~ Press
British-Canadian singer-songwriter, Bernice MacDonald, is a tale of two halves. Where her (effortless) vocal is constantly likened to that of Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro, there’s no escaping tribute splashes of her favourite, James Taylor and even the odd nod toward freewheeling legend, Bob Dylan. Despite the mainstay of latter day comparisons synonymous with Bernice, her sound isn’t especially retrospective. In fact, Bernice says that the likes of Sheryl Crow and Taylor Swift have much more of a motivational bearing on her music, which fuses Ameri-folk with accessible pop rivets.
Destined to straddle a number of dichotomies, Bernice was born and raised in the rugged Northumberland countryside near Newcastle to her British mother and Canadian father. Both jazz and classical musicians themselves, from an early age Bernice developed a sense of parallels – albeit unwittingly – which play themselves out in her sound today. In particular, Bernice's love of the countryside is perhaps her main inspiration. Yet, she needs urban grit to realise this; “It's the contrast that I have never been able to figure out myself! I need hustle and bustle, but I am at home sitting in a field.”
All teenagers have their fair share of troubles, but in Bernice’s case, such life challenges would have broken most people. Where she was (and still is) fiercely close to her parents, who she says have been both her rock and inspiration, it was their support through the ups and downs that she'd experience that largely kept her afloat.
As a youngster, Bernice found herself misunderstood. Plagued by bullying, she rebelled. Instead of crumbling and closing down, she instead immersed herself in writing poetry and music from a very young age. A little later on when she was just 15, Bernice took time away from the UK in her father’s homeland of Nova Scotia, Canada. Here she had her own apartment and attended school in Canada for just under a year. Testament to her experience during this time are two of her most notable songs: lo-fi soundscape ballad, Nova Scotia, and the acerbic but upbeat pop track, Nasty Nasty.
Her late teens and early twenties would see Bernice come up against more brick walls. At 17, she was struck down with Chronic Fatigue, the bone-shattering exhaustion which would scupper her progress on and off for a couple of years before it lifted when she was 19. Later on, once she'd moved to Brighton, Bernice ran into emotional difficulties thanks to a couple of rogue boyfriends. Although this delayed her music career, the experiences confirmed her dreams. Rather than be defeated, Bernice learnt to divert her energies surrounding these obstacles by pouring them into her music.
Disarmingly un-phased by her tumultuous history, Bernice wrinkles her nose up at any hint of a personal sob story. “In my late teens and early twenties, I felt very isolated and on edge and not at all grounded. But I worked hard on getting myself together. See, you’ve got a choice when you hit rock bottom; you can either sink or swim. You either build strength from it, or you let it destroy you. I wasn’t ever going to let it destroy me.”
Following her return to the UK from her stint in Canada, and on completing her studies at college, Bernice spent much of her time travelling back and forth to California. Here, she would stay with her American boyfriend and 13 other people who all shared a house. It’s no wonder, then, that the constant comparison to Joni Mitchell etched its way into Bernice’s music, thanks to her own kind of Laurel Canyon life-style, full of comings and goings and a rich myriad of people.
Surrounded by music while she was growing up, Bernice would attend her parents’ tours with the likes of the Northern Sinfornia Orchestra, lurking backstage with other musicians. It was as a child that she fell in love with the lifestyle music and touring commands. It might have been unconventional and, at times, unsettling seeing her parents away for weeks on end, but in watching her parents play and work, she was bitten by the bug.
But It was the stage that Bernice originally had her sights set on and during a trip to California, when she was 19, Bernice decided her fate lay in musical theatre. She took up a placement at the Bristol Academy of Performing Arts, where she joined chorus lines and perfected her acting talents. But on leaving BAPA, something wasn’t sitting with Bernice in the way that she had hoped.
“I just thought that I loved musical theatre,” Bernice explains; “And then I did it and realised it probably wasn't for me.” At almost 6 feet tall and with her startling blonde hair and large green eyes, she was too striking for chorus lines, but was – at that point – too shy to stand up front. This was a hurdle she would have to clear – and thankfully, she did...
Although Bernice was aware that her first love was singing, she was reluctant to take her vocal talent and aptitude to write songs out of the house. “I never thought I could do song writing. I couldn’t sing lead. I was too scared.” But despite her fear, passion won over, and she moved to Brighton to study vocals at BIMM.
At BIMM, she met Dani Wilde, a singer-songwriter who would later be signed to Ruf Records. But it wasn’t until Bernice’s course at BIMM was over, once she’d taken up permanent residence in Brighton that her and Dani would get together to share the mutual love for performing music. Still convinced that she would never sing lead vocals after a couple of years out of music, Bernice joined Dani as a backing vocalist. Her first gig with Dani's band was at the Vibes From The Vines festival, hosted by Ray Russell and Gary Moore “I hadn’t done any singing for ages and here I was, lined up with the most amazing musicians.” Her role with Dani was set for the next year, and where Bernice got used to exploiting her crystalline vocal.
But when her time with Dani came to end, it was make or break. Naturally, Bernice chose make: “I feel like I’ve got a lot to give. I feel like I’ve got to give it. It makes me really happy.”
Having realised that her talent was song writing – and songs she would sing herself – coupled with the boost she got from her time with Dani Wilde, Bernice began going it alone. Her first solo gig was to a packed out audience, and where this sealed the deal that singing was her fate, there were still holes that she needed to figure out. As is the usual way, Bernice experimented with the shape of her backing band, but also her vocal. “I’d trained operatically as a singer, and thought my thing was more jazzy. Plus the musical theatre. But I loved folk – Bob Dylan, James Taylor and Johnny Cash. But that wasn’t all: I absolutely love stuff like Roxette and Lynyrd Skynrd. And I love Janis Joplin – not so much for her music, but for the advice in her lyrics. I realised I wanted to reflect that. It took me a while to get it together, but it has and all that is kind of the blend of music I make today.”
Since that first gig, Bernice is a regular on the Brighton – and national - music scene (as well as a promoter, something she fell into “totally by accident.”) Having cut her teeth supporting the likes of Ozzy and Kelly Osborne, Aled Jones and Chesney Hawks, Bernice is looking to meld her folk-pop sound with a more distinct Americana flavour. Recently, she supported American band, Roger Clyne and The Peacemakers, on their UK tour and also temporarily resumed her old position of backing vocalist for Dani Wilde's forthcoming album, which has been produced by Mike Vernon (Bluesbreakers, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac). In short, it would appear that Bernice MacDonald and her band are one of the best Ameri-folk-pop outfits to come out of the UK. Adapting her cache of talents and influences is no problem for her. And despite the roll call of life experiences she’s come up against, Bernice retains a preternatural childlike quality. And for these reasons, there’s few more deserving, knowledgeable or more graceful than Bernice MacDonald.
