The music industry moves quickly and you either have to be up and ready to rock or lose that chance and let someone else “Steal Your Fire”.
One such moment came when legendary performer and producer Russ Ballard strolled into a Lauren Harris gig back in 2005, he quickly decided to invite her into the studio to see if she had what it takes. Lauren seized the opportunity and the first tentative steps that ultimately led towards her new album Calm Before The Storm had been taken. Building an excellent band around her by adding guitarist Richie Faulkner, bass player Randy Gregg, and drummer Tom McWilliams she began a schedule of work that would have seen many other, less committed people, fall by the wayside. With this release all that hard work, commitment and belief really is starting to pay off.
Within a year she was supporting none other than Alice Cooper and put on a career changing performance. Word spread and festival appearances followed before Lauren and her band went on a major world tour supporting Iron Maiden. As gigs go they don’t get much bigger than that. Okay, I got nearly two paragraphs before I mentioned that Lauren’s dad is, Steve, bass player, founder member and inspiration behind Maiden. After all, that is purely genetic and the fact is that Lauren can rock with the best in her own right. Consider this – you can’t get up on stage in front of huge, sometimes unforgiving, festival crowds and get away with it unless you are very good indeed. That is irrespective of who your dad happens to be. The tour took her to Tokyo, Dubai, and Bangalore in India where the sight of a female fronting a rock band caused quite a stir. Her reputation quickly grew. I eventually caught up with her at the Iron Maiden gig in Paris, part of a massive world tour, recently and I have to say she oozes both talent and confidence and worked the vast audience brilliantly. Signed to Demolition DR2 records she somehow managed to find a gap in her hectic life to start work on an album. Here we are then, right up to date with the recent release, the result of those efforts, Calm Before The Storm.
To help capture that raw power that she and her band generate on stage Kevin Shirley whose credits include Maiden, Journey, and Aerosmith was drafted in to help on some tracks and, it must be said, has done a mighty fine job mixing sharing the role with Paul Trust and Freddy Pinero Jnr. The opener, a version of Gun’s, “Steal Your Fire” is an utterly irresistible and attention grabbing start, lurking in the subconscious long after it has died away. This is only one of two covers on the album with the band being responsible for nine of their own showing commendable writing skills with “Your Turn”, “Get It Over”, “Like It Or Not” , “Hit Or Miss”, the revealing “Let Us Be” and the excellent “See Through”. The three slower tempo songs “From The Bottom To The Top”, “Hurry Up” and “You Say” are all extremely well crafted and are excellently sung by Lauren. They are writing to their undeniable strengths coming up with songs that make any Lauren Harris live gig a highly enjoyable and memorable experience.
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