Eve’s incredible and inspiring journey saw her fall in love with music age 6, join the Brit School age 13, sign to Polydor age 18, form a girl group and tour with Boyzone and Backstreet Boys, performing in front of 30,000 people. She’s also been signed to EMI, become a respected sound engineer, set up her own recording studio (helping disadvantaged kids and promoting female producers) and won awards for Business Enterprise.

Eve is neurodiverse, suffered from health issues and depression, funded herself between music jobs as a train driver, and worked her butt off every step of the way to achieve what she has, struggling to even afford the bus fares to get to uni, but determined to achieve her goals.

In our latest My Audio World blog, we talk to Eve about how music saved her life, the highs and lows of the industry and how her journey has led to her helping others.

“You know, I'm a woman and a woman of colour. I'm gay. I'm a single parent from a single parent family, from a council estate, and then later on, I got diagnosed with autism and ADHD. I realised that ‘We Are the Unheard’ basically supports and advocates for minorities that are just like myself. We support the underrepresented in every aspect of production, songwriting, mentoring, coaching and everything else I can do.”

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Hi Eve, we love that you work in both studio and live. Do you have a preference?

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I think I love performing, as an artist, it's it's in my blood. There's always a time when you're performing on stage that time slows down. You'll be mid-performance and then all of a sudden everything kind of falls away. It's like a matrix moment. There'll be a time when everything falls away and time just goes really slow, you're just looking out at the crowd and you're like, oh my goodness.

The next second you're back in, performing. I get it every time I do a performance and I love it. I love the studio - it's hard because I feel at home on stage - it's where I belong, but when I'm in the studio there was a point where I would just be lost, I would forget to eat.

I remember editing vocals for hours and just being so quick at shortcuts to the point where I could almost edit by eye. Now I know I'm neurodiverse, so I know why that's happened. I think the two are very different and they use completely different parts of my brain and give me joy for completely different reasons - but they're both equally as addictive.

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Do you a memorable moment on stage you could share with us?

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One of my most memorable moments on stage was doing backing vocals for Backstreet Boys when we were on tour with them. We supported them every night and they'd watch our performance before headlining. Afterwards we'd stay backstage with mics they gave us and sung their backing vocals.

I was watching them on stage, so that's very memorable. They were a great bunch. So many great moments on stage for different reasons. 

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How about a memorable moment in the studio?

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Studio...? It's really hard I think. I remember when we built our studio in Woolwich - it was our first experience of that kind, engineering loads of people at once.

So we'd have about 16 boys come in from Woolwich and they'd all be spitting 8 or 16 bars each. There's us two women in the studio till about three in the morning, recording all these bars. That was a really fun experience and I think it was great to see it help the community and to be able to help so many young people who didn't even know they could sing.

Their parents didn't even know they could sing or write and we were able to bring that to life for them so those moments for me meant more than the actual processes of recording.

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Can you tell us more about the We Are The Unheard Academy?

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It came about after I was a train driver when I went back into the industry. During Covid I had a long look at why I was doing what I was doing and I had to really sit and question my reason behind it.

I realised, like I said before, it was all different parts of me - why was I so passionate? I looked back at the things I've done, why was I so passionate about promoting female producers? Why was I so passionate about building a studio to help disadvantaged kids? When I went to the Brit school I lived in Woolwich so it took me 2.5 hours to travel there and 2.5 hours back on the 75 bus. A lot of the time I couldn't even afford the bus fare to go. I had to edit my bus tickets (so to speak). I wanted to make sure that other people didn't have to do what I did.

There was nothing in Woolwich creatively for anyone, I wanted to make sure that young people had an outlet. I remember the feeling of being angry and stuck and having all this creativity inside me that couldn't get out because of my surroundings. Obviously, now, looking back, that was my neurodiversity.

When you're around people that aren't like you, and maybe not as creative as you, you need an outlet. There's not necessarily those spaces for young people to have that. I realised that is one of the reasons why I want to help young people. One of the reasons why I launched my academy, was because when I went to uni, everyone else's parents had paid for them and I was one of the only people that paid for myself. I remember them saying to me "how are you going to pay for this?" and I said "don't worry, I'll get the money". I got the money. But the reason I keep my graduation picture on my shelf is not necessarily because I graduated - it's a reminder of what I had to go through to graduate. Now, with my academy, I make sure I get funding and I provide free education for everyone.

I have phenomenal people like Flare partnering with me to help give wraparound support for everyone that comes through the academy, from all across the UK. For me, the heart of my organisation is underrepresented people - people that have blocks placed in their life, whether that's through race, whether that's through gender, whether that's through neurodiversity, education. Again, it's all part of my own story. I'm lucky enough, old enough and have been in the industry long enough to be strong and advocate and shout loud for those people who might not be able to say it themselves, who don't have the confidence or the drive.

It's my calling in life to help others who can't help themselves. It's my responsibility through my company to help them and to show them how phenomenal they are. To help them live the life they're supposed to live through giving them confidence, building them up, and helping them on their way to the careers.

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What advice would you give to your younger self?

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Well, I'm soon to be 48 in a couple of weeks and it's taken me until now to fully believe in myself.

I think my diagnosis last year helped that because when you have autism and ADHD, as well as so many other things, being a gay woman, a Catholic gay woman, being a woman of colour, you get labeled with so many different things coming from a council estate talking the way I do - black people don't talk like that, you know? It's the most odd thing! I didn't know there was a way that we spoke! When I think about me, i've got so many different parts and each part has had issues. When I look at my life there's not one thing that has made me feel a certain way. It's been multiple layers of different things. The main thing that held me back was when I had depression. I'd just come back from the girl groups, back to the UK, and I lost my identity. I was stuck and I just felt I wasn't good enough. I felt like a massive failure. I felt that if I was trying to create a track, it had to be in the charts for me to say I was a producer. I felt if I was writing a song, I had to have written for an artist or it had to be out and successful for me to call myself a songwriter. That really held me back and made me feel like I was never good enough. It was a ten year journey and it took a long time for me to realise that I had done it to myself.

Yes, I had depression, but I it was through my own self-talk and my own perception of things. I would say to my younger self, love yourself from inside out. What you think becomes your world. If you think everyone hates you, that's what you're going to see. If you think everyone loves you, that's what you're going to see. That is a very basic but very strong lesson that took me a long time to learn. It's all about mindset.

I would say to myself - perception. Perception is insane. It's been my biggest lesson. 

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What do you love about Flare and what are your favourite products?

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When I think of Flare, I automatically think of Naomi and Dave. They are absolute phenomenal geniuses. They are the most inspiring human beings that I've met. Not only that, they're so caring and passionate about helping people. Their whole organisation is founded on that. I remember the first time I met them - they blew me away. They still do to this day. So for me, they are everything that Flare is about. When I listen to the way they speak, I'm just blown away.

Then comes their phenomenal products. One of my favourite products is obviously Calmer®. Being a neurodiverse person, they really help me drown out noise. I go to a lot of industry events and I have a massive sensitivity to sound, so they really, really help me to focus. For those who don't understand neurodiversity, when you have sensitivities to things or anyone with specific neurodiversity, it affects you physiologically as well. It affects your whole body. If I'm hearing a sound I don't like, it runs through my body which adds to my fight or flight. It just causes me stress and anxiety, which is just a natural reaction that happens.

When I'm using Calmer®, it really, really reduces all of that and allows me to be a part of these events without having to worry about those feelings.

The other amazing thing...E Prototype! When I put them in my ears, I was like, "oh my goodness". It's almost like a Matrix film when like everything slows down and opens up. That's exactly what the E-Prototype did for me with sound - it took a track apart, I could hear everything. It's almost like it put so much space in between each element of the track. I remember phoning them and being like, "oh my God", this is insane. I can literally hear every single element so clearly and it was just beautiful.

I don't know what it does to the ear but it makes you able to hear everything so much clearer. Calmer® and the E-Prototype are definitely two of my favourite Flare products.

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What is your favourite sound?

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Rain - I've thought about this, I love rain - it's really calming and I think it's one of my sensory things.

But my daughter...! Her voice, I was listening to a voice note of hers the other day and we were doing gratitude. I recorded her doing it because she wanted me to copy her. Just listening to her voice - it just brings me so much joy and happiness. So yes, those two things. 

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What is your least favourite sound?

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Motorbikes. I want to smash things up if a motorbike goes past me. Again, the whole sensory thing makes me get instant rage. People chomping when they eat. Yes - I'm starting to fidget!