Undettered, Helen moaned, whined and was generally very annoying until her parents agreed to let her have piano lessons and, at 8 years old, got her a second hand piano and lessons with a brilliant local teacher. Since then there's been no stopping her! Helen competed in music festivals (Slough Arts, not Glastonbury) winning medals and cups for her performances, and got her grade 8 aged 17. By then, Helen had also discovered the flute and a love of singing, although it was impossible to do both at the same time! Helen joined the school and church choirs (the latter because she fancied one of the choristers!) but was desperate to sing something a bit more funky. Not wishing to stop her musical education at this point, Helen went on to get a music degree from Sussex University, and whilst living in Brighton discovered the joy of live gigs and developed a somewhat 'groupie' tendency towards Wham, U2 and The Jam, so much so that she spent the remains of her first term's grant on an exceptionally overpriced ticket to see The Jam's last concert at the Brighton Centre.
80s music is part of Helen's soul, but you can also find her humming away to Puccini, Franz Ferdinand, The Kinks or Abba, which is how she ended up as backing vocalist and keyboards for the Abba tribute band, Bjorn Free. Desperate to move away from the classical solo performances, Helen was thrilled to be invited to join Bjorn Free and got her first real taste of playing in a band with people who knew what they were doing with their instruments! When four of the band members had eventually had enough of Abba (yes, it does happen!) and Indiana Blue were formed, Helen was thankful that as well as being able to ditch the Abba stuff, she was able to ditch the keyboards as well and move up to the front line with Ash to provide the unique female vocal sound that is now Wildhoney.