Kate Nash (born July 6 1987) is a BRIT Award winning, NME Award winning English singer songwriter most famous for her UK number 2 hit "Foundations" in 2007, followed by the platinum selling UK number 1 album Made of Bricks. She has been described as being "very pretty"
Career
Early years
Born to an Irish mother and an English father, and growing up in Harrow, Nash first became interested in music during her childhood. She learned how to play the piano at Sandbach School. She attended St. John Fisher School (Pinner) and moved onto the St Joan of Arc Catholic School, Rickmansworth. She was taught guitar by guitar teacher Shawn Temple who "gave help to write her songs, ending up with a #2 single and #1 album". Her musical talents were harnessed further when she was required to write songs for her A levels in Music and her time studying at the School for Performing Arts and Technology in North London. Her first love was Shawn Temple and she made moves to start a career in acting by auditioning at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School but was rejected. In the days after her rejection she fell down a flight of stairs, breaking her foot. During her recovery, Nash was housebound and unable to move. Using this time to focus on her songwriting, she began to write some new songs, finished old ones and decided that she would book herself a gig at a local bar to showcase her songs, and subsequently decided to start a career in music. After several gigs, Nash uploaded her music to the popular social networking website MySpace. Lily Allen placed Nash in her top eight, attracting attention from potential fans. Nash found herself a manager before proceeding to look for producers for her music.Moshi Moshi Records
Nash's début was a double-A side single (recorded in Iceland), released through independent record label Moshi Moshi in February 2007. The release was limited to 1000 copies, and was available on only 7" vinyl. Due to popular demand another 1000 copies were made and sold out extremely fast. The A-side, "Caroline's a Victim", is a synth-fuelled song about Nash's friend Caroline. A video for the song was released and received notable airplay on MTV2. The video, directed by Kinga Burza, featured Nash playing a variety of instruments at the same time that Caroline herself sits in what appears to be her room "playing killer beats", taking photographs, trying on different outfits, listening to David Bowie, putting on makeup and sitting at her computer checking a social networking website.The B-side to the single was "Birds", an acoustic number that tells the story of a boy's inept attempts to try and explain to his girlfriend how he feels about her, all the while the girl remains despondent about the situation.
During the promotion for "Caroline's a Victim/Birds", Nash supported Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly on his national tour before embarking on her own headlining tour, which took her around the UK.
Fiction Records
In March 2007, Nash was signed to the Polydor offshoot Fiction Records. A month later, in April 2007, Nash and other up-coming London acts were mocked through a parody of Nash's song, "Caroline's a Victim" entitled "LDN Is A Victim." The song mocked Nash and Lily Allen, among others, for singing in a Cockney-drawl, despite their privileged backgrounds.Nash's second single and first through Fiction Records, "Foundations", which she co wrote with producer Paul Epworth, was released on June 25 2007 and reached number two in the official UK Singles Chart. The BBC Radio 1 and Radio 2 both added the song to their playlists during the week of its release.
Following the success of "Foundations", which she co wrote with producer Paul Epworth, Fiction announced plans to bring forward the release of Nash's debut album to August 6, 2007. The album, Made of Bricks, produced by Paul Epworth which was brought forward 6 weeks, included many of the tracks she had been performing on her two nationwide tours, supported by Peggy Sue & The Pirates. The album was leaked to filesharing networks days before its commercial release, and has received mixed reviews, The Independent describing it as being in "pole position for worst album of the year.".
In June 2007 Nash performed at the O Wireless Festival, the Bestival, the Electric Gardens, Glastonbury Festival and the Latitude Festival, and also played at the Reading and Leeds Festivals, Oxegen and T in the Park, as well as other festivals. At the Reading Festival, she was able to draw a crowd that filled the Carling tent as well as stretch well beyond the tent's borders. She made her official TV performance debut on Later with Jools Holland, also appearing on The Jack Daniels Set, Popworld, The Friday Night Project, GMTV and This Morning during 2007. On November 30 2007 Nash appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross.
Nash was featured on the Top of the Pops Christmas special on December 25th, 2007. She performed her smash-hit, Foundations. On December 26th 2007 she visited Northwick Park Hospital where she was born, and visited patients and also met a chartity based school called Shishukunj.
Nash features on rapper Kano's album London Town, in a song titled "Me & My Microphone". She is also featured in the song "Look What You've Done" from Lethal Bizzle's latest album, Back To Bizznizz.
On 31 December she performed a New Year's Eve gig at the Chalk Farm Jamboree singing "Mouthwash" among many others.
Nash is working on her second album and has already written two songs entitled 'Paris' and 'Doo Wah Doo'. Nash also stated speaking to NME she had been inspired by the supremes and has wrote a song called Cat song in honour. She has also fixed her second UK tour and intends to start in February 2008. (http://www.nme.com/news/brit-awards-2008/34537)On the 20th february Kate Nash recieved a gong at the BRIT awards for best female.
Wikipedia and Robbie Williams
On January 15 2008, Nash responded to reports on Wikipedia that she had covered songs made famous by Robbie Williams. She told magazine, "I'd never do that. Ever. Badly manufactured pop is why I wouldn't want to cover Robbie Williams' songs. In my eyes, it's just a totally different world from what I know. I'm just not really interested in it."Appearance
Kate Nash tends to wear clothes from a variety of sources, and has her own unique sense of style which marks her out and makes her fans identify with her. "Tip-toeing on to the stage in a pretty tea dress, smiling sweetly and sipping from a china mug, Nash has an almost doll-like appearance". Her physical attractiveness has undoubtably contributed to her success as a musician.Personal Life
According to an interview with Ray Foley, she has family in Dublin and Ballyjamesduff County Cavan, Ireland.Nash is currently dating Ryan Jarman of The Cribs, but has also been romantically linked with little known Irish friend Gerard Morgan.
Book
Nash stated in an interview with NME that she is writing a series of short stories influenced by Roald Dahl, including one based around a seven-foot transvestite named Dave Alcock, and would like to release a collection, likely under a pseudonym.