Heidi, hi!

ROB FIDDAMAN this week chats to singer-songwriter Heidi Browne about her childhood shows for her parents, supporting an 80s icon, and why you may have already heard her music...

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Heidi, thank you for chatting to me! Firstly, can you tell us where you are from originally and where you're based now.

Hi Rob. I was actually born in London (made in Chelsea!) but grew up mostly in and around Market Drayton. I bought my first house in Longton in 2017 and was based there for several years. Currently I'm living down in Bedfordshire but I tour all over the UK and come back up this way at least twice a month.

How old were you when you first discovered you loved singing?

I can't remember a time when I didn't love singing, dancing, playing and performing. I would have been very young when I first started putting on little shows for my parents. I used to wear a moustache and bowler hat on occasion and play piano and I had two hindu puppets of Rama and Sita and used to put on puppet shows too! I always wanted to get picked in choir but it wasn't until my mid-teens that anyone outside of home really knew I could sing.

I read you started writing songs aged 14. Is that correct?

The first I would count as a proper song would have been written around then. I used to make up tunes, poems and stories, then I learnt my first few chords on guitar and that was it!

What instruments can you play?

Guitar and piano are my main songwriting tools. I also recently wrote a few songs on ukulele, banjo and mandolin. My first instruments which I learnt in school were violin and flute, and then in bands as a teenager I played bass. Funnily enough the instrument most remember me for is the mouth trumpet, which is a sound I make with my mouth. It sounds comical but effective!

Do you have a wide range of genres and artists as influences?