Natalie Holmes
Bristol’s 21-year-old singer-songwriter Natalie Holmes has grown her fan base from square one over the past 4 years, now with over a million hits on YouTube, 16,000 subscribers, 4,000 Facebook likes and 3 successful EP’s on iTunes. ‘The Simplest Things’ EP, ‘Child’ EP and her most recent release ‘Over & Out’ EP all featured in the top 10 iTunes singer/songwriter chart and the top 150 main iTunes chart – This young musician's hard work has finally led to something huge. Since moving to Leeds in 2011 to study, Natalie has been gigging wherever and whenever she can, building up to her most recent achievement – supporting Gabrielle Aplin at the O2 Academy in Leeds. Closely preceding this in August 2013, she held her very successful debut headline show in anticipation of her new EP ‘Child’ in Bristol, and back in 2012 Natalie went on Lewis Watson’s entire UK tour as his main support. Last year things really started kicking off when E4’s Made In Chelsea featured Natalie’s song ‘Backwards’ on the show, and she landed one of her covers on leading American ice cream brand 'Breyers' new TV ad. Natalie has also been busy attracting the attention of the likes of BBC Intro In The West & BBC Intro West Yorkshire. Celebrity blogger Perez Hilton also took a shine to the young artist, who in featuring her original song ‘Safety Net’ on his blog, said, “She’s a real artist!”. So far Natalie is unmanaged, unsigned and doing everything under her own steam. Described as “one of the most consistently astounding songwriters the music world has seen in ages”, Natalie is very excited to let her new release of ‘Over & Out’ EP simmer and hopefully boil into something great. Having self-admittedly ‘grown up’ a lot since her debut EP, listeners have said she keeps coming back with a new edge of maturity every time, and it’s really transforming her music into something new and unexpected. Influenced by artists such as Ellie Goulding, Sara Bareilles, Bon Iver, Gabrielle Aplin, and pretty much every singer/songwriter under the sun, Natalie started writing songs from a young age; first on piano, (which she’s been playing since before she can remember) and then guitar, which she picked up and taught herself. Years later, she’s fully fledged and out of the nest, just trying to find the best places to fly. To date, Natalie describes a new wave of motivation that’s hit her: “I’ve always been musical, and I’ve always known it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, so now I am doing everything I physically can to make this happen.”