Welcome to the Col Gerrard Live at The Camden Club + Heart Radio DJ Seb Bailey event! Get ready for a night filled with amazing music and good vibes at The Camden Club. Join us for an unforgettable in-person experience featuring the talented Col Gerrard and the incredible Heart Radio DJ Seb Bailey. Don't miss out on this opportunity to dance, sing, and have a blast with friends. Mark your calendars and get ready to groove the night away!
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Before he was even out of short trousers, Col Gerrard’s grandfather imparted upon him three bits of wisdom. Firstly, he said, don't ever grow old. Secondly: you were born with two ears and one mouth, so do twice as much listening as you do talking. And thirdly – and perhaps most importantly of all – don't sit around waiting for anything, because it's not just going to simply fall in your lap.
These are words that Col Gerrard lives by. “Whatever it is you want in life, you have to go and get it for yourself,” he says. “The great weakness of us as human beings is making excuses for things rather than taking responsibility for ourselves. There have definitely been times throughout my life where I have been guilty of doing exactly that. And none more so than with my music.”
Col can scarcely remember a time when music wasn’t a fixture in his life. Col’s mother – a soprano singer and actress – introduced her youngest son to musical greats such as Simon & Garfunkel, Ella Fitzgerald, Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach. From his older brother, Col would be exposed to the sounds of jazz legends such as Chick Corea, Bill Evans and Charlie Parker. No wonder Col has “always admired great songwriting and great musicianship, in whatever form it comes”. In his maternal home in Vancouver, Canada, Col would soon be banging away on an old upright piano, trying to translate the sounds coming from the living room speakers into something of his own
“My father died at the age of two, and I would spend my time between my mum’s house in Vancouver in the summertime, and in London, where I lived with my adoptive step-mother,” Col recalls. “Those experiences living between two places was fundamental in teaching me about adaptability in life.”
Col would need to draw on exactly that when, aged 20, with a mere few quid to his name and career opportunities in even shorter supply, he packed his bags and upped sticks to the US, taking on a door-to-door sales job around some of the more colourful parts of Los Angeles in order to get by. It would be the beginning of a lifetime of globetrotting, each new place he called home bringing inspiration from the people he met and the experiences he had.
The music Col Gerrard makes today is born of and speaks to all of the wisdom and lessons he has learned on this life’s journey. Heartfelt and honest, songs such as new single The Sun In The Sky are imbued with authenticity, integrity and worldliness, laced with a charisma that is distinctly Col. Inspired by the greats such as Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell and Marvin Gaye, his is classic songwriting, spotlighting a mahogany-rich vocal that coasts soulfully atop the magic of live studio performance – conducted under the tutelage of esteemed GRAMMY-nominated producer Chris Potter – that forgoes digital trickery and sleight of hand in veneration of real feeling conjured by musicianship
“I’ve always been a huge fan of David Bowie, and his ability to reach people with his music,” Col explains of his influences. “He has always had a way of making people feel special in a way like no one else can do. His lyrics haven’t always had a message, but they have always had a meaning and a feeling. Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Carole King… all of these people have a way of communicating emotion in their music that moves me and inspires me enormously. There is no art form in the world that moves me in the way that music does. It has the power to speak directly to a person’s soul.
“To have my music touch people in similar ways, for the emotions that I am conveying in my songs to resonate so deeply with someone as to move them, that’s my main goal and hope for my songs.”
A lifetime in the making, it’s here that Col Gerrard’s musical journey truly, finally begins – heart on sleeve, and soul on paper.
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