Metal, Hardcore, Indie, Rock
Picture by ashleabeaphoto
12-year-old Harper is the youngest performer at Download Festival
The UK’s most popular rock festival Download has come to an end. The festival saw a lot of bands and artists play from 14th to 16th of June. This year marked a highlight for the festival as it had the youngest performer ever to grace the Donington stage. It saw no other than the rising young metalcore star Harper, who, with only 12 years of age, ripped apart the stage with her amazing voice.
The young artist became famous after an impressive performance at America’s Got Talent, covering the song “Holy Roller” by Spiritbox. She was only 9-year-old back then. Not only does she upload covers of songs by Bad Omens, I Prevail, Bring Me The Horizon etc. on YouTube, Harper also dropped three original songs. In 2022 the young artist signed to Pale Chord/Rise Records and released her debut song “Falling”. For this song she was helped in the writing and producing by Chris Wiseman of the bands Currents and Shadow of Intent and Ben Lumber from the band Acres. Her first single was followed by “Weight Of The World” featuring We Came As Romans and Brand Of Sacrifice and “I Hope You Choke”. Her new song “Bird In a Cage” is expected to come out now, on the 21st of June.
As the youngest ever performer at Download Festival and also this being her live debut, Harper brought her three original songs and a cover of Bring Me The Horizon’s “Chelsea Smile” to the stage.
About her performance at Download she told the British music magazine Kerrang:
“It’s just amazing, like I’m happy. I’m like, upset, because I was nervous and I didn’t want to cry – I hate crying in front of people and I was like when I am nervous, I cry. [Also] I felt angry. I just wanted to feel angry so that I can perform on stage and let it all out. And I was like trying to think of stuff that made me angry. I was like “I don’t know!”. Definitely I was [also] excited. I was anxious, just so many emotions going through my head. It was better than what I thought it would be. But honestly when I was on there, I thought, like, no one would sing along with my songs. I thought it would just be a nice performance of everyone headbanging and stuff and then they knew my songs and I was like ‘How do they know my songs?’. I was like ‘My songs are like known, but not well known, so not for you guys to sig along!’. And I was like ‘Why are you singing along? I didn’t know you guys knew my songs!’. I felt like tearing up, honestly.”
This may just be the starting point of this young female artist’s career. A great future for female power in metal is ahead!