Eileen The Musician

I've always had a band since 1998 My first band in 1998 Was called The Courtesans, I was featured in a TV show on ITV called Nightlife looking back on that now we were dreadful, Oh correction, I was dreadful.

















I had named the band myself when they hired me in, none of the songs was my own,  they were the lead guitarist who was a lead singer before me so consequentially the  band has been playing those songs for so long in the lead guitarist key, so when I came along, they were still doing the key that the lead guitarist was singing and he was a lot higher than me.   

I'm not making excuses, it was just a fact I never had a clue, looking back it's funny now because they sacked me, I remember it well, I was doing a fashion show in the West End and I got a telephone call from the guitarist who told me that I was sacked and he was very sorry,  I remember being really upset.












So I started my own band, well it wasn't really a band it was just me I named it Jezebel, it had a gothic rock vibe about it, more suited to my dulcet tones.  By this time this was 2001 I made a rock album with Ralph Cardell as the producer, writing my own songs plus using other songwriters Nigel Wingrove, and Tom Callaghan, Sadly Tom isn't with us anymore he died in 2021, very sad day that was,
Ralph was a wonderful producer.

The album got into Virgin record Tower records you could buy it online I was very proud and so was Tom
and Nigel, and its sold very well, in my opinion, it was a great CD Gothic Rock ballad Album, But deep inside me I still want my own rock band gypsy Glam Beats with punkish vocals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 2004, I met just the guy Ben Thirkettle he was a producer played lead guitar, Spanish guitar, bass and drums, for me, it was a match made in heaven,  The Courtesan's Rebirth in 2005 we brought out our pink 7-inch vinyl of WebCam Girl and Burnout under the label Triple Silence we made 666 Limited editions all numbered.

Of course it wasn't just Ben and me, we also had a basis of drummer,  and  were gigging around London and all over the country in small venues  and also big ones that were well known at the time 12 Bar, Dingles, Hundred club to say just a few, they were good times we had a lot of fun, one thing that we couldn't keep the musicians they would change constantly.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only people that were still in the band would be me and Ben we would write all the songs do the pop videos with my friend Lindsey Studholme on camera and editing.  Then in 2011 another band started up and they called themselves The Courtesans even though we were all over the Internet as the Courtesans.

We asked through triple silence the record company, if they would change their name as we had already been using that name since 2004, Oh what we got back was malicious Internet trolling slamming everything we did on social media, hatred towards the band  and myself it became very nasty, four girls rock band style, that would do belly dancing in the middle of their set.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One girl in particular in the band had a lot of time on her hands it brings to mind idle hands do the devils work this girl, in particular, seemed to make it her full-time job in slandering us all over the Internet.  In 2014 we got offered to go onto The X Factor after seeing us at a gig, which we accepted as  The Courtesans who we were at the time, straight after that they trademarked the name So we couldn't use the name anymore it was finished for us.  The Courtesans were History,

But in a strange way it was good, we started to alter our sound and we came out with Eileen and Ben sound Gypsy, classical with bongo beats.  It was fun we had no band it was just me and Ben as a duo, which was freeing because we didn't have to worry about anybody else rehearsals were simple and our song writing was getting stronger.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I then got offered to go into Big Brother and took the gig,  when I came out I found I wanted afresh start with our band, I was making feature films and TV shorts films, one film in particular, my vampire film called ‘First Bite’ was close to our hearts, I love horror films and had stared in many Vampire movies, so we came up with the name the ‘Chelsea vampires’ as we were living in Chelsea at the time.

I had just finished editing the vampire film and the rest is history I've made five feature films the first one was ‘Mr Crispin’ Second one was ‘Hollywood Betrayed’ the third one was ‘First Bite’ fourth one was ‘Witches Brew’ fifth one is ‘She's a Bitch’ and I'm so proud to say Ben produced all the film score to each of these movies as over the years we have learnt so much a lot of ups and downs and pitfalls and picking ourselves back up again we are still going strong today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sad to say the band that took our name The Courtesans no longer exists, they failed at the first hurdle in 2018 and were gone, but they did not  make it.  They thought it would be easy to be rich and famous, to be Centre stage at Glastonbury making a big splash, they didn't realise it takes dedication, push and stamina it's not easy being in the entertainment business you have to have a backbone.  It's not all glamour, it's hard work. I wish them luck in whatever they're
doing now no hard feelings. Love and Light.

In 2025 the ‘Chelsea Vampires’ will be scoring my next movie Devilish Horror ‘Mummies Angel’
and hopefully we will be bringing out two albums or maybe three! I'm just hoping, as we have
so much material and I'm very very excited about it all, Ben's been working so hard
and it sounds wicked!