DECEMBER 2011

Worked with the epic Stuart Epps, ex producer and PA to Elton John, on my songs ‘BIGGER MAN’ and ‘REMIND ME’. Angus and I trudged through the snow to get to Stuart’s home studio and had such a great day working with Stuart, a true professional. Made ambassador for Musicality TV, who have given me great support for more than a year now, particularly Andrew Widgery, who organised for me to support the inspirational Geno Washington at the famous Half Moon in London.

CLICK the picture below to see the video interview with Geno and Danica

JANUARY 2012

Invited to Abbey Road studios for BBC Introducing CLICK HERE and sang live in front of Maverick Sabre, BBC DJs (Rob De Bank) and record executives followed by a Radio 2 interview with Jo Whiley, Radio 2. Maverick Sabre helped me off stage and told me I was amazing and I nearly died of shock. It was one of the most exciting and inspirational days of my life. I also started working with an inspirational manager that day.

Danica singing in front of Maverick Sabre at Abbey Road Studios

FEBRUARY 2012

Various interviews with the lovely Linda Serck, BBC Introducing Berkshire and VARIOUS NEWSPAPERS and radio interviews.

MARCH 2012

Worked with the talented Frank Hamilton on our ‘Song About A Weekend’, week 13, for his Song of the Week project, and shot video for the same. We had lots of fun chilling out and trying to get the song just right. CLICK HERE for blog. Released the EP, and song, on iTunes CLICK HERE.

Video of Danica and Frank singing ‘Song About A Weekend’

APRIL-JUNE 2012

Final exams and projects at college followed by completion of ‘A’ Levels – mum very happy when I pulled an A* and two A’s out of the bag! Also working on songwriting and recording more tracks (not yet released). Played Big Brill Camp Festival and got fantastic reception.

JULY 2012

Support for STING at the Henley Festival with more radio and NEWSPAPER INTERVIEWS including Henley Standard, Reading Post and Henley TV. It was quite an experience to be sitting just feet from Sting in his rehearsal – we were in awe.

Danica Hunter open Henley Festival for Sting

VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Danica Hunter opening Henley Festival for Sting interviewed by Ellie Roddy at Henley TV

To top a great month, won runner up in global Starnow Music Immersive competition, just missing out on the big prize of a free trip to Hollywood. CLICK HERE Maybe later….

AUGUST 2012

Played the BBC Introducing stage at READING AND LEEDS FESTIVALS – totally amazing experience – MORE NEWSPAPERS INTERVIEWS and EVEN MORE NEWSPAPER INTERVIEWS followed by even more radio interviews. Got some great reviews from BBC Berkshire (lovely Linda Serck) BBC Oxford (Dave Gilyeat), BBC Introducing Leeds, Leeds Music Scene, Concrete, CarpeMusica and many others – Thank you! Part of set gets played on Radio 1 Jen and Ally’s Reading Festival Special and also got BBC 3 TV coverage.

Danica performance was followed by  rave reviews from the BBC, music journalists and the audience who saw her performance at the Reading and Leeds 2012 Festivals. The BBC recorded the last three songs from her set so have a listen by clicking below. She has received a huge volume of messages of congratulations and appreciation through Twitter and Facebook from people who had never heard her before. An example is the review below from Rebecca Atkinson from The Leeds Music Scene

‘The past eighteen months have been very successful for British female singer-songwriters and the timing couldn’t be better for Danica Hunter to break. Over on the BBC Introducing Stage she unveils her captivating and soulful voice to the amassed audience. Accompanied by a toned down band and Cajon her songs are mostly about the trails and tribulations about life as an eighteen year old but there is a pleasant depth to her voice which stops the song writing from feeling shallow. The combination of blues, soul and the colloquial puts her somewhere between Duffy and Kate Nash but to compare her to either is to do a disservice to Hunter’s voice. She and her band make easy listening, highly enjoyable, experimental pop with a bluesy edge. Expect big things from this young lady in the future.

SEPTEMBER 2012

Live interviews with BBC Introducing Oxford and BBC Introducing Berkshire. Played a set at the anti-racism, ‘Uprise Festival’ in Hackney, London with great feedback from the organisers.

Danica plays Uprise Festival in Hackney

OCTOBER 2012

Supported up and coming new artist AL LEWIS in Reading South Street Art Centre. Wrote and recorded more tracks in the studio.

NOVEMBER 2012

Interview on RADIO OXFORD. My first new dubstep track ‘HEARTBEAT’ written with producer Dubrocca played on Skream and Benga on BBC Radio 1.

DECEMBER 2012

My new dubstep and drum&bass track ‘Runaway’ written with producer Dubrocca released for sale and played by the Wideboys on Kiss FM Radio several times. RUN AWAY

Another dubstep track ‘WHY WON’T YOU’ written with Dubrocca for FREE DOWNLOAD.

In addition, ‘Song About A Weekend’ chosen for FRANK HAMILTON’S ALBUM, which goes on to be in top 20 iTunes album chart and 1st in singer/songwriter charts featuring tracks with ED SHEERAN, NEWTON FAULKNER and many more . Played a guest slot at Frank Hamilton’s Barfly event in London with the amazing Newton Faulkner, RYAN KEEN, LAUREN AQUILINA and JONNY WRIGHT.

Danica and Frank live at Barfly, Camden, London on 20 December

Final song Sticks and Stones

Finally, to top it all, my track ‘Bigger Man’ voted one of top songs of 2012 by BBC INTRODUCING BERKSHIRE.

What an awesome year – can’t wait for next year – 2013 here I come! Upwards and onwards.

Thanks everyone

Danica

Danica performance was followed by  rave reviews from the BBC, music journalists and the audience who saw her performance at the Reading and Leeds 2012 Festivals. The BBC recorded the last three songs from her set so have a listen by clicking below. She has received a huge volume of messages of congratulations and appreciation through Twitter and Facebook from people who had never heard her before. An example is the review below from Rebecca Atkinson from The Leeds Music Scene

‘The past eighteen months have been very successful for British female singer-songwriters and the timing couldn’t be better for Danica Hunter to break. Over on the BBC Introducing Stage she unveils her captivating and soulful voice to the amassed audience. Accompanied by a toned down band and Cajon her songs are mostly about the trails and tribulations about life as an eighteen year old but there is a pleasant depth to her voice which stops the song writing from feeling shallow. The combination of blues, soul and the colloquial puts her somewhere between Duffy and Kate Nash but to compare her to either is to do a disservice to Hunter’s voice. She and her band make easy listening, highly enjoyable, experimental pop with a bluesy edge. Expect big things from this young lady in the future.’

The sound bites about Danica’s amazing performances are below from Leeds and Reading BBC Introducing – have a listen

About three years ago I went to my first festival which was local to me and happened to be Reading Festival. I was 15 at the time and I loved the buzz of the audience and the power of the sound systems. You could hear the sound from my tent on the edge of the festival site and see the stars bright into the night. You could feel the vibration of the sound in the ground and we were all into the vibe as one. The Prodigy were headlining on the Saturday at the main stage and they were amazing.

I was so impressed with my first experience of the festival that I wrote a song about Reading Festival call “Letting Go” which I will be playing at the Festival on Friday, 24 August 2012 at around 1.55pm on the BBC Introducing Stage so please come and see me and find out more about my type of music. I never thought that one day I would be playing myself at this famous festival on stage in front of people who like myself before, would be their first festival experience as a teenager. I thought I would post a couple of pictures of my first festival at Reading, hope you like it.

BBC introducing is for up and coming talent and 35 acts have been chosen from over 70,000 in the UK.

CLICK THE PICTURE BELOW TO LISTEN TO HER INTERVIEW WITH LINDA SERCK -PART 1

CLICK THE PICTURE BELOW TO LISTEN TO HER INTERVIEW WITH LINDA SERCK -PART 2

Danica plays Reading on Friday 24th August 2012 at 1.55pm and Leeds on Saturday 25th August 2012 at 2.30pm, both on the BBC Introducing Stage.

Danica at Henley Festival 2012 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Danica Hunter opened the Henley Festival this year with Sting as the headliner. She played with Angus and played for an hour at Indigo leading up to Stings big performance. They performed a mix of their own latest original music combined with some popular covers. Danica received media coverage of the event and appeared in the Henley Standard and wad interviewed on BBC Berkshire radio by the Anne Diamond and in the video below, she is interviewed by Ellie Roddy at Henley TV

We arrived on a snowy Sunday morning on 5 February 2012 and nearly cancelled the session because of the heavy snow. We persevered and made our way to the village of Cookham near Maidenhead to have our first recording demos of two songs we had been working on for a few weeks, “Reminds Me” and “Bigger Man”. We had heard so much about Stu as he had produced for Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Jeff Beck and many more. To find out more about Stu and his story, please click here “Stu’s Story” and for his early years with Elton John“Early Elton Years”

We had about 7 hours in the studio and spent about 6 hours on Bigger Man and managed to squeeze in Reminds Me in one take. Stuart has worked with Jimmy Page, Bill Wyman, Brian May, Jeff Beck and many more famous guitarists but thought that Angus was amazing and called him the one take wonder. We tried some harmonies on Bigger Man and that seemed to work. The whole day seemed to go very smoothly and we really got on well with Stu. He does have an amazing knack to make you feel at ease and that helps to get things moving smoothly.

TO PLAY BIGGER MAN CLICK ON THE PICTURE BELOW

TO PLAY REMINDS ME CLICK ON THE PICTURE BELOW

Danica was invited by BBC introducing to a masterclass on the 19 January 2012 for a whole day event at the world famous Abbey Road Studios to listen to some of the music industries top executives.

They were invited to gain more insight in getting to the top in this tough and highly competitive profession in front of an up and coming new artist called Maverick Sabre. He gave some tips on what makes a good gig and how you can give the best to your audience, no matter the type of venue you are playing. Towards the end I gave a very short rendition of Sam Sparrow’s “Black and Gold” which went down very well with the audience. You can listen to me at 1hr 11 mins in the video below.

The Rob da Bank and Maverick Sabre masterclass is a great resource for anyone looking to make it in the industry.

You can listen to my sound byte which is shown below