Pete du Pon is an English singer/ songwriter making waves as an up and coming unsigned artist touted as the next James Taylor. With a voice that sends shivers down the spine and lyrics which melt hearts, Pete has has been earmarked for great things. Pete du Pon's talent for songwriting has reached the ears of soulful songstress, Amy Macdonald. Pete, a songwriter of true conviction, whose current EP, Lost, is top ten in the Amazon singles chart, will open for Amy at six gigs around Britain during May. "I'm thrilled to be touring with Amy and supporting her at some of her UK gigs," says the 27-year-old from Guildford. "Like her, I was, and still am, massively influenced by the music I heard when growing up. Pete has also worked with Rollo of Faithless and his writers, and has co-written songs with Jamiroquai guitarist, Si Katz. His other fans include Brian McFadden and various writers such as Julian Gallagher (U2, James Morrison) and Blair Mackichan (Lilly Allen, Will Young) while Paolo Nutini had more than a word or two of encouragement for him at one of his recent gigs at London's The Water Rats.

Pete wrote his own first songs at 15, performing them in the quietness of his bedroom. Not until his first gig in France aged 21, playing to a mixture of pensive locals and British tourists, did they get an airing.

From performing three nights a week with a friend in various bars in the centre of Grenoble, France, gigs followed elsewhere in the country, including Meribel where the different crowds would demand more covers - "up tempo stuff that the drinkers could sway to". After seven months of feeling like a glorified karaoke machine, the then 22-year-old Pete returned to Britain to finish his degree and take on a variety of jobs to finance time spent writing his own songs.

After a short spell of work experience at Universal Records in the synchronisation team, filing other

songwriter's names, his demo cd was picked up by publisher John Woolf who got him to re - record the rough bedroom versions of Pete's demos in various studios, as well as writing, recording new songs and hanging out with writers such as Jacob Schulze in Sweden, Arthur Baker and Rollo from Faithless.

"Through Rollo's own record label under Universal I worked with him and his writers on some material. At first, writing with other people was a bit of a culture shock. Even now I'm still learning to talk about what I'm feeling to other writers, but bit by bit it's getting easier!"

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