Brave Rival

Brave Rival are the South East’s brand-new rip-roaring rock and blues Machine. Hailing from Portsmouth, the UK Blues Award Nominated band features the powerful and beautiful twin vocals of Chloe Josephine and Lindsey Bonnick. On lead guitar, providing dramatic guitar solos and crunching rock riffs is Ed “The Shred” Clarke. And holding it all together is the rhythmic backbone, the self-proclaimed engine room of Billy Dedman (bass) and Donna Peters (drums).

Drawing influence from the likes of John Mayer, Aretha Franklin, Heart, Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin and Tedeschi Trucks, Brave Rival offer a style and sound that you’ve always known, and yet never heard before.

Since their inception in the summer of 2019, Brave Rival have gone from strength to strength, featuring in Raw Ramp Magazine as one of the 'Top 20 Bands To Watch In 2020' and nominated for 'Breakthrough Act 2019' by Get Ready To Rock Radio.

At the turn of the decade, hot off the heels from supporting blues rock giants such as Stevie Nimmo and The Billy Walton Band, Brave Rival captured their raw energy live by recording their headline set to a gracious sold-out audience at Hook’s famous Echo Hotel Music Club. This fabulous set of early material was quickly released to critical acclaim as their first Live Album ‘Brave Rival Live at the Echo Hotel Music Club’. Keeping the momentum going, a Kickstarter was launched for their first studio album with the target easily reached by their loyal fanbase with time to spare. It was then time to repay that loyalty with a studio album. Little did they know however, that the world was about to change forever.

With the pandemic putting the brakes on recording plans, Brave Rival spent much of the UK Lockdowns writing new material via the power of Zoom calls and Google drive. The abundance of material produced served them well for the eventual recording of their debut album in the summer of 2021. Recorded at The Mayfair Studio in the picturesque Surrey countryside with producer/seducer Tarrant Shepherd at their side, Brave Rival’s highly anticipated debut album “Life’s Machine” arrived on May 6th 2022 to critical acclaim. Emerging Rocks Bands Magazine said it best when they described the album as “Boss blues energy from start to finish”. Similarly, Powerplay Magazine finished their ten out of ten review by saying that “Brave Rival have unleashed one lean, mean and well oiled machine!”

With the release of their debut album, the band hit the ground running with a relentless 2022 tour schedule which saw them perform at the Isle of Wight Festival, London’s famous 100 Club, Colne Blues Festival and Cornwall Rocks. Tours supporting Elles Bailey, Dom Martin, Corky Laing and Laurence Jones saw the band travel the breadth of the country connecting with audiences everywhere they went.

The Life’s Machine album appeared on multiple end of year, best album lists including Get Ready To Rock Radio, Rock & Blues Muse, NWOCR, Wrinkly Rockers Club, Blues Rock Review and Great Music Stories. The Album was the 4th most played on the IBBA charts. Combined with a 2022 UK Blues Nomination for Best Emerging Band already under their cap, the band began 2023 with 5 nominations in the 2023 UK Blues Awards. Including ‘UK blues band of the year’, ‘UK acoustic act of the year’, ‘UK blues vocalist of the year (Lindsey and Chloe)’ , ‘UK instrumentalist of the year (Donna and Ed’) , ‘Jules Fothergil young UK blues artist of the year (Ed)’

Tipped as one of Joe Bonamassa’s “favourite discoveries this year” the future is looking incredibly bright for this young up and coming band. Brave Rival are a band on a meteoric rise, firing on all cylinders and are about to take the world by storm. Their unique combination of beautifully harmonic, soulful vocals, epic guitar solos, pounding drums and powerful bass serves up an infectious sound that is not to be missed.

Brave Rival are a band on a meteoric rise, firing on all cylinders and are about to take the world by storm. Their unique combination of beautifully harmonic, soulful vocals, epic guitar solos, pounding drums and powerful bass serves up an infectious sound that is not to be missed.