K-Pop girl group Gugudan have taken my co-written track "Silly" for their new single album titled "Cait Sith". I wrote the song with Kirstine Lind and youwhich during a Danish writing camp a few years ago, and it's second on the tracklist. I'm so happy that such a fun, happy song got taken - especially with a band who have such a dedicated following. Take a listen to the song in full below!
FAKY are finally coming to the UK! The J-Pop girl band have signed with a new UK management team and I'm very excited to announce that I worked on the English lyric translation of Someday We'll Know.
This was a very different way of working for me as I wanted to keep the meaning of the original (written by my friend Kanata Okajima) as well as keeping the original's English phrases in the same place. It was definitely a challenge, but I hope that fans will enjoy the new English version. Fingers crossed the girls will tour here next year too, eek!
Very excited to announce that Best Friends Forever written by myself and Chris Wortley has been cut on the new album Love It by J-Pop superstar Kana Nishino.
The album reached #2 in the official Japanese Billboard Charts and best of all, I was in Japan during the promotion of the album and even got to hear the song playing in the HMV Kana Pop-Up Cafe! Such an amazing experience :)
This week sees the release of Dutch teen movie Misfit starring Youtuber Djamila. The film features two of my co-written songs: "Invisible" sung by Djamila and "Hush" sung by the mean girl character at the school talent show!
As a huge teen movie connoisseur, I am so excited to have my music placed on this project, and I even had a tweet from Djamila herself to say she loves the songs and the scenes they feature in. I can't wait to watch the subtitled version, fingers crossed for a release here in UK too!
The new anime series Gundam Build Fighters Battlogue is now available to watch online and features the track Chase Me by FAKY which I wrote with Kanata Okajima and Commands.
The song plays over the end credits and will be used for other episodes over the series. It's amazing to be part of an official anime series and see more exposure for FAKY! The full version of the theme tune can also be heard below:
SM Entertainment has released a new promo video for Red Velvet as a thank you to the fans - "The Red Summer Vacation" is a mini music video for You Better Know and ReVeluvs are loving it! We are so happy at the fan reaction to this song, thank you all for making this mini-MV happen!
The sales figures are in for You Better Know - in the first week of release the track hit over 84,000 downloads, 1.4 million streams and reached #14 on the Gaon Digital Chart, making it Red Velvet's highest charting album track to date!
The album The Red Summer also hit the #1 spot on the Worldwide Billboard Charts!
Thank you so much to my incredible co-writers and to DWB for making this possible. Truly a dream come true! :)
Chart-topping Korean girl band Red Velvet have just released their brand new mini album Red Summer featuring the track You Better Know which I wrote with Kanata Okajima and Pontus Persson.
The girls have been performing the song on Korean TV shows as part of their promotion, and the album has already topped the iTune charts in 8 countries, as well as numerous music streaming sites in Korea!
I am a HUGE fan of Red Velvet and so excited to be part of such an amazing era in their career!
The studio version of the song is also available to listen to below!:
Happy to announce that Dutch Youtuber Djamila has released her debut album Girl today via Universal, featuring the track Invisible which I wrote with Ellie Wyatt and Paul Drew.
Djamila's Youtube videos get hundreds of thousands of views and she is starring in a movie later this year. In addition to the standard album, there is also a collector's fan box featuring a bag, poster, bracelet and stickers. So happy to be part of such a lovely package and can't wait to hear what the fans think of our song!
This week I got to attend 2 days of the DWB Eurovision Camp, overseen by Hugh Goldsmith from the BBC. The aim of the camp was to write songs for the 2018 UK Eurovision selection show which will be aired on BBC 1 next year.
It has been such an amazing experience and I got to meet and work with some incredible talent from all over the world. I'm so proud of the songs I worked on and hope connections will continue long after camp. Fingers crossed for getting through to the show, but whatever happens it was such a positive experience! Let's do it again soon everyone! :D
The amazing FAKY have released their debut physical album Unwrapped in Japan this week - featuring my co-written track Surrender.
They reached #18 in the Oricon Charts with the album and have had amazing promotion in Japanese record shops. Check out this stand!
So proud of the girls and excited for where their journey leads next! :)
Last weekend, K.OH! performed their first ever live set in Sheffield Arena at Yorkshire Comic Con. The performance features three songs I was involved with - Ponytail, Take Me Back To Summer and Fight.
It's so great to see the tracks being performed live and to hear the crowd's reaction to them. So far Fight is a fan favourite, which I am super excited about as it's one of my faves too! Can't wait to see what the girls do next with all the songs! :)
Big news! Brand new girl band K.OH! have released their debut music video to Ponytail - written by myself, Kelsey Ellison and Pete Barringer.
This has been such a fun project to be involved with - K.OH! are aiming to bring a K-Pop sound to the UK and will be performing soon at various Comic and Anime conventions. Looking forward to seeing what they do next, good luck girls!
Lithuanian artist Elvina Milkauskaitė has now recorded the studio version of my co-written track Try which she performed in the Lithuanian Eurovision Heats. Good luck with the release Elvina and big thanks to my co-writers Malin Johansson and Vallo Kikas. I really love this song and great to see it getting out there!
My co-written track Surrender by FAKY has reached number 7 in the US Viral Spotify Charts this week - so amazing to know their international fanbase is growing and that people are sharing the song. Let's hope this will help even more music lovers discover them. Feeling proud of how much we've achieved with this song, go team!!
UPDATE:
I can now report that Surrender has also reached #34 in the Global Viral Spotify Charts! Well done girls!
This week sees the release of the single Motion by Japanese actress/singer Mariya Nishiuchi - the theme song to her new drama series in Japan.
The B-Side to the CD Single is Won't Leave Without A Fight which I co-wrote with Andreas Stone, Kanata Okajima and Marty Dodson. We are all really excited our country ballad is the additional song on such a great Asian release, fingers crossed it will be well received by the Japanese public.
My co-written track Rest In Pieces which I worked on with Chris Wortley, Thomas Reil and Jeppe Reil is now available to download on the new album by Greek singer Shaya.
Shaya has featured on the Greek versions of Popstars and Dancing With The Stars, as well as starred in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert on stage and she even once supported David Guetta in concert! We are really pleased she is now out performing our dark and theatrical song as part of her set - good luck Shaya!
Last week I was lucky enough to attend the amazing Magnifucent Camp 2017 in Stockholm, Sweden. Writers from all over the world met for three days of songwriting for the Asian pop market. I met so many wonderful, talented people and watched lots of videos and informative presentations about the current market trends. Thank you to the Soundgraphics team for hosting such a fantastic camp and to all my co-writers. I absolutely love all three songs and hope they will find great homes! Scroll along for some photos of the trip - I'm missing everyone already!!
So proud to announce that the J-Pop girlband FAKY have released one of my co-written tracks "Surrender" as the lead single for their 2017 comeback.
This track was written on a camp around a year ago with Kanata Okajima and Sky Adams - we are all super proud of it and it's the first ever music video to one of my songs! Such a special feeling!
FAKY are such an exciting band who are really pushing boundaries in Japan, I am so excited and honoured to be involved with them. Good luck girls, I hope you can make the song a hit!!!
The second book in my Love Stories series, Could You Love An Apple? is available from today as an e-book from all Amazon sites!
"Taylor Raven is starting over.
After a few difficult college years, he has decided to finally move away from Havensdale (and away from his father) to take a tennis coaching course in the tiny village of Westerfield.
The peaceful country life is exactly what Taylor needs to get away from it all. However, it is also incredibly lonely living by himself in the middle of nowhere. And no matter how far he runs, Taylor just can't seem to escape the mistakes of his past.
As he struggles to find any kind of meaningful connection, he comes across a place on the outskirts of the village that will soon change everything. The Apple Inn - a pub run by a curious, slightly eccentric family whowelcome Taylor into their world with open arms.
Soon Taylor finds his guard dropping, particularly around the kind and fun-loving son of the family, Benjamin Apple. But the closer Taylor gets, the more he feels compelled to pull away...
Can Taylor ever fall in love again when the one obstacle in his way... is himself?"
