The genre-defying rock star who brought screaming to Eurovision

When your music goes to the darkest of locations, individuals reply. And Cassyette isn’t afraid of the shadows.

Over the final 4 years, the Brighton-based musician has handled life-changing issues. Her father died unexpectedly in 2020, triggering a interval of substance and alcohol abuse that amplified her struggles with bipolar dysfunction, whereas her profession was immediately taking off.

She wrote her debut album within the midst of chaos, pouring all of these experiences into 15 gritty, eviscerating songs that swerve between rock, emo, pop, screamo and nu steel.

“It all simply spewed out,” she says. “There are songs I made after I was in a excessive episode of mania, and there is songs the place I used to be in actual lows.

“Sarkness is woven all through the album as a result of that’s the place I used to be on the time, however there are totally different shades of darkness inside it.”

That means the album can change from the bubblegum melodies of Sugar Rush (concerning the thrill of chasing highs within the throes of dependancy) to the pulverising chords of Porcelain, the place the 29-year-old confronts the fragility of life.

With a unvarnished honesty, she titled the document This World [Expletive] Sucks.

“It was essential, I used to be indignant,” she says.

The musician was born Cassy Brooking in Essex the mid-Nineties. In her youth, she was a convent-educated clarinet scholar. Then she found bands like Paramore, Korn, and Black Sabbath.

The sense of launch was intoxicating. As a queer teenager in a strict spiritual atmosphere, she usually felt like a misfit or a reject. But bands like Motley Crue, with their OTT theatrics, hinted at a world the place she might slot in.

By likelihood, her neighbour was a producer with an “insane guitar assortment”. He wanted a feminine vocalist for a “darkish musical” he’d written, and it was there that Cassyette discovered her voice – ragged however highly effective, at all times one step away from disintegrating with emotion.

After learning songwriting at college, she had a stint as a membership DJ, taking part in at legendary fetish membership Torture Garden and London drag occasion Sink The Pink.

Before lengthy, these digital textures seeped into her music, with bass drops and drum loops including uncooked vitality to her sawtooth guitar riffs.

And like each different musician below the solar, she blew up on TikTok in the course of the pandemic, thanks partly to her means to produce gale-force screams, even when overlaying Lady Gaga.

Early singles like Dear Goth and Prison Purse caught the eye of insurgent icons like Debbie Harry and Liam Howlett of the Prodigy (who sprinkled some “magic mud” on her 2022 single Boom).

With her star rising, she performed to packed-out tents at Glastonbury and Download. Then Bryan Adams requested her to tour with him.

If you assume that looks like an odd match, you’re proper.

“Yeah it’s a reasonably totally different viewers,” she laughs, “however I performed a few of my extra chilled, heartfelt stuff and it was very nice.”

She even ended up bonding with the Summer Of ’69 singer, who dutifully got here to observe her present each evening.

“He took my quantity afterwards – and he simply checks up on me every so often,” she beams. “He’s such a shining mild.”

If you weren’t at Bryan’s UK tour, you might also have caught Cassyette at this 12 months’s Eurovision Song Contest, the place she co-wrote the gothic horrorfest Doomsday Blue entry for Irish singer Bambie Thug.

It was, she says, a undertaking they dreamed up collectively on a whim.

“It was completely bananas as a result of the 12 months earlier than Bambie was on it, we watched the competition in my front room and we had been all like, “Hmm, Bambs, you would be actually, actually good at this!”

“And then they only went and made it occur! So it was loopy simply to see Bambie seize it. They’re a real punk, and they’re such a such an excellent artist and particular person.”

The music ultimately took sixth place, and the expertise additionally allowed Cassyette to fulfill Ireland’s former Eurovision contestants Jedward – who’ve now change into a few of her largest supporters, even staging a brilliantly messy livestream to advertise her debut album.

“Oh, I really like them. They’re simply absolute babes,” she says, whereas sidestepping the query of whether or not they’d ever duet.

“I believe… I believe… I believe we might have artistic variations!” she says.

“But I’d be eager to write down them a music of their very own. They have a little bit of a George Michael vibe in the way in which that they sing and I’d like to discover that, as a result of I’m an enormous George Michael fan.”

That’s one of many dichotomies of Casyette’s music. Like quite a lot of rock’s new technology – Nova Twins, Halestorm, Yungblud – she sees no distinction between the shiny attract of a pop hook and the meaty viscera of heavy steel.

“I suppose it is simply cherry choosing the music that I’ve grown up loving,” she says.

“Everything I make goes to be infused with what I like… and I like quite a lot of various things.”

Reviews for her debut album have been glowing. Metal Hammer stated it “seems like a imaginative and prescient for the long run”. The Skinny praised its “cut-deep lyrics” and “powerhouse voice”.

“The album does absolute justice to her standing as a brand new, genre-defying voice in rock,” wrote DIY journal.

Every overview singles out one observe specifically: When She Told Me – an acid-burned snapshot of the second Casyette was instructed her father had died.

It was a bolt from the blue. Tim Brooking was wholesome and match – a former pole vaulter and bobsleigh racer, who competed for Britain and whose cousin was former England footballer Sir Trevor Brooking.

No-one anticipated him to have a coronary heart assault. In the music, Cassyette describes it as her world turning the wrong way up. Astonishingly, it’s not a metaphor.

“This actually bizarre factor occurred the place my total imaginative and prescient flipped the wrong way up,” she says.

“I discovered later it’s a phenomenon that may occur when your mind’s overwhelmed. You cannot operate correctly. And principally, that occurred to me.

“It was just for about 10 seconds, however it was actually scary. Everything was the wrong way up and transferring in gradual movement, just like the world was caving in.

“I can’t overlook it. It’s one thing I’ve flashbacks to quite a bit. So I felt I wanted to write down about it – an evidence of precisely what the sensation was, that I can return to and take heed to after I need to re-contextualize it.”

That’s how quite a lot of her songs begin.

Cassyette says she usually feels issues bodily earlier than she understands them – so she jots down the signs, and returns to them later to look at why she feels uncomfortable or elated or exhausted.

“I’m gonna say the cliché factor, however music is remedy for lots of artists, and it’s for me.

“I’ll solely write one thing if there’s an intention behind it.”

As you possibly can think about, followers who’ve been via equally powerful experiences are compelled to share their tales with the singer.

“Oh my God, it occurs on a regular basis,” she says. “And I’m like, ‘I’m right here for you, however I’m not certified to assist!’”

With that in thoughts, she’s began arming herself with contacts for individuals who need assistance.

“Some individuals can be like, ‘You bought me via this’. And I’m like, ‘No, you bought your self via it – but when your solely outlet has been my music, then you might want to go and have conversations with different individuals about the way you’re feeling’.”

If she retains this up, Cassyette’s nook of the world gained’t suck so laborious, in spite of everything.