Stefani Keogh

Tag: metal

  • A Little Life Update

    A Little Life Update


    So the video pretty much covers it all as to what’s been going on since March and why I’ve been so inactive here.
    But hopefully it will all change soon and there will be lots of covers on here to enjoy!!!


  • 2020 Round Up – The Year That Broke Us All

    2020 Round Up – The Year That Broke Us All


    (An audio recording (English) of this blog is available at the bottom of the page) Click here.

    It feels very weird sitting down to write a 2020 round up, because honestly I felt like so much and yet so little actually happened that year that it’s quite hard to try and condense it into a blog that makes any sense.

    I’m not going to lament too much about the coming (and sadly not going) of the covid pandemic – because if you’re anything like me, you’re rather weary from it all. We all know it sucked, for some more than others; be it loss of career, money, social life or even sadly the loss of life of loved ones. So this is merely going to be from a personal, and I suppose selfish point of view.

    So I started 2020 with a goal. It was a bit wishy washy in terms of it’s direction and doability but it was massively important – not so much in what in entailed but in the fact that for the first time, I was calling it a ‘goal’ and not a wish. I knew roughly what I wanted, and to be honest had simply no clue how to achieve it; but I was prepared to give it my best shot and was able to at least half plan a way to get there (or so I hoped!)

    Up til that point, my whole background had been in a different field. Several actually since that’s generally the way my brain works best. I was an actor – film and TV occasionally but essentially Musical Theatre performing, as well as working as a portrait artist. Whilst it’s still considered ‘singing’, it’s a very different world to ‘metal music’, and the two don’t exactly have a huge cross over of contacts. So completely shutting down one, and wanting to go head first into the other – meant starting from scratch. Sure I had a huge wealth of performing, and indeed life experience as well as a versatile voice, but I had no idea where to start in the quest for a Metal Singing Career. I was a complete newbie.

    So the plan was essentially this: start posting on social media, create cover videos of ‘metal’ and ‘rock’ songs, try reaching out to people, and make connections and hope upon hope, that someone, somewhere would see me and ask to be in their band or at least join them as a backing singer for their concerts.

    …

    I told you the plan wasn’t particularly great!!
    It was rather relying on luck…and a somewhat ‘Cinderella story’ style approach – but “hey”, I thought: “I’m due some luck sometime in life!”

    All of this of course whilst on zero budget, running a household, and also doing my other job as a pet portrait artist (which in truth I was rather exasperated with and ready to pack in).

    Wanting to be cautious and not invest too much money in the new career goal, I started small with a cheap USB mic – it wasn’t that I didn’t believe in myself, but I very much see too many people thinking if they have all the latest equipment it instantly makes them a better musician. This isn’t so much a case of the phrase “The clothes maketh the man” but more rather “All the gear, and no idea”. It didn’t feel genuine to me and the journey I was starting out on. This set up would do – a phrase I used a lot very early on – “Make the best with what you have”….it’s actually a phrase I’ve lived by my whole life.

    Of course everything is always much harder than we expect. Actually building social media and a youtube channel nowadays is rather difficult – since every one is now trying to do the same; and I certainly wasn’t in a strong enough position to start reaching out to anyone on a professional level – so what should I do?

    Well I built a basic website, a couple of covers came and went, I even got to London to see a band I loved and had done a cover of weeks before (although that concert didn’t actually go according to plan either!) and the journey seemed to have started with promise….

    and then the first Lockdown hit England and indeed the rest of the world and everything slowly ground to a halt.

    As we all know initially we thought we’d all be out of the woods by the early summer, but as the weeks went by we knew this wasn’t like anything we’d dealt with before. Venues were shutting down, concerts cancelled or postponed and bands went into preservation mode as the main source of income suddenly disappeared.
    For me, (as I did say this was a selfish blog) I presumed that was my goals scuppered for the year. Initially I still pushed on, continued to grown my voice and found some great people to collaborate with, just for fun, on various tracks. But as the summer approached, and we all knew we’d be giving that up – there still seemed some hope for the winter – or at least an early 2021.

    And then in June of 2020, that’s when I then came down with what my doctor said was “likely to be covid” (I wasn’t able to be tested in time but that was his educated diagnosis) and suddenly for me everything stopped. It burnt my lungs and I lost around 4-6weeks, which doesn’t sound like a lot but it felt like forever as I was losing all the progress I had worked so hard for.

    It’s always trite to hear the phrase “It was a turning point” but it kind of was. If you’re knowledgable of the ‘butterfly effect’ then this was definitely a moment in which I life could have gone one of two ways. All I can say is – thank f**…sorry…thank goodness, I’m a tenacious son of a bitch at times and I didn’t give it all up.

    Once I recovered I tried to get going again, I had new plans – that’s where the Casual Covers started, and although I was now doing more art work all the way til Christmas, I picked up the social media again and tried to at least have a very small core group of followers who I actually interacted with on a weekly basis. It’s actually rather nice that some of these people I would now genuinely call friends, and that definitely makes it worthwhile!

    So a few more covers came and went and then (through one of the new, aforementioned social media friends – Thank you David!) I saw a post where someone was looking for a female singer to join a band and this was, yes I have to say – another turning point.

    If you’ve read my other blog – you’ll know how this all turned out, but if you don’t I shall summarise a little.
    It would have been very easy to tell myself I wasn’t good enough to apply. This band had previously worked with a host of well known singers including Elize Ryd from Amaranthe; and there was no way in hell I was even close to that standard. But I really had nothing to lose other than some time putting everything together to apply.
    It was around a week before I heard anything back from Andreas, the band leader and the emails were free flowing, chatting about the music but I’d never actually been given the nod. It took me doing a rough recording at home of one of the new album tracks to be officially “given the job”….I did it all – I cried, I did a little happy dance – and honestly it still hasn’t sunk in fully – but more on that later.

    Essentially, here I was…in late October, having achieved my 2020 goal and it was both wonderful and highly confusing as to how on earth it had actually happened! I was going to say ‘I didn’t care how it happened’, but that’s not true. I did care. I had actually done the right things, made the right choices and it had come to fruition. Something I wanted, and planned for was now here.

    It did all hit a bit quicker than I expected as I was now trying to juggle my art commissions and recording the first track for the album but it was wonderful and I was so incredibly grateful.
    As it was I ended 2020 in an odd headspace – really excited and hopeful for a 2021 – where I would hopefully meet my fellow bandmates in Nergard and perhaps even perform the songs sometime that year. But I was also a bit lost, I actually had no idea what to set as a goal for 2021. I couldn’t really think. It had to be tangible and logical and achievable. But exactly what?

    As it is we’re coming to the end of January (a notoriously awful month for me filled with anniversaries of deaths I’d rather not be reminded about) and I still haven’t really set my mind on what I want this year. And it is, I have to face it – because of Covid.

    I’d initially told myself at the very end of 2020 that it didn’t matter about covid. I set the 2020 goals before I even knew about it and I still managed to achieve it so it shouldn’t matter this year. I can probably achieve what I want anyway if I work around the problems and just keep going.
    But as we started this month, and tours were being cancelled or postponed to 2022; it felt dire. The first month of a new, and supposedly hopeful year – already being written off – ‘wait til next year’ they say. And so whilst I hate ending a blog post on a negative note – I do feel a little lost for this year. There are things I want for this year. Big and lofty achievements that, maybe, maybe aren’t achievable; who knows. But it’s certainly hard to put any kind of plan in place. That being said, I know if I wait a little, just to see how things progress in a month or two…that very quickly the entire year will be gone and I won’t have achieved anything – and honestly that would be such a terrible waste.

    So here IS to positivity and goals for 2021, whatever they may be. I have an album to record, fun collaborations to write, and a long list of songs I want to cover for Youtube. Once the winter blues are gone there is going to be so much I can do, and I plan to keep reaching out, making connections, making friends. I just hope, that with all that music that will come from this year, it can all be celebrated….with a hug.

    Don’t forget to come and follow me on Instagram for more regular day to day nonsense! @stefani_keogh.

    Thanks very much and goodbye for now.

    Blogcast Audio

  • Casual Covers – A new Project

    Casual Covers – A new Project

    So the video below pretty much explains it all – but whilst the current circumstances are making life and music a little difficult, I’ve decided to start something new, which is going to be the closest I will get to performing this year! A little less complicated than my full covers but still high quality – and most of all – good fun!

    Please keep an eye on the videos page and also Youtube where the Casual Covers series will be uploaded on a (hopefully!) regular basis!

  • New Cover – Gateways by Dimmu Borgir

    New Cover – Gateways by Dimmu Borgir

    The making of the Dimmu Borgir, Gateways cover video.

    For the Blogcast audio please click here.

    I’ve been singing this song on and off for around 6 months, and it’s the first song I learnt to do any kind of ‘extreme’ vocals to.

    The original plan was to record it back in October after I did the Lucifer cover video, but I got a horrendous virus and lost my voice, and once I had recovered I was too deep into Christmas work commitments to spare the time.

    Even though I’ve had a basic vision for this video since then, I kind of lost my enthusiasm for recording it. It felt too big to achieve; I had dwelled on it too long, and general doubts and such made it seem a bigger task that I was capable of.

    Even the day of recording when I was still setting up – I still wasn’t sure I was even going to do it. But I pushed through the weird feelings, got all the hair and makeup on, and then suddenly started to feel pretty epic.

    • The pink dressing gown strikes again
    • Rehearsals!
    • After the first dunking

    Even though the singing portion was over pretty quickly (after 1 rehearsal, 1 messed up take, and 1 take where my dog started barking in the background), the filler shots actually took the rest of the evening to shoot!

    One shot that didn’t make it was me actually spitting the blood out towards the camera. I had set a large piece of perspex over the camera – placed bin bags out everywhere and pulled my white coat back as I was terrified of getting it stained.
    As it was I think I was too afraid of it going everywhere as the final shot didn’t look great – however the blood dripping down my chin definitely did!!!

    I definitely suffered for my art shooting this, with 3 truely disgusting shots.

    The first being the ‘powder mouth’ shot. Similar to the blood, but less messy. I used flour – as I felt this was the safest to use – but my goodness it was absolutely disgusting after the first blow (no jokes please!), because it went horribly thick and cakey in my mouth. One day I might show the video as the camera was still rolling as I was dealing with this horrible mess in my mouth (again no jokes please!!!!)

    The second and third hardest shots were in the water. When I was a kid I actually used to spend alot of time swimming underwater as I loved it – but I always had to wear a nose clip because even the smallest amount of water would caused me immense pain due to my adinoids and sinuses. It’s a been a long time since I’ve swum underwater and so putting my head under the first time, I kind of forgot how awful it would be! Came up in pain, coughing and spluttering all over the place – thankfully my housemate was in the room with me to supervise that I didn’t end up drowning myself! And well… I got the shot!

    If you fancy a laugh after watching the main cover I’ve included a little ‘out takes’ clip of this at the bottom!

    After the one with the full Shagrath makeup I needed a similar shot for the beginning but with less makeup than before. To me, when I watch the video back, you can actually see the fear in my eyes before I go under as this time I knew what was coming!! I watched the footage back and although I was annoyed I’d screwed my face up when I went under, there was no way I was going to attempt that again!!!

    When it came to editing it all together, it was definitely harder than the one shot takes of the previous videos. And more so because on a few instances I hadn’t got exactly the shots I wanted. But one of the biggest things you learn in the film and TV industry is sometimes shots don’t go according to plan, sometimes you get a chance to adapt and redo them then and there on set, but sometimes it’s only when the editors get hold of them they realise there’s a problem and so you have to work around the footage you have.

    Overall I love this video, as always, with an objective eye (or rather ear) there are plenty of holes in the vocal performance – but then a lot of live performances aren’t exactly gold either, and it’s with that realisation that I have to take off my perfectionist hat and enjoy what’s there.

    One of the main reasons I do this kind of cover video – rather than the conventional “Headphones on, studio background” videos is because I am performer. I love it. It’s all I’ve ever known. And whilst I love the simplicity of normal covers, ultimately I’m about the whole package. The costumes, the make up, the physicality of it all – You can take the girl out of musical theatre but you can’t take the ‘over dramatic flair for performance’ out of the girl!!!

    Blogcast

    And as promised here is the out take clips from the dreaded ‘bathtub’ shots!

  • When all else is LOST, the future still remains.

    When all else is LOST, the future still remains.

    A trip to London and a ‘brief’ Lord of the Lost concert.

    If you just want to read the Lord of the Lost performance review please Click here. To listen to the Blogcast, Click here.

    SO on Friday the 14th of February – in a completely non valentines day related trip, I made the journey down to London to see Lord of the Lost perform as part of the Renagades tour where they (along with Nailed to Obscurity) were supporting Equilibrium at the O2 academy in Islington.

    As I was getting the train and they have been notoriously unreliable of late from my part of the world, I planned to get to London with several hours to spare. Quite unlike me, I hadn’t planned what to do in my spare time and a quick search on the internet on the journey down left me annoyed that my go to adventures of checking out various crime/pathology museums were all shut as was the barbican conservatory (Yes I really am just as interested in dead things as I am in plants!)

    However this lead me to finding an interesting little free museum in the midst of all the University of London buildings called the ‘Grant Museum of Zoology’. What an absolutely fantastic place to wander around!

    Both creepy and fascinating and also quite sad as they are very proactive at pointing out several species they have in their collection that are now extinct, mostly due to over hunting.

    My only criticism of this place, is that they have hundreds of specimens that aren’t really visible either due to bad lighting, over crowding in the displays or simply too high up!
    I’m rather terrible at taking photos when I go to places like this, as I generally tend to get very immersed in what I’m doing however here are a few snaps I did take:


    If you don’t like creepy things scroll past the next few photos!!

    The Grant Museum of Zoology in London

    After all that was just general refuelling and getting dinner at a cheap little restaurant close to the venue. And apologies to anyone who saw me asleep for 20 minutes in the middle of ‘The Angel’ in Islington!!!
    After my little snooze, I got rid of my large bag at a Stasher facility nearby, ( I’ve used them in different places a couple of times and would definitely recommend it!).

    Stasher.com

    From there I then headed to the venue for a prebooked meet and greet with Lord of the Lost.

    Now I must point out I am not a ‘fan girl’ by any stretch and have never done a ‘meet and greet’ before. I actually go to very few gigs and in general don’t tend to focus on any one band/performer – and never really have done – Except for a very shortlived Take That phase that I went through for about 6 months – but even then, I wasn’t one to collect memorabilia or put posters up on my bedroom wall.

    And I think this is because
    1 – I have a ridiculously eclectic music taste that changes hour to hour let alone day to day,
    and 2 – because I often find you can become too ‘in to’ a particular band, somewhat warping the objectivity of what they’re producing. You want to love their newest album because you love the band/band members and because of that you don’t separate the music – for what it is, from who’s performing it.

    That being said, having only discovered Lord of the Lost early 2019, I have been really impressed with their style and generally love the majority of their songs and their uniqueness, although I did find myself having to brush up on some of their older material before the gig!

    So the meet and greet was very casual, inside the main part of venue itself.
    I was actually the last one to get in and once I’d been spotted as being new was greeted with hugs from the 3 members who were already out and chatting, which was lovely.

    There are 2 things that are worth noting;
    1 – This was one of the final dates of the 5ish week tour they had been on (with only 4 or 5 days off).
    2- It had been a very long journey over from performing in Eindhoven the night before.
    However Gared, Niklas, Pi and eventually Klaas were so friendly and chatty to us all throughout.

    There wasn’t any sense of us being a burden on them at all and there was a great sense of energy as they answered all sorts of questions. At the end we took a group photo and then a couple of people started asking for individual selfies.

    Now I absolutely HATE asking for selfies/photos – which I think comes from working on a film set where it is in very bad form to do.
    Generally as an extra or even when you have small bits of dialogue, you just don’t do it. However I realised this wasn’t the same situation and I needed to get over the awkwardness of it and I managed to jump in and get a couple (sadly I didn’t catch Klaas but we did have a little chat about makeup before he left!)

    • Gared
    • Pi
    • Niklas
    My very hurried and blurry selfies!

    And it was lovely as I wasn’t made to feel daft at all – as Gared said to me “we are all the same, we all put our trousers on one leg at a time!”.

    After that they said their goodbyes and we were actually allowed to stay in the venue so I secured myself a spot at the front and waited whilst everyone else arrived. I actually got chatting to a wonderful girl about all things music related, and it just goes to show how friendly the metal/rock scene can generally be, all brought together by a love of music, all knowing that, at times we’re a little on the outside edge of the rest of society.

    The first band on was Nailed to Obscurity, who I actually didn’t know where coming to London with the rest of the tour and felt rather annoyed I hadn’t listened to any of their music beforehand.

    Whilst it was a little heavier than I tend to listen to in general I was actually really surprised how much I enjoyed them. The lead singer was very aware that the crowd was not there for them, something that must be so hard to overcome in terms of stage energy – but overcome he did!
    And he with the rest of the band put in a great performance. I have to say musically they are actually a lot better than they may seem on the surface. Although the speed got a little over the top at times and you kind of lost the rhythm, in general the drum rhythms throughout some of the songs were an incredible driving force, and intertwined with some very subtle, but intricate guitar, made for an exciting listen.

    Their finale, with the two guitarist on stage was a superb ending to the set. It slowed everything down and although the rest of the crowd maybe hadn’t been behind them all the way – they certainly were now and there was a beautiful sense of awe as everyone watched them play.

    Nailed to Obscurity

    SO then it was time for Lord of the Lost who with the first chords of their opening number, Lament for the condemned, were met with roars and cheers from the crowd.

    Everyone looked amazing as usual, and Chris came out in an absolutely spectacular jacket which I had seen on Instagram but it looked even more incredible amongst the purple lights and swirls from the smoke machine.

    Although a fairly slow song to start a set, it has such a foreboding presence about it – brought out through the outstanding drum work. This turned out to be a cut down version of the song which led into Morgana – another stunning song (I may be biased as it’s the one I covered recently!) Beautifully delivered by Chris, who although seemed to miss some of the screams out, didn’t lack any soul when performing this number.

    And then came one of my absolute favourites – Drag me to Hell. Again I noticed Chris was actually missing some of the harsher vocals in this song, but put it down to merely protecting his voice for the rest of the set. In general though my eyes were on Pi for this as his energy was so present during this song!

    • The vocal wonder, Chris “The Lord” Harms
    • The ever energetic, guitar maestro, Pi
    I was actually far too into the performance to take photos – thankfully these were taken by my friend and used with permission.

    And then suddenly it all went wrong!

    The first chord of the next song started and Chris put his hands up, everything stopped and he spoke on the mic.

    It turned out he had been suffering with a fever and general malaise for a couple of days and felt like if he continued he wouldn’t be able to stand, let alone sing. Suddenly the reason for the missing harsh vocals in those couple of songs, became clear.

    I was, and still am, incredibly disappointed at what happened. But…well there aren’t enough words to describe just how incredible Chris’ performance had been for those 3 songs. He seemed to give every last ounce of what he had to perform and by the end of Drag me to Hell simple had nothing left to give. Many people would have just not performed at all, and my already high admiration for him as a performer has increased no end. He was captivating on stage and wonderful to watch and learn from. And of course not ignoring the rest of the band either – they were so full of energy, fire in their bellies and on top form.

    From what I saw – this is why they are so good. Although during a performance most eyes tend to be on your lead singer, in my opinion the rest of the band has to perform – in the same way your chorus members in a musical, or extras in a movie have to perform to add to the whole scene.And every single one of them did just that.

    Lord of the Lost is not a front man with backing.

    They are a band.

    A full unit all working together, with the same energy and feeling and it brings something very special to the stage.

    They will of course start to take off, as well they should, once they have toured with Iron Maiden, but I am hoping to catch them again in Europe at one of their smaller performances. Whilst their music is enough to fill the air at any large gig, and I know they will have no trouble commanding a large arena with Maiden (and indeed already have at various festivals,) I feel that there is something quite special watching them in a smaller setting and being able to see the intention in their eyes.

    I like musicians, but I love performers and Lord of the Lost are definitely the latter.


    And I guess after all of this maybe I’ve become a fan girl after all…

    In the pub afterwards, drowning my sorrows!

    Thanks for reading. Please feel free to check out my other blogs as well as everything else on my website. You can check out my cover videos on Youtube and also follow me on Instagram.

    Blogcast

  • New Cover – Morgana by Lord of the Lost

    New Cover – Morgana by Lord of the Lost

    So after a short break I have finally recorded and uploaded a new cover video!

    This is quite a different direction from everything I have done before, as despite being a huge metal and heavy rock fan all my life, that style of singing just didn’t fit with my musical theatre and concert background.

    It’s taken me a long time to break free from the mental shackles of my singing/acting past and finally start performing the songs I have always listened to and it has been an incredible feeling.

    I, of course, had never even attempted so called “extreme vocals” before the very end of last year, and I loved every rehearsal where I found how to produce the sound, without damaging my voice.

    When it came to chosing my first ‘different’ cover I actually was desperate to cover a different Lord of the Lost song called “Drag me to Hell” however I couldn’t find a backing/instrumental track at all. Lord of the Lost actually released an instrumental version of the Thornstar album and so I decided to stop being so stubborn and pick one of my other favourites from there. (As it is Black Halo is my favourite song from that album as it’s absolutely beautiful and had me crying on many occasions!)

    As I have a theatrical background I am always up for dressing up and using makeup to become someone, and weirdly when I was getting ready for this video, I felt less like I was becoming someone else, and actually felt like I was becoming more ‘me’ for the first time in a long time. I guess that’s the result of years of not doing what your heart really wants to do!

    As I mention in the comments of the video I do everything myself and have very little ‘fancy’ equipment. I keep so many things so I always have something to hand that I can use or adapt to make a video. I did buy a smoke machine – but I’ve been wanting one for my photography so now seemed like the best time to get it!

    • Halfway through hair and makeup
    • Just about to record
    • Lounging around in my dressing gown doing my best Chris Harms impression

    As always there are things I want to improve on, but that’s how it should always be – you should always want to be growing and improving in everything you do, and when you have the passion for it, it never seems like a chore.

    The Lord of the Lost Thornstar Instrumental album can be purchased below:
    https://lordofthelost.bandcamp.com/album/thornstar-instrumental-version