The long awaited debut album from Capetonian songstress, Auriol Hays is, after a year of writing, recording and producing OUT!

2009 has seen Auriol Hays in out of Cape Town International and OR Tambo airports recoding songs, doing photo shoots and music videos, performing at shows, while being a mum and wife all at the same time!

The debut album, Behind Closed Doors, is now available: the album is collection of mature classy alternative pop fused with some jazzy soul and wedged between some darker power ballads. Auriol has the vocal prowess likened to Amy Winehouse and Nina Simone with the infectious beats of Sophie Ellis Baxter.

The album features the hit tracks Take It Slow and Turn Up The Volume, both of which have received massive commercial radio success. The album will, at one moment, have you dancing on the tables, and in the next, holding your heart heavily in its musical hands.

Auriol Hays was born and raised all over the Western Cape everywhere from Mitchells Plain to Eerste River. She grew listening to classical and jazz music in a family of musicians.

As a child, she was very quiet hiding beneath what would later be revealed as an extraordinarily talented shell. As a teenager, she spread her small vocal wings a little, albeit to an audience of one – herself! And despite coming from a musical family where mum played piano and her brothers played guitar, Auriol kept her vocal talent and songwriting very much disguised.

It would be four whole years of marriage before Auriol even admitted to her husband that she had singing talent. Her husband, Shane, stumbled upon her talent by chance when he found Auriol singing their newborn daughter to sleep.

A chance meeting with songwriter / producer extraordinaire, Andre Scheepers, brought the collaboration into fruition. Auriol and Andre met each other by accident: Auriol needed a keyboard player. Andre needed a new talent to mould. The result would be a top ten hit on 5fm’s Top Forty called Take It Slow.

The single, Take It Slow, quickly ended up on radio play lists across the country and the team was rapidly approached by Electromode. Auriol was flown up to Johannesburg, twice in three days, to do a photo shoot, a music video shoot, two gigs, a live television performance in front of 9 million viewers and, of course, to sign a lucrative record deal.

Andre’s and Auriol’s differing writing styles and influences would seem conflicting in any other circumstances. But for some reason, it works!! Auriol is influenced by acts as varied as Radiohead and System of A Down, or Nina Simone and Ella Fitzgerald. Auriol writes about darker emotions and admits that she never writes happy loves songs. That she leaves all to Andre.

Bass player to the stars, one Brendon Ou-Tim accompanies the pair on bass and double bass to complete the sexy alternative pop style of Auriol Hays and her band.

Auriol has been invited to perform at this year’s Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and is planning a European tour to showcase South Africa’s talent.

For more information, samples, interviews or bookings, please contact Morgan Kaye or Nomfundo Mncadi at Electromode on +2711 463 0248 or email morgan@electromode.co.za, nomfundo@electromode.co.za.