We won a competition on local radio and were given free studio time at a local studio, which we put it to good use by polishing up our material -  while adding a great rap from our friend Roger (the late Wild Child). We
touted our tunes around London, gathering much interest along the way, and making good contacts.

During this time I also joined a band called The Pumphouse Gang: we borrowed shed loads of money and decided to be self-sufficient, setting up our own record label - Rhythm & Love - and put out our first single, The Whole of  Her Heart. We were B-listed on Radio 1 and were generating quite a lot of hype, but it was not to be as the recession hit, taking down a lot of small independent labels. Hey ho.

In the early 90s, the band's bass player and I were getting itchy feet, due to a contact I made at Fantasy FM; I was invited to do a PA at London's Astoria - supporting Bizzarre Inc - and I was amazed to be on the same bill as them. I still have the flyer somewhere in my loft. The next weekend we headed off down to Madisons in Bournemouth: where on earth had we been living? The music was amazing, and I was blown away. We got home that night and thought we could write music like that. And so Sunset Regime was born. Our first attempts were Italian House meets Techno, which you can certainly hear in The Real Feel, Come on People and the original version of Gotta Believe. A few PAs later and a meeting with Billie Laurie led us to Fantazia and New Year's Eve 1993.

When we arrived things were slightly chaotic and nobody seemed to be telling us what to do - so we started to set up on the stage. If memory serves me well it was about half past midnight and really kicking.  There were around 8,000 people out there and I was in awe of everything. Anyway we were about to go on when a bouncer comes onto the stage screaming at me, "You're on the wrong ******* stage". Well, being the Prima Donna that I am, I flatly told him that it was "too ******* late now", and we proceeded with our set, which I think, didn't go down too badly.

After the set I sold my backstage pass to a raver for a tenner and got out into the crowd to dance the night away. It was a brilliant night which I shall never forget it.

Rik and I went on to tour England, Scotland and Ireland with Sunset Regime, supporting acts like Felix, Coppella and Carl Cox to name but a few. The next intervention with the band were Ramos and Supreme, who remixed our most memorable tunes Gotta Believe and Sunshine. We also released Flying with the Rhythm and Taste the Poison. My next port of call was writing tunes for R.S.R and Hectic Records. Although my vocals appeared on a lot of Hectic stuff this was not a good time in my life, and so I moved on. J.A.L I had been told by Rik that a guy from Just Another Label had been trying to get hold of me to do some writing, so I gave him a call, arranged a meeting and signed to Stage One Music Company. Had quite a few releases such as Keep on Lovin, Feel the Love and Cloudy Daze, yet things were moving really slowly for me and I had become increasingly disillusioned with the Business - so I decided to get out of it for a while (while keeping my finger in a few pies).

Anyway lets get up to date: I was trawling the internet one day and noticed on one of the Happy Hardcore sites that there had been a Best Vocalist poll;  although I didn't feature in the list, I noticed someone had said something complimentary about me. I emailed this guy - D.J Fracus - and we got together and released Feel the Light and Shades of Grey. I was glad to be  involved with the Hardcore scene again. I then got myself a publishing deal  as I was determined to do things properly this time.

It's weird as I have now hooked back up with Howard Bowden, whom I mentioned right at the beginning of my story, and we are about to have our first release with a song we wrote back in the early 90s. It's being released on  All Around The World, fronted by Kelly Llorenna who was the singer for N-trance and mixed by L.M.C. Howard and I are continuing to write commercial dance and have a lot more tunes to come. I also have another  release coming out with DJ Technotrance called Head over Heels. I don't think I could ever stop doing Hardcore as it's kind of where my roots are and it has yet to have it's day.

Well that's about it so far - thanks for reading.

Donna Grassie X