My full name is Julie Maria Staines.
 
I was born in The London Hospital in Whitechapel on the 13th September 1972 and was brought up in Chadwell Heath in Essex with my Mum and Dad and sister Anne who was six years older than me and wouldn't let me in her room very often.   
My mother, Kathleen, was a fairly strict Catholic so Anne and I did the whole Church on Sunday thing, which was cool because I was massively in love with Josef Costa who was an altar boy and we both went to religious schools: St.Bede’s Primary and Canon Palmer Secondary. As long as I was somewhere near Joe I didn't care.
 
My father, a proper East-end boy was in the motor industry by day and the jazz scene - when us kids were asleep in bed - by night and that's probably where it all began for me. I loved everything about going to gigs with my Dad (when I was occasionally allowed). 
The smell of the beer and the cigarette smoke.  The men all dressed up on Sunday lunchtime in bow ties and suits and the ladies looking glamorous. The complimentary roll mops and roast spuds on the bar. The mic stands, the drum kit, the free drinks. The fact  that everyone in that pub knew my Dad by his first name and he was the star whose picture you could see displayed behind the bar.
 
I guess I knew right then that this is what I wanted for myself. Something about the whole thing truly grabbed me and I was hooked.
 
My Mother, died tragically  when I was only eleven and by now Anne was out working and staying at boyfriends’ houses. This did mean one good thing though: I had my Dad to myself.

Every Sunday we would cruise around London in his Mustang with the top down listening to Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Bing Crosby and it was always the words he made me listen to.  So there it is, set in stone forevermore: my earliest memory of being educated in music and of learning to appreciate the way great singers phrase and tell a story through song. A passion for lyrics was born.

 
Most of the kids in my school left as early as they could and if you lived that close to London you ended up working in the City. So I joined the masses of folk who travel on the underground everyday and spent a lot of life stuck in tunnels trying to read whoever was sitting next to me's newspaper, without them noticing. But of course they always did.

It was around this time that my Dad  had remarried and though I no longer had him to myself  it didn't matter because they gave me a beautiful baby brother who they called Jake, named after Jake's Burgers in Seven Kings. Six years after that a second beautiful boy arrived called Robert and the small family grew and four became six.
 
I worked in a firm of Solicitors in Great Portland Street in the West End as an office junior and generally messed about, smoking in cupboards and laughing all day with a classic girl, Julie who thought I was hilarious, which is handy when you're a bit of a joker like me. We ate curry just about every lunchtime which cost us all of a pound in the Indian Y.M.C.A. and drank tea and stole biscuits for the rest of the time. Work? Not really that much.
 
Needless to say apart from the laughs my heart wasn't truly in it so I legged it out of the 9-5 thing after meeting a German producer who I began a collaboration with. He often nagged me about my constant singing out of tune and made me sing into a guitar tuner to practise. I soon realized that this was not the Lennon/McCartney partnership I was looking for and I joined an all girl rock band called 'Dearjon'.
 
I gained all my experience from that band and had an absolute blast. What a fantastically crazy ride to work with chicks that get to share everything:  bras, lipstick, taste in men, food, beds, cars, fights, pillows, sandwiches, socks, the stage. Mums - of which there were quite a few - wanted to adopt me. Spiritual beliefs, music, books, records,  jumpers, planes, record deals and hot grub before rehearsals from the bass player, Lid's Italian parents who had a chippy in Kinson. 
 
Liddy didn't drive back then but she had no problems getting the rest of us to pick her up before gigs because we all knew that whoever got there first got the pickled wally and hot chips. What a result!
 
We gigged in just about every town in this country for a pittance which we never even saw because the sound guy got that. We toured, we made records, we signed deals, we did T.V. shows. We travelled to different countries, we had fab clothes, we played at Wembley, we did lots of radio roadshows, we worked harder than any other band I've ever known and we were mates. BUT............It wasn't for me. 
 
The band split. Sort of. Me and the Drummer, Tina left and the rest of them went to South Africa taking Lidia with them. She soon came back though and landed herself the job of bass player in Ezio, an outstanding and amazing band, so no complaints from Lid. Meanwhile I hooked up with a local producer Steve Ennever and we wrote a bunch of songs, did some cool gigs - with the help of some mates - and signed a huge recording contract in New York with Columbia Records.
 
Jon Leshay, who now manages Mandy Moore and various other artists, was the man who mentored me throughout. He lent me money he almost certainly never saw again, took me to great restaurants, introduced me to some pretty fantastic people, inspired me to write music when I didn't want to. Believed in me, got my songs used in films and TV, made his home my home every time I was over there and his family made me welcome around their dining table too many times to mention.
Twelve years on and I still send him everything I write because if Jon doesn't like it I know that nobody else will either. He has that wonderful gift which can sniff out the talent and spot a hook and a melody within the first few seconds of hearing it. 

Because I knew so many industry people over there in America I spent a year there on and off. I never had a green card so I had to keep coming back which I never wanted to do. Somehow I still feel that a little piece of me has been left over there under a tree or in a diner somewhere and I could see myself going back one day to live.

British Racing Green was recorded at Sunset Sound and Ocean Way Studios in LA and was mixed in New York. I don’t know if I liked going over there to work or to shop because that was often just as thrilling. (I’m not really into fashion at all but the clothes were cheaper and generally cooler and the make-up in Bloomingdales, well don’t even get me started on that.)

I would come back with bag loads of stuff.

Anyway, Mike Elizondo, producer and co-writer for Eminem and Dr.Dre, was our bass player, Brian McCloud was the drummer and Lyle Workman the guitarist and these guys were some of the best session musicians in the world and between them have worked on so many massive records. I was a very lucky little cockney.

We stayed in a complex in LA built for actors, musicians, film-makers and the like while they’re making movies and albums, so if I wasn’t in the studio, I was sat around the pool with all the stars of tomorrow. Life was tough back then.

The record took three months to make and the Americans seemed to like us Brits.  I felt at home. I remember Green Day spent a fair amount of time in our studio lounge because of all the English tea I made. That was before they trashed their own studio and Tori Amos gave me some very good advice about signing the deal when we met at The Four Seasons. I played her some piano and needless to say she quickly left.

I became friends with some glorious songwriters and musicians and had the time of my life. Was privileged to see some amazing live shows: David Bowie at the Amphitheatre in LA (although we had to leave early because the strobes were literally doing my epileptic mate’s head in) , Johnny Cash at The House Of Blues, Ricki Lee Jones in New York, Michael Stipe - who thought he had been to a party with me earlier that week - Madonna in a diner and I would also try to spy on Brad Pitt who lived down the road from Jon. I often saw Clint Eastwood, who was producing a record in the studio next to ours, and LOVED hearing all the rock and roll stories from the guys we were around.

So, when my album was never released and I had to come back to England with a big thump and had to try to make some money, it was a bit of a blow to say the least and I spent several years sulking.

I stopped writing songs and had my only son, Sid.

Having another mouth to feed put even more pressure on Sid’s father and I to keep money coming in and he was only doing little bits of supply work because he couldn’t get a permanent teaching job in Bournemouth. We were more broke than ever before so I got in touch with a local agent who said she could get me plenty of work in hotels in Bournemouth but that I would need a pianist. She gave me the telephone number of two piano players in the area.

One was a man who, when we spoke on the phone, didn’t exactly float my boat and the other was Esther. 
She answered the phone call and I said ‘ Hi, Michelle gave me your number, I’m looking to put a trio together to go out and get some work, I’m really skint. How old are you?’
She replied 

‘Twelve.’

And that was that! She was the one for me.

We met up a day or two later in my flat to have a kind of run through, to audition each-other sort of thing. She brought her Triton Korg Keyboard along and we began.
 ‘Do you know Ironic by Alanis?’ I asked

 ‘No’ she said.

Do you know, ‘Everyday Is A Winding Road, By Sheryl Crow?’

‘No,’  she said. And that’s how it went on until she said.....

‘Do you know the theme tune to Fame?’ I knew I was in trouble as she thrashed out the tune  so loud she woke the baby who was then only a few months old. 
I sang along but my God we sounded diabolical!

It was the worst audition in history and musically we were chalk and cheese. 
She hated every record in my collection and I wasn’t over keen on hers BUT somehow we both knew that we had to work together and not in hotels but we just had to work together.

We did go out as a duo doing loads of covers and sometimes we enjoyed it and other times we hated it. Sometimes we would literally cry before gigs because one of us wouldn’t want to go in and we’d turn the car around never to be seen again.

Until one day Steve Ennever asked me if I wanted his old piano, the one that used to be resident in Arnie’s Shack Studio, and because I wanted Sid to have piano lessons at some stage we made arrangements to collect it. 

One evening Esther came around to visit. She had been studying song writing at the Brighton Institute Of Music. She had moved to Brighton and I wasn’t seeing much of her at that time. We cracked open a bottle of wine, sat at the piano - having never written a song together before - and wrote ‘Superheroes’.

The start of another unique relationship took shape and Esther and I started writing permanently. It wasn’t easy finding time in between work  and motherhood but where ever possible we would squeeze in a few hours here and there. In time Esther and I had co-written a whole catalogue of songs and formed a solid and wonderful friendship for life.

She even comes on holiday with us because she can’t bear to miss out on anything fun that I’m doing.

With the help of Alan ’Big Al’ Hill at Sonic Studios in Poole our demos have been recorded and ready to be played to the world. 

So if Leona Lewis fancies recording one, can someone please let us know or if Bruce Willis is looking for a theme tune to the next big movie or if you want to see us play on your stage then get in touch. We write them, we play them, we love them. We do whatever comes next.

It’s been a tough, fun,  crazy, hard and relentless journey at times but we’re ready and up for arriving at our next destination!





 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Das Spezial is a daring UK-based independent record label, founded in 2019 by music producer Shahab Notghi, with the vision of curating a collective of musicians and artists dedicated to crafting bold, genre-defying music that disrupts convention and redefines the landscape of the UK independent music scene.

Rooted on the South Coast and nurtured across creative hubs in Bournemouth, London and Bristol, Das Spezial operates as a collaborative hive with Notghi at its core. Over the years, Notghi has been mentored by and worked alongside some of the industry’s most acclaimed veterans—including Steve Dubbs (The Chemical Brothers) and Clive Deamer (Radiohead)—experiences that continue to shape the collective’s innovative direction. The project now brings together producers, acclaimed musicians and vocalists —including Stew Jackson (Massive Attack), Ewan Pearson (Goldfrapp, Chemical Brothers), and others—each contributing their artistry to create immersive, cinematic soundscapes designed for both underground resonance and main-stage spectacle.

Their output showcases a fearless range: from orchestral crescendos and melodic ballads to punk-tinged lyricism and brooding electronica. Past projects and EP releases highlight their restless creativity, with string arrangements by Royal Academy alum Drew Morgan and contributions from a diverse roster of collaborators.

Das Spezial is more than a record label—they are cultivating a new wave of collaboration and creativity within the UK independent music scene, pushing boundaries through innovative production, world-class musicianship, and a vision that merges genres, influences, and disciplines into something truly unique.

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