Stefani Keogh

Tag: stefani keogh

  • 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

  • Erasing of the past

    Erasing of the past


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

    It’s amazing how our opinions on older versions of ourselves and the things that we’ve produced can really change with time.
    Whilst getting this website up to scratch recently and adding content – some of which is now a few months old, I felt myself swaying between being really proud and also a bit embarrassed by it all.
    And I honestly hate the fact that I do feel that way, because it doesn’t come from my own true opinions of myself and what I’ve done – it comes from a very warped point of view, which is shaped by what I see other performers posting and sharing.

    I often see on social media especially, people clearing out their old posts, especially as they get more followers or become more successful – and to me, that feels like a shame.

    I know we’ve all posted some embarrassing, cringe-worthy content in the past, but I feel it’s so important when climbing the ranks to show where you came from.

    The gushing posts about people you met, or projects you worked on. The some what silly content you would post as you tried to build a career for yourself and become more noticed on instagram or facebook.

    Whilst at times, I might feel a bit silly about things I’ve made, I’m still incredibly proud of everything I’ve achieved. It’s very easy to sit back and lament your current situation and therefore not do anything to further yourself, and so on the days when I’ve pushed through doubt and fear and posted or created something, I’m showing myself, and indeed anyone else that cares to follow, that you can get through it all, you just have to keep doing what you love.

    When you’re in a position of social media privilege –with a large following or fans as such, you will amongst those people have some who are solely looking up to you. Whether it be on a personal level – ie how to navigate through the quagmire of daily life, or they’re looking to you as an example of that career and hoping to follow you one day. These people look to you, and whether you have 10 or 10 thousand followers, it feels like a responsibility to show the bad with the good, show the fails as well as the successes, show the early low engagement content along with the viral sensations.

    And of course it can make you feel vulnerable, somewhat more open to criticism all because you didn’t just emerge from the womb as as an all singing, all dancing internet sensation with a huge following. But does it really matter?

    Ultimately there will always be someone, somewhere who doesn’t like what you’re doing. Whether it’s out of jealousy, or out of some fake sense of self importance. You simply can’t please everyone. Only yourself. And whilst I think it’s important to be fully aware of the impact you have on those around you when posting on social media, when it comes to covers, photos, practice videos – all of it, it’s important to show the whole journey, and not just the bits that you now deem to be ‘cool’ enough.


    Who are you trying to hide your true self from? Why do your early moments, or your mundane daily routines only seem worth something when you are in a position of influence and power. Why does the ordinary plate of food, or innocuous practice cam of someone with 50 thousand followers mean more to us than anyone else?
    It would be very easy to turn this into a huge post about the futilities of social media followings and building up false idols but perhaps that’s a bigger topic for another day.

    So back to my original point whilst some people may come and look at some of my videos and think – “My goodness, what on earth is she doing dressing up and throwing her arms about, making videos” etc, I stand behind my content; stand behind my craziness.

    My brand is my talent and my personality – and as long as my videos and photos can show the building of both of those, then they are just as important when I’m at the top, as they are when I’m starting at the bottom.

    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

  • 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

  • Blogs, Vlogs and Podcasts (new edited version)

    Blogs, Vlogs and Podcasts (new edited version)

    Hello and welcome to Blogs, Vlogs and Podcasts.
    (An audio recording (English) of this blog is available at the bottom of the page) Click here.

    So whilst setting up my new website, and indeed setting up all social media for furthering this endeavour of mine; I wondered about general formats of communication, and whether I should be blogging, vlogging of recording a podcast of sorts.

    As it is I’ve never really read anyone’s blog – in fact unless I was scrolling through to see a recipe or such I don’t think I’ve ever even been onto a bloggers page. That being said I know they were, and indeed still are incredibly popular with a lot of people… who aren’t me!


    Obviously with a website the initial thought is that it has to be a blog, the written form because obviously for the world of vlogging – you are more likely to find that on Youtube; but for me my Youtube is for my singing videos and the occasional other odd rubbish I feel like making.

    This is dare I say it, a lot more personal, or it certainly seems that way – it’s certainly a lot less polished. However all that doesn’t fit with what feels like a world where we are trying to assimilate as much information as possible and multitasking is now just an ingrained part of our psyche.

    Personally I’m much more likely to listen to a vlog (or I suppose podcast?) whilst doing one of the many other jobs I should be doing – whether it’s eating my morning toast or folding the clothes.


    And whilst I think of it – what is the difference between a vlog and a podcast? Especially as I see so many podcasts on Youtube – so they do, or at least can have video as well. Is a vlog more involved? Am I supposed to make it more flashy in the editing, soft focus shots of my morning coffee? (It wouldn’t be coffee as I don’t really drink coffee, I drink tea. I’m very British that way!)
    I don’t know, and know this – I will go and google it at some point (other search engines are available of course but I tend to use the word google as a verb rather than a pointed advertisement of searching platform.)


    Anyway, back to the very thin point of all of this. I came to the conclusion that I, of course want to reach as many people as possible, and so for me the most logical thing to do is to do both a blog and also some form of recorded audio/video. Especially from a language point of view as obviously people will be able to translate the written blog easier than the video, but also for people with hearing difficulties, they’ll be able to read the blog, and people with sight issues will be able to put the video on.

    My initial plan was to record a full video, of me reading my blog to the camera. My acting/presenting jobs have meant I would be making good use of my autocue skills. However I realised quite quickly (after 2 messed up recordings several weeks apart) that it was quite time consuming. And whilst I know we all have quite alot of spare time on our hands right now, it meant I was making even less music.


    So the new plan is to just record the audio; I guess it’s technically a podcast, but also not quite. So for now I’m calling it a “Blogcast” – something you can listen to if, like me, you’re a bit pressed for time and need to do two things at once!


    Sometimes I’ll probably record first and then transcribe, sometimes the other way around, depending on how I feel. For now though, I think I want to keep the ‘Blogcasts‘ separate from my initial Youtube channel and so they will be only viewable via this blog or by direct link. I’m usually quite a messy person so I’m setting a precedent of being highly organised…..lets see how long I can keep that up! So thanks for listening or reading – this inaugural blog/blogcast either way it’s all good with me, and do please keep checking back as I will be hoping to upload fairly regular content now, alongside my singing videos.

    If you want to be more involved with what I do – check out my singing videos on Youtube or for more personal stuff like general daily posts or practice videos come find me on Instagram @stefani_keogh.

    Thanks very much and goodbye for now.

    Blogcast Audio