Liverpool’s Brad Kella - winner of Channel 4’s hit TV series The Piano - shares his debut single, 'Eve & Frank', released via his hometown based record label Modern Sky.
The track is a love letter to his foster parents, who took in Brad and his brother. The single is a recorded version of the piece performed by Brad on the finale of The Piano. Arranged by Rosie Danvers (Noel Gallagher, Adele, Michael Kiwanuka), the piece demonstrates Brad’s incredible talent both in playing but also composition. ‘Eve & Frank’ is also the title track from his forthcoming debut album, due out in 2025. Recorded at the legendary RAK Studios in London, it’s everything you’d expect it to be, if you know Brad’s story: dazzling, full of depth, emotional.
On recording the album, Brad says: “They sent me down to RAK Studios in London to record an album. Some of the best string players in the world were there, reading through pages of manuscript, but I managed to get through the whole session – eight hours – just remembering it off the top of my head, because I can’t read music. I was thirteen when I first saw a piano, now I’m twenty-three, so I feel like I was born to do it.”
Listen to ‘Eve & Frank’ on the Liverpool Official playlist.
There are fewer stories more heartfelt and inspiring in music than Brad Kella’s. Though only at the beginning of a promising career, there have been enough peaks and troughs that would discourage the most hardened artists. Coming through early adversity, being fostered and ending up living on the streets – he went on to win Channel 4’s national televised talent show, The Piano.
Growing up initially in Bootle, a working-class suburb of Liverpool, a problematic family situation led to Brad and his twin brother being placed into foster care at the age of seven. In this more stable environment, Brad’s love of music was given room to blossom.
“After seeing that teacher play piano in high school, I went home and asked my foster parents – Eve and Frank – if I could have a piano, which just seemed like a pipe dream. At first they got me a keyboard, and I picked it up really quickly. Then there was this government grant available to kids who’d been fostered, which funded an electric piano for me.”
After walking out of his GCSE exams, but earning a scholarship to the Liverpool School of Performing Arts (LIPA), Brad’s world was again turned upside down, after turning eighteen, when the death of his mother led to a spiral in which he was effectively homeless for a period. Brad and his long-time girlfriend drifted around Liverpool.
By chance, he was filmed playing one of the public pianos in Liverpool One shopping centre. The video went viral, pricking the ears of the producers of a new, classical music-based talent show on Channel 4 called The Piano. Somehow, they found him and urged him to audition.
