Kristyna’s date with Mick is Simply fantastic.
By Chris High

From busking to recording and touring with Chris de Burgh, life it seemed might not have got any better for Leicester born singer, Kristyna Myles, until Mick Hucknall came knocking that is, because now she is set to embark on a three-date tour with the former Simply Red front-man, culminating in a concert at Liverpool’s fabulous 10,500 seat Echo Arena as a part of the city’s Summer Pops festival.

‘My manager, Perry Hughes, put my demo forward to an agency who look for support artists and I was picked to support Mick,’ Kristyna explained. ‘When I found out, I was so excited I screamed and went and told my husband who was upstairs and he was so pleased for me and said I really deserved it. I’m playing the Colston Hall in Bristol, the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton and the Arena in Liverpool. I’ve never played any of these before and meeting the band, Mick, singing my own songs in front of huge audiences; the whole experience is going to be fantastic.’

Kristyna, who last performed in Leicester during the Christ In The Centre event on Good Friday this year, is now based in Manchester where she entered – and won – the 2005 Radio 5 Live Busker of the Year Award. ‘I really enjoyed the Christ In The Centre experience. It really was such an amazing thing to play in front of all those people who turned out. As to winning the Busker of the Year award, it got me a lot of exposure, which was great, and also gave me a lot of experience of speaking and performing on the radio. Chris De Burgh heard about me through this achievement as well and I also got my manager through the experience too, so I’m really grateful it happened.’

Chris de Burgh was so impressed by what he heard, he asked Kristyna to record a track on his last album, The Storyman, called Raging Storm and, also, to accompany him on his European tour. ‘I don’t have a direct line to Chris as such but I keep updated with what he’s up to and I know he’s going to do a tour in Germany with an orchestra. The main advice he gave me was not to think of the UK as not being the only place to reach people with music. He showed me a globe in his music room and showed me the UK in relation to the world and visualising it that way made it stick in my head. He’s totally right and if I’m lucky enough to play my music over the world like he has, that’d be amazing.’

Kristyna is currently hard at work writing and recording her debut album. ‘I hope it will be released next year and I’m so excited getting it finished and to have an album I’m proud of will be just great. I’ve got some full band gigs lined up, which I’m really looking forward to, and I’m continuing write at every opportunity I get and hopefully soon I’ll be back performing in Leicester again too.’

This interview is due to appear in whole or in part in other publications.

Review: Kristyna Myles with Ben Williams - Live at The Liverpool Echo Arena 01 July 2008

LISTEN HERE TO... Kristyna Myles on BBC Radio Merseyside Billy Butler Show - Tuesday 1st July 2008

Read also Chris high's interview with Kristyna in 2006