In Conversation With Colin: Chantel McGregor

Chantel McGregor continues to captivate audiences across the UK, even though at the age of fourteen major labels told her that ‘girls don’t play guitar like that’. Ignoring this, Chantel enrolled at Leeds College of Music, achieving the first-ever 100% pass mark and earning a First Class Honours Degree in Popular Music and the prestigious Musician of the Year award.

Chantel’s stunning live performances and effortless virtuosity have built her a dedicated and ever expanding fan base. Early in her career, she was invited to perform with Joe Bonamassa on his British tours, a testament to her remarkable talent.

Colin Palmer sat down with Chantel for ‘The Rock Vault’ radio show and chatted about her new album.

Yorkshire born Chantel McGregor is upbeat, confident and full of optimism about her latest album The Healing, coming ten years after her last studio album, Lose Control. “Life got in the way,” she jokes as she speaks. Admittedly there has been a live album and two semi-acoustic Shed Sessions released in the interim. “I’m constantly on the road, and trying to write when you’re touring is exhausting and you don’t really get much time, and because I do all the admin work and run the record label and do the publicity it’s as if everything gets in the way. It gets to ten o’clock at night and you’re still booking hotels and you just don’t feel like sitting down and writing, I just want to go to bed.”

Her candour, mixed with humour and humility is refreshing, so when we sit down to talk about the songs on her superb new guitar driven prog infused rock album she readily opens up about the deeply individual subject matter. Her songs often stake out a woman’s eye-view of romantic entanglements that paint her more as a winner than a victim. 

“The whole album is very personal and autobiographical and ‘Broken Heartless Liar’ was a song I wrote about my failed relationships. I actually went through some notes I had made quite a few years ago when I was in a bit of a naff relationship, and I drew on all of those experiences and all the sadness and anger and I thought ok, I can channel this and put it into a song.”

On The Healing, Chantel has written songs about big issues: self-empowerment, close family illness, self-acceptance, ex-boyfriends…and she does so without shame, which usually implies a willingness to show your sincerity. Hew new songs illustrate more profoundly than her previous work just what an astute songwriter and affecting vocalist she is.

Brought into the mix are Oli Brown and Wayne Proctor from rock band The Dead Collective, both were heavily involved in the song writing process with Wayne also taking on mixing and mastering duties alongside Oli who co-produced. “I’ve known them both for years and years,” explains Chantel. “We did a trial thing and then got stuck in and did the album.”

She reveals that the title track ‘The Healing’ was the hardest song on the album to sing when it came to recording the vocal. “My mum was really ill a couple of years ago and we nearly lost her and this was the song that was cathartic writing it as this was the biggest thing that’s ever happened in my life. It’s a sad song and a very emotional song but then you get to a point in it where you do find an uplifting end where you find your healing.”

McGregor remains steadfastly independent as an artist. “I’ve had so many offers and it’s a closed shop industry and you can only do so much as an independent artist. But I’ve had offers where they’ve said ‘you’ve got to wear different clothes, and we don’t like how you look, and your music needs to be more blues’ and it’s like well no, as an artist you thrive on your art and not being told you should supress that and do 12 bar blues and wear skinny jeans, so no – I like my dresses.

“I just think if the music industry had a bit more strength to it with people being a bit more independent and not getting screwed over which is a big issue with this industry, its cut-throat and there’s a lot of people trying to take advantage, and artists that lack experience are vulnerable and I think people should help each other rather than screw each over really.”

Excerpts of this interview were broadcast on ‘The Rock Vault’ May 27^th 2025

Colin Palmer

Photos by Heather Elliot