Джулианна Реган: от ZigZag до All About Eve

English Irish singer, songwriter and musician

Julianne Regan (born 30 June 1962) is an English/Irish
singer, songwriter, and musician. She achieved success in the late 1980s and early 1990s having formed the band All About Eve. Her major role in the band was as lead singer and songwriter. AllMusic describes Regan as "certainly one of the more talented singers of the late eighties British goth rock scene".

At the age of 15, Julianne Regan was given a Woolworths electric guitar by a cousin and taught herself to play.

Regan moved to London aged 19 and found work as a journalist for music magazine ZigZag, while studying at the London College of Fashion. In her capacity as a journalist, she interviewed Gene Loves Jezebel and subsequently joined that band on bass guitar. Soon after, apparently unhappy with the tension between the group's twin frontmen, she left to make music with friend and former Xmal Deutschland drummer Manuela Zwingmann, while working in a book shop on Charing Cross Road after Zig Zag went bust. During this period she met, though friends of friends, both Andy Cousin and Tim Bricheno then both playing for goth band Aemotii Crii. The band that resulted, at first consisting of Regan, Zwingman, Bricheno and James Richard Jackson, was originally called The Swarm, but was changed to All About Eve after Regan and Zwingman watched the classic film at Regan's parents' house in Southport, Lancashire.

The first line up recorded the single "D For Desire" in 1985, but, following disagreements around artistic direction between Zwingmann and Regan, the former left the band. Soon after this, Andy Cousin replaced Jackson on bass, thus creating the first well known All About Eve line up of Bricheno, Cousin and Regan, plus a drum machine. The group recorded demos and played several gigs. In 1986, Regan met ex The Sisters of Mercy guitarist Wayne Hussey. Hussey was then recording the first Mission album God's Own Medicine and was so impressed with Regan's voice that he asked her to contribute backing vocals to the song "Severina". This started a close collaboration between the two bands that continues to this day, and at the time got All About Eve signed to the Mission's record label (on the back of them being support to the Mission's first tour and Regan appearing on several TV programmes with the Mission for performances of "Severina"). Regan also provides backing vocals on The Mission songs "Beyond The Pale," "Tomorrow Never Knows," "Black Mountain Mist," and "Wishing Well", which appears on the US version of their early songs collection album The First Chapter. A full time drummer Mark Price was recruited to All About Eve in 1987. Following a now infamous appearance on the BBC television music programme Top of the Pops in July 1988, All About Eve soon hit the big time with the first album and the single "Martha's Harbour" peaking within the top ten of the UK Albums Chart and UK Singles Chart respectively, along with four other top forty hits on the latter chart between the summers of 1988 and 1989. Bricheno left the band at the end of 1990 (and joined The Sisters of Mercy), to be replaced by Church guitarist Marty Willson Piper for All About Eve's third album, Touched by Jesus, for which David Gilmour from Pink Floyd also contributed guitar work on two songs. Touched By Jesus did not quite enjoy the commercial success of the first two albums and All About Eve subsequently changed record labels to MCA in 1992. Here they were to record their fourth (and final) studio album Ultraviolet, a somewhat psychedelic move in which, as Regan later admitted, her vocals were mixed too far down into the swirling guitars, with the result sounding something akin to Cranes or Spiritualized. This alienated fans, and the record did not make the Top 40. MCA dropped the band from their contract.

Regan and the rest of the band parted company during the writing sessions for what might have been All About Eve's fifth album. Cousin, Price and Willson Piper completed it without her, and it eventually saw the light of day under the group name and title of Seeing Stars. Under the group name The Harmony Ambulance, Regan did release one single very soon after the All About Eve split for Geoff Travis' Rough Trade label. The double A side, "Nature's Way" and "All This And Heaven". Regan turned down an offer to work full time with that band. She also recorded vocals for the Schaft track "Broken English". Regan also occasionally performed live with Fairport Convention, singing some of the lead vocals on "Who Knows Where the Time Goes", "Blackwaterside", and "After Halloween". Some of these tracks can be found on the albums Circle Dance – The Hokey Pokey Charity Compilation, Fairport Convention: 25th Anniversary Concert, and Cropredy Capers – 25 Years of the Festival. Regan then dropped off the public radar. Rumours of a collaboration with Suede's Bernard Butler fluttered briefly and then died out. It later transpired that the rumours were true, but that during the recording session, she and Butler had fallen out in a spectacular fashion. "I don't really know why it exploded the way it did, but it did. It was a small thing that turned into a big thing, that turned into an enormous thing" was Regan's later analysis of these events.

Revolving around a central core of Regan, Tim McTighe, former Levitation member Christian Hayes (aka 'Bic') and, for studio recordings, the original All About Eve drummer Mark Price, Mice released their first single, "Mat's Prozac", in November 1995, which charted in the UK. This was followed by a second UK charting EP single "The Milkman" released in April 1996 with the Lynsey De Paul song Martian Man. Countrywide touring followed as did an album Because I Can recorded for indie label Permanent Records. Many collaborators took part in this band, including both Marty Willson Piper and Andy Cousin which led to people questioning why this band was not launched as another incarnation of All About Eve. Regan said that this was deliberate in that she had wanted the new band to be just that. Musically, it did indeed sound somewhat harsher than All About Eve and Regan would later say of it, "It showed that I could be Preraphaelitic but I still had to get on the bus and go to Tesco's." With Because I Can making the Indie Top Ten, the future began to look fairly positive for Mice, but Permanent Records went out of business in 1997, leaving the album and the three singles "Mat's Prozac", "The Milkman" and "Dear Sir" hanging in the shops without promotion or replacement.

Jules et Jim is a collaboration between Regan and Jean Marc Lederman (formerly of The Weathermen and Gene Loves Jezebel). In 1999 they released a single, "Swimming", followed by a six track EP, Subtitles in 2002. Regan also featured on Lederman's soundtracks for the computer games Fairies and Mystic Inn by Funpause, and Rock Legend by Positech; and also vocals on a number of tracks on Lederman's La Femme Verte album project.