Indiana Gregg is a singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 living in Lenzie

Lenzie

Lenzie is a small town by the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in the East Dunbartonshire council area of Scotland. It is about six miles north-east of Glasgow city centre and one mile south of Kirkintilloch. It has a population of about 10,000.-Name:...

 near Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. Her music contains elements of pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

, soul

Soul music

Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

 and folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

. Releases include featured artist on Kool & the Gang's "The Hits Reloaded" where she performed their hit titled "Tonight" and a 2007 debut release of her album "Woman At Work" with singles "Sweet Things", "Love Is Blind" and "One of Us" released from the album in April, June and October 2007 respectively.

Indiana is also founder and director of Kerchoonz.com, a social networking site that pays musicians, bands, artists and songwriters when the public listens to their music. Indiana and co-founder Ian Morrow began developing the site in October 2006 The site went into beta in October 2008 and is scheduled to fully launch in June 2009.

Early years

As a child, Indiana's mother taught dance

Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

 and her father worked in the aluminium

Aluminium

Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....

 industry. Her musical introductions stemmed from a rather rigid religious upbringing, because of this there are obvious gospel

Gospel

A gospel is an account, often written, that describes the life of Jesus of Nazareth. In a more general sense the term "gospel" may refer to the good news message of the New Testament. It is primarily used in reference to the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...

 influences in her music today. Indiana suffered from a strong speech impediment in her youth. She underwent years of speech therapy where her therapist would ask her to write poems at home for her to practice singing

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...

 to help overcome this condition. Indiana claims that her therapist encouraged her to become involved in music and is responsible for her development as a songwriter and an artist. This is where her love of songwriting began and developed. As a youngster, she taught herself to play her grandmother's old upright piano by ear. Between the ages of 12-16, she wrote and recorded hundreds of songs on a Panasonic

Panasonic

Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...

 tape-deck with a friend. The Sunday Herald quotes Indiana saying, "I was five when I wrote my first song, about my cat, Herbert, who was hit by a train".

At university, Indiana studied music and physiotherapy. In 1991, she won an all-American title and National Dance Association

National Dance Association

The , headquartered in Reston, VA, is an association within the American Alliance for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance...

 dance championship in Dallas, Texas

Dallas, Texas

Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

.

Career Stages

The roots and beginnings of Indiana's professional career began in 1994 when she moved to southern France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and lived there for 12 years (amongst other countries such as Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 and England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

). During her time in France, she worked in various bands exploring progressive rock, jazz, and dance music. She recorded several studio demos at Marilyn Studios, Cagnes-sur-Mer

Cagnes-sur-Mer

Cagnes-sur-Mer is a commune of the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.-Geography:It is the largest suburb of the city of Nice and lies to the west-southwest of it, about from the center.-History:...

 over a period of three years revealing the songwriter's deeper retreat into her music exploring jazz and soul music and penning a number of songs. In 2003, she joined a progressive rock band and the musical influences turned to a more aggressive tone mixed with both alternative and gospel influences.

In 2004, she was invited to appear on the track Tonight from Kool and the Gang's album, The Hits Reloaded, other artists appearing on that album include Angie Stone, Beverley Knight, Lisa Stansfield, Big Brovaz, Jamiroquai, Tony Hadley. In 2005, she formed a Scottish-based independent record label called Gr8pop with her later-to-become husband Ian Morrow. Venture Capital Trust

Venture capital

Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...

 and Scottish Enterprise

Scottish Enterprise

Scottish Enterprise is a sponsored non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government which encourages economic development, enterprise, innovation and investment in business...

 supported the project alongside the Gr8pop investors. Her debut album, Woman at Work

Woman at Work

Woman at Work is the debut album from a Scots-based American musician and songwriter, Indiana Gregg. Released in 2007, the album was promoted through a national tour with Lemar and with the single, "Sweet Things", released June of the same year...

, was released to the UK in April 2007. The diversity of her music has been explained as an artistic well or "stew": "It's like a stew that has been cooking for a long while: well blended and tasty. Ms. Gregg has achieved a rare feat in the world of music outside of jazz: she has created something organic. And it didn't happen overnight."

In 2005 two of her songs, "Sweet Things" and "For Life", made it to the top finalists in the Pop category (56 finalists out of the 4000 songs entered) of The UK Songwriting Contest. These two songs were later also released on her 2007 album titled Woman at Work. In 2005, Indiana also did a supporting tour with Wet Wet Wet. Five additional songs by Gregg made the semi-finalist category in the same year: "Something like me", "Crazy", "How Many Tears", "Love is Blind", and "Oh Me Oh My" all of which were also included on her debut album "Woman At Work".

In 2005, the demo album "Something like me" had a limited release on the independent label Onestone Music. Later that year, Onestone Music did a deal with Scottish label Gr8pop Ltd. In 2006, Gr8pop ltd. did a deal with Ingenious VCT with a view to release Gregg's debut album in 2007.

Tours and "Home Concerts"

Indiana received media attention in early summer of 2007 surrounding her "home concert" competitions where fans entered from all over the world to win a chance at having her play in their home for their friends. The competitions were covered in articles appearing in the Evening Times, Daily Record, Daily Mirror and various regional newspapers in the UK. Videos of her home gigs were posted to Youtube, Myspace, MSN and various other websites with a message about the free competition details. Winners for the series were announced on Myspace and subsequently, UKgigs TV began filming the new series in May 2007. Subsequently, videos of the home gigs were streamed on the front pages of Bebo and over the UK gigs and theatre networks.

The Home concerts first appeared in the press when the Express wrote about a surprise concert she performed for a fan's fiancée home in 2005 after he saw her live in Exeter supporting Wet Wet Wet. Indiana Gregg announced home concerts in the fall of 2005 which took place primarily in October. In December 2005, she embarked on Starbucks

Starbucks

Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...

 coffee house tour in every major UK city playing intimate acoustic sets in the coffee houses throughout 2006 whilst recording her debut album in the same year. In February and March 2007, she played a UK support tour with Lemar

Lemar

Lemar Obika , professionally known simply as Lemar, is an English recording artist. Obika has had a run of chart success in the UK, Europe and Australia...

. Indiana, 35 married Ian Morrow, 50 during a 22-date arena and theatre tour with Lemar on March 22, 2007, in Gretna Green

Gretna Green

Gretna Green is a village in the south of Scotland famous for runaway weddings. It is in Dumfries and Galloway, near the mouth of the River Esk and was historically the first village in Scotland, following the old coaching route from London to Edinburgh. Gretna Green has a railway station serving...

's Famous Blacksmith's following her concert at the SECC

Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre

The Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre , located on the north bank of the River Clyde, in Glasgow, is Scotland's largest exhibition centre....

 in Glasgow. Immediately following the Lemar tour, in April 2007 she began a third "House Gigs" tour which led to UKgigs.tv taking interest in filming the home concerts. The first filmed home concert took place in her own Glasgow home on May 21. On May 23, she played a concert in Finchley

Finchley

Finchley is a district in Barnet in north London, England. Finchley is on high ground, about north of Charing Cross. It formed an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, becoming a municipal borough in 1933, and has formed part of Greater London since 1965...

 North London for the Ovarian Cancer Support group. On May 25, she played a home concert for young fashion designer Hannah Marshall in Colchester

Colchester

Colchester is an historic town and the largest settlement within the borough of Colchester in Essex, England.At the time of the census in 2001, it had a population of 104,390. However, the population is rapidly increasing, and has been named as one of Britain's fastest growing towns. As the...

. Subsequent gigs were scheduled and filmed across the UK in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, Newcastle

Newcastle upon Tyne

Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...

, Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

, Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

, and Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

 the week beginning June 10. Scotland's Daily Record featured the Indiana Gregg Home gigs on June 12 along with a contest for Father's Day where contestants could win a home concert for their father by texting or phoning The Daily Record in Scotland. On Wednesday, June 13, The Daily Mirror

The Daily Mirror

The Daily Mirror is a British national daily tabloid newspaper which was founded in 1903. Twice in its history, from 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was changed to read simply The Mirror, which is how the paper is often referred to in popular parlance. It had an...

 ran a feature on the front page of the "Your Life" section about Indiana Gregg's house gigs featuring a home concert she did in Clare O'Hagan's front room in support of Ovarian Cancer.

The general awareness at this early stage of her career led to performances in festivals in the UK in summer 2007.

Kerchoonz.com

Kerchoonz.com, a social networking portal that has been set to launch in September 2008, has been considered the brain-child of Indiana Gregg. According to the BBC news, the site plans to pay musicians who give free downloads and streams of their music on the site, enabling the public to access music for free whilst supporting the artists/bands financially.

K-box

In May 2009 Kerchoonz.com revealed a product called the K-box, a portable audio speaker that turns surfaces into sound using a patented gel audio technology. The K-box reportedly has an average spl of 95Db at 1m and 40–20 kHz bass depending upon the surface it is placed upon.

Controversy

Indiana Gregg, considered an anti-piracy activist, as well as her business partner and husband Ian Morrow at Gr8pop ltd, became entangled in a bout of e-mails concerning copyright violation between themselves and ThePirateBay.org originating on Sunday, July 22, 2008. Indiana went on to write a lengthy article on the subject of respecting artists' copyrights internationally. which was republished subsequently by Torrent Freak in in the top 4 of Digg News world-wide. The article had a response of nearly 800 comments on Torrent Freak, and was in the top four of Digg throughout the July 4th Independence of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 holiday.

Discography

• Sweet Things (March 26, 2007, Gr8pop) (Single)
• Woman at Work
  Woman at Work
  Woman at Work is the debut album from a Scots-based American musician and songwriter, Indiana Gregg. Released in 2007, the album was promoted through a national tour with Lemar and with the single, "Sweet Things", released June of the same year...
  
  (April 2, 2007, Gr8pop) (Album)
• One of Us (October 8, 2007, Gr8pop) (Single)
• Sweet Things (November 6, 2007 Gr8pop/Playground Scandinavia)
• Woman at Work (November 12, 2007 Gr8pop/Playground Scandinavia)

External links

• Official Webpage
• Gr8pop, Indiana Gregg's record label