The genre-defying rock star who brought screaming to Eurovision

When your music goes to the darkest of places, people respond. And Cassyette isn’t afraid of the shadows.

Over the last four years, the Brighton-based musician has dealt with life-changing problems. Her father died unexpectedly in 2020, triggering a period of substance and alcohol abuse that amplified her struggles with bipolar disorder, while her career was suddenly taking off.

She wrote her debut album in the midst of chaos, pouring all of those experiences into 15 gritty, eviscerating songs that swerve between rock, emo, pop, screamo and nu metal.

“It all just spewed out,” she says. “There are songs I made when I was in a high episode of mania, and there’s songs where I was in real lows.

“Sarkness is woven throughout the album because that’s where I was at the time, but there are different shades of darkness within it.”

That means the album can switch from the bubblegum melodies of Sugar Rush (about the thrill of chasing highs in the throes of addiction) to the pulverising chords of Porcelain, where the 29-year-old confronts the fragility of life.

With a unvarnished honesty, she titled the record This World [Expletive] Sucks.

“It was necessary, I was angry,” she says.

The musician was born Cassy Brooking in Essex the mid-1990s. In her youth, she was a convent-educated clarinet student. Then she discovered bands like Paramore, Korn, and Black Sabbath.

The sense of release was intoxicating. As a queer teenager in a strict religious environment, she often felt like a misfit or a reject. But bands like Motley Crue, with their OTT theatrics, hinted at a world where she could fit in.

By chance, her neighbour was a producer with an “insane guitar collection”. He needed a female vocalist for a “dark musical” he’d written, and it was there that Cassyette found her voice – ragged but powerful, always one step away from disintegrating with emotion.

After studying songwriting at university, she had a stint as a club DJ, playing at legendary fetish club Torture Garden and London drag event Sink The Pink.

Before long, those electronic textures seeped into her music, with bass drops and drum loops adding raw energy to her sawtooth guitar riffs.

And like every other musician under the sun, she blew up on TikTok during the pandemic, thanks partly to her ability to produce gale-force screams, even when covering Lady Gaga.

Early singles like Dear Goth and Prison Purse caught the attention of rebel icons like Debbie Harry and Liam Howlett of the Prodigy (who sprinkled some “magic dust” on her 2022 single Boom).

With her star rising, she played to packed-out tents at Glastonbury and Download. Then Bryan Adams asked her to tour with him.

If you think that seems like an odd fit, you’re right.

“Yeah it’s a pretty different audience,” she laughs, “but I played some of my more chilled, heartfelt stuff and it was really nice.”

She even ended up bonding with the Summer Of ’69 singer, who dutifully came to watch her show every night.

“He took my number afterwards – and he just checks up on me every now and then,” she beams. “He’s such a shining light.”

If you weren’t at Bryan’s UK tour, you may also have caught Cassyette at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, where she co-wrote the gothic horrorfest Doomsday Blue entry for Irish singer Bambie Thug.

It was, she says, a project they dreamed up together on a whim.

“It was absolutely bananas because the year before Bambie was on it, we watched the contest in my living room and we were all like, “Hmm, Bambs, you’d be really, really good at this!”

“And then they just went and made it happen! So it was crazy just to see Bambie seize it. They’re a true punk, and they are such a such a great artist and person.”

The song eventually took sixth place, and the experience also allowed Cassyette to meet Ireland’s former Eurovision contestants Jedward – who have now become some of her biggest supporters, even staging a brilliantly messy livestream to promote her debut album.

“Oh, I love them. They’re just absolute babes,” she says, while sidestepping the question of whether they’d ever duet.

“I think… I think… I think we’d have creative differences!” she says.

“But I’d be keen to write them a song of their own. They have a bit of a George Michael vibe in the way that they sing and I’d love to explore that, because I’m a massive George Michael fan.”

That’s one of the dichotomies of Casyette’s music. Like a lot of rock’s new generation – Nova Twins, Halestorm, Yungblud – she sees no distinction between the shiny allure of a pop hook and the meaty viscera of heavy metal.

“I guess it’s just cherry picking the music that I’ve grown up loving,” she says.

“Everything I make is going to be infused with what I like… and I like a lot of different things.”

Reviews for her debut album have been glowing. Metal Hammer said it “feels like a vision for the future”. The Skinny praised its “cut-deep lyrics” and “powerhouse voice”.

“The album does absolute justice to her status as a new, genre-defying voice in rock,” wrote DIY magazine.

Every review singles out one track in particular: When She Told Me – an acid-burned snapshot of the moment Casyette was told her father had died.

It was a bolt from the blue. Tim Brooking was healthy and fit – a former pole vaulter and bobsleigh racer, who competed for Britain and whose cousin was former England footballer Sir Trevor Brooking.

No-one expected him to have a heart attack. In the song, Cassyette describes it as her world turning upside down. Astonishingly, it’s not a metaphor.

“This really weird thing happened where my entire vision flipped upside down,” she says.

“I found out later it’s a phenomenon that can happen when your brain’s overwhelmed. You can’t function properly. And basically, that happened to me.

“It was only for about 10 seconds, but it was really scary. Everything was upside down and moving in slow motion, like the world was caving in.

“I can’t forget it. It’s something I have flashbacks to quite a lot. So I felt I needed to write about it – an explanation of exactly what the feeling was, that I can go back to and listen to when I want to re-contextualize it.”

That’s how a lot of her songs start.

Cassyette says she often feels things physically before she understands them – so she jots down the symptoms, and returns to them later to examine why she feels uncomfortable or elated or exhausted.

“I’m gonna say the cliché thing, but music is therapy for a lot of artists, and it is for me.

“I’ll only write something if there’s an intention behind it.”

As you can imagine, fans who’ve been through similarly tough experiences are compelled to share their stories with the singer.

“Oh my God, it happens all the time,” she says. “And I’m like, ‘I’m here for you, but I’m not qualified to help!’”

With that in mind, she’s started arming herself with contacts for people who need help.

“Some people will be like, ‘You got me through this’. And I’m like, ‘No, you got yourself through it – but if your only outlet has been my song, then you need to go and have conversations with other people about how you’re feeling’.”

If she keeps this up, Cassyette’s corner of the world won’t suck so hard, after all.