Gary Barlow changed my life, by classical diva Camilla Kerslake By Claudia Joseph
Last updated at 10:06 PM on 31st October 2009
Wrapped up against the bitter cold, aspiring singer Camilla Kerslake stood outside a recording studio in London hoping to catch a glimpse of her hero, Gary Barlow.
The student had heard a rumour that the Take That star was launching his own record label - and she was determined to land her first contract.
So virtually every day for six weeks, Camilla would set off from her home in Guildford, Surrey, and catch a train to the studios in West London, where Barlow has a permanent base. In total she handed across 40 CDs of her work - singing Schubert's Ave Maria, set to a £2.99 backing track she had bought on the internet, or Pie Jesu.
Camilla Kerslake with Gary Barlow
Swapping notes: Camilla Kerslake with Gary Barlow, who signed her up on his record label
And her persistence paid off. One afternoon last December, Camilla received a telephone call from Celia McCamley, Barlow's partner in the music publishing company San Remo - and three days later she became the first artist to be signed to his new record label, Future Records.
It has been a meteoric rise for the singer, who paid her way through college by performing at weekends and by trading goods on auction website eBay.
Tomorrow, Camilla's debut single, She Moved Through The Fair, is released and her eponymous album comes out on November 16.
She has also landed an advertising deal with Waitrose - her version of How Can I Keep From Singing will be the soundtrack for its Christmas advertisements - and is appearing on BBC1's Singing For The Troops on Christmas Eve.
A recording she has made of Take That's Rule The World, sung in Italian, has already become a YouTube hit, with more than 80,000 views at the last count.
'I was a student, literally living hand-to-mouth,' says Camilla, 21. 'I was gigging at the weekends just to make ends meet.
'I had to call in favours to make my demo tapes. Luckily there were production students at university always looking for new people to work with.
'Then I heard a whisper that Gary might be starting a record label. As a music student you hear a lot of gossip about music but I had never met anyone with a bad word to say about Gary, despite the fact that he's an incredibly successful songwriter in an incredibly successful band.
'I found out that Take That were recording at the Sarm Studios in London so I went there nearly every day for six weeks. I had to fit the four-hour trip around my lectures because if you missed more than three lectures a term, you faced disciplinary action.
'It was fine if I didn't have a lecture until 3pm but if I had one at 10am, it meant I had to leave home at 6am. Then I had to try to make myself look fabulous as there was always the possibility that Gary would be there. It wasn't as though I could have a shower, brush my teeth and just go.
'I used to befriend the receptionists and take them coffees so they would let me in. I was ridiculously persistent. People have been calling me a stalker but it was worth it.'
Camilla was spending the afternoon with her boyfriend Michael, a percussionist, and his flatmates, when she received the call that would change her life.
'Celia didn't give anything away about herself,' recalls Camilla. 'All she did was ask me about myself. After the conversation I was left with more questions than answers. Luckily for me she rang back about an hour later and explained everything.'
The following Monday, after borrowing £20 from her parents, Camilla invested in a pair of black jeans from Primark and a £4 top from New Look and took the train to London to meet Gary at Sarm Studios. He pledged to sign her on the spot.
'It was phenomenal,' she says. 'I was meeting one of the most famous men in the music industry and being offered everything I'd ever dreamed of. I was incredibly star-struck.
'My parents are as proud as punch. My mum sees my career as something to be worked at and is great at keeping me grounded. My father sees it as a dream come true and is always sitting there in the centre of the front row grinning maniacally at me when I'm on stage.'
Camilla finally signed her contract on January 27 and recorded her album this summer in Ireland with producer Mike Hedges, who has worked with artists such as Dido and the Manic Street Preachers.
'When I first got into the studio, it was like a spaceship,' she laughed. 'I had no idea what all the knobs and whistles did.
'Luckily for me Gary has been showing me what to do, helping me with demo tracks and directing me in the way to take the record. He has been invaluable.'
Although she was born in Dulwich, South London, Camilla spent her early years in New Zealand. Her mother Deborah, 48, married chef Greg Morgan when Camilla was a baby, and the family moved to Auckland where Greg was known as the country's best pie-maker.
Camilla's love of classical music first emerged at primary school in Devonport, a suburb of Auckland.
'I went to a lovely little school,' she remembers. 'I was a junior cheerleader and I played rugby and cricket. I loved it there. One day my mother went in for parents' day and the teacher said, "Most children come in singing nursery rhymes but your daughter sings opera."
'If anything, Mum's more of a Celine Dion fan but, strangely, when she was pregnant with me, all she ever wanted to do was sit with a big bag of oranges on her lap, listening to classical music.'
The family returned to Britain when Camilla was eight, first settling in a hamlet on the outskirts of Preston, Lancashire, and later moving to Kingston, Surrey. However, life was still tough.
'It got to the point where we had so little to live off,' recalls Camilla. 'My father was doing poorly paid jobs where he had to cycle 20 miles to work and 20 miles back every day because we couldn't afford a car.
'All of us were super-slim because food was scarce. I got free school dinners and I think the dinner ladies knew the kids who didn't have much because they always gave me thirds.'
It was while she was a pupil at Holyfield School in Surbiton that Camilla first realised how gifted she was.
'I was 14 and in detention in the music room after school for having thrown a pencil at a friend during lessons. Our teacher was late arriving so I started messing around on the piano, hamming up the title song from The Sound Of Music.
'As I went up the register, the other kids who had been kept behind were all saying, "Wow, that's so high" and just for fun I went higher and higher.
'It was at that point that the teacher walked in. He had been listening outside and said, "Do you realise you've just sung half an octave higher than the highest note ever written for the human voice?"'
And so Camilla decided to concentrate on arts subjects at school rather than sciences.
'Normally when you say to your parents, "I don't want to be a doctor any more, I want to be a singer," they freak out. But when I told my mother, she said, "It's about time." She's not one to let people not live their dreams.'
Camilla took her A-levels in sociology, film studies, music and performing arts at Esher College in Surrey (she got two As, a B and a C) before beginning a degree at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford in September 2006. Thanks to her new-found success, she has deferred her final year.
Camilla funded herself through gigs and by selling a Chanel bag on eBay. 'I got it from a charity shop. It was a vintage gold-chain quilted bag which I bought for about £40 from Oxfam and sold it for about £1,800.
'That's what got me through university. I've always had to be resourceful. We never had any money in my family.'
Now, however, Camilla's fortunes look about to change.
• Camilla Kerslake is released by Future Records on November 16.
