Musician Rachel Row has been performing for the majority of her life. Graduating from Sofia's National Academy of Music, she honed her singing and songwriting talents by appearing in several musicals, and as part of a vocal trio toured with some of the biggest names in Bulgarian music. Now she's ready to roll on her own and for the last few years has been collaborating with some of the most respected names in electronic music, as well as releasing one of the year's biggest records in 'Follow The Step'.
We caught up with Rachel ahead of her performance at The Ushuaia Tower for the DFTD Opening Party on Monday.
It’s fair to say Follow The Step has been your breakthrough record, certainly in the electronic music scene. How did the collaboration with KiNK come about?
I’ve been working with Strahil for quite a long time now – let’s say 5-6 years, he helped with the sound design and arrangements of songs I’ve written for pop and r&B artists. We made some loops together for fun, until one day we decided it’s time for me to step out of the shadow of songwriting and make some of my own records.
The more I worked with Strahil, the more I had that comfortable feeling he gives me. We have a perfect connection regarding the way we feel music; the hardest thing in teamwork is to tell in words how you hear a sound – when I say I need a “heavy” snare - he knows exactly what I mean, and that’s priceless for me as a songwriter. So I decided to focus on this relationship to build a more dance, but still with that Rachel kinda soul touch. That’s how Follow The step came along. It’s a romantic song for the man I love, combining all the music I love in one.
In the 90s I grew up with soul and hip hop on one side, and dance music – UK rave, garage, jungle and drum and bass, on the other. Here’s a secret nobody knows: Strahil actually never liked the track until we finished the arrangement. And he wanted to share the remix for free, but that quickly changed when he had over 20k hits on Soundcloud in 24 hours. Some managers of more commercial DJs wanted a copy. Later even Tiesto played it on his radio show. That’s when we knew we needed to get this on wax.
You also write, sing and produce your own music, do you think that doing so much gives you a better understanding of creating than most?
When I was around 15 I never thought I’d do songwriting besides the singing. But I kept on having ideas – lyrics and melodies - I like to call it a “fax” from somewhere. My first published songs were written for my mother, one of it won me a Rotary club best new song award and was part of UNICEF’s campaign Save the children. Afterwards artists kept on asking for lyrics or songs to write for them, and to be honest for a 19-20 year old singer that’s not such a bad day job. I’ve learned a lot through the years and Strahil taught me about the production, recording etc., so I must say I am very happy to be able to know more than just to sing. Giving life to my ideas is way easier for me now.
Tell us about your experience of the National Academy, what were some of the most important and valuable things you leant while studying there?
As a child I wanted to go to an arts school, but being away from Germany my parents decided it’s more important to keep the German language alive. I’ve been a witness to my moms’ career and its ups and downs; I ended up on a crossroad between studying something “rational” or following my creative heart. Although I considered law and marketing for quite a long time, I chose music.
How has the success of Follow The Step affected your career?
Usually I am a very optimistic person, but I never thought that my debut single would be charted and played… well, basically by everybody. I’m very happy and I feel lucky to have this achievement so early. But the tuff part is now – being able to keep up the good work. And work I do…a lot… on new material.
You’ve said previously that you’re a big fan of the UK 90s sound… what were the first record you heard coming out of the UK that really grabbed your attention?
As I said my mom is a jazz singer, so I had a lot of influence from the American scene. The first UK sound in the 90s would be the more commercial stuff you could hear on radio shows or MTV late night shows – The Prodigy, Rony Size, Warp artists, Goldie, Bjork. At that time there was no social media and internet, so hearing cool music was quite difficult for a small country as Bulgaria. But we found our ways through exchanging tapes, listening to a Radio 1 broadcast that we had only on Fridays on the same frequency as a national radio station. And of course the parties - In the mid 90s I’ve started going to electronic music parties, that’s how I got more familiar with House and Techno. I love to dance and I hated Bulgarian pop music, so that was the best amusement for a 13 year old.
‘Classical’ vocals aren’t perhaps the most natural bedfellow for dance music, how do you think you’ve so successfully managed to marry the two styles?
I started taking vocal technique lessons at the age of 16. My coach – Ms. Milka Dragneva found out that my higher range was better than my low; I fooled around with opera at home, it was easy for me and I really had fun doing it. I wanted to be a pop-soul singer and didn’t care about this natural gift she told me I had. I graduated the academy with pop and jazz but I still recorded a few “classical” pieces to please my teacher.
Tell us about some of the other projects you’re currently working on..
I’m currently working on my next single and an album. Just finished my first soundtrack for a Bulgarian short movie called “Shht, sing to me” – writing the film theme and some songs to it was a very different experience. I was chosen for the role of Roxie Hart in the Bulgarian version of the broadway musical Chicago, so that’s another side project that I do now. I’m preparing a live set with KiNK that we gonna try out first on the Defected Party @ Ibiza on the 10th of June. I have some collaborations I did last year, but coming out now with the guys from Snuff Crew and a British group - Ghosting Season. We’re almost finished with KiNK’s album for which I did some vocals and songwriting – really freaky stuff, so look forward to it all.
Anything else you’d like to tell us about…?
Follow the step to my love …and all that’s coming with it!
Follow The Step is out now on Defected Records
Rachel perform a Live PA with KiNK at The Ushuaia Tower 10th June
