got gigging again and recorded an EP with their producer and friend, Bohdan Dower. They launched the EP in Bendigo and ‘wowed’ the crowd with their performance, new material and attention to crowd participation and stage setup. They went on to have more success under this name for some time.
After tiring of dealing with dynamics and direction issues in a band, it came to a point where Natalie felt she needed to start a new project which would have the unity necessary to sustain the hard work and rough waters of the music industry. Here began her new project, The Bride Stripped Back.
She met with Daylesford based producer, David Williams, and started work on an EP titled “Beautifully out of control”. This would take almost a year, with the incessant difficulties of life crashing on her shores during this time, but finally, it came together and problems passed.
After this EP was completed, Natalie new she had to go further, and applied for a Victoria Rocks Music Career Building Grant to support the release of a full length album. She began acquiring local musicians who she felt suited the direction of the project, and worked on her finest songs that were to be a part of this project with them. The application was a success. Getting to work, a great collection of tracks began to form which used all the local music services and talent available and was very much a community project of Bendigo and surrounding shires.
“Overall the project exceeded my expectations, all musicians were extremely professional, inspirational and generous with their time. We did more that we ever anticipated and managed to keep the budget on track other than a few additional costs - which I personally outlaid.”
“I feel so proud of how far I have come from completing this project. I have secured official bandmates who will tour with me, and the string section have committed to doing the Official CD launches.”
Chaos and the Calm is the debut album from The Bride Stripped Back.
It will be released digitally through iTunes, before being available in stores nationally.
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