Joy Barnum has been singing to the radio for as long as she can remember and her influences range from English singer Dido to hard rock chick Skunk Anansie.

Her singing rarely shows her Christian heritage but she sang a lot in the Seventh Day Adventist Church choir.

Ms Barnum is currently working in the studio with The Feel of Music and hopes to launch her first CD with the band shortly.

Ms Barnum, who has a Bermudian mother and a Californian father, said: "I wish I had something more original, but it was the church choir."

Her repertoire ranges from soft soul, choral, a cappella, opera, country and western, and rock music.

"In church I'd sing a cappella and my grandfather said it was really good, because other people were tone deaf," she said.

At the time she did not know what he meant then, but now she clearly knows because she teaches voice at The Bermuda School of Music and Kinder Music.

On Sunday, Ms Barnum debuted with The Feel of Music, a new local music production company, at Concert in the Park.

She picked all of the songs she wanted to sing and they were narrowed them down to her absolute favourites, which are 80s ballads.

"I wanted to do some Bonny Ray, but they kicked that out," she said."But they let me do a Shania Twain country song and I am doing a Dido song, because I absolutely love it and it is applicable."

After completing Bermuda Institute Ms Barnum attended Oakwood College, in Huntsvile, Alabama, to which she attributes her country accent.

When she first attended college she was horrified to learn that she was not a tenor, as she originally thought, but was instead a soprano.

"At first it was hard to come to terms with the fact and I spent a lot of time crying at university," she said.

Ms Barnum returned to the Island in 2000 and feels that now is the time for her to really use her voice.

She said her voice teacher Ginger Beazley was disappointed by her not returning to do her masters degree.

"She was a really groovy older lady, who wouldn't tell how old she was," she said, "She had red hair and this voice that would blow down an entire room and she'd only take students with really big voices, so with mine we had to harness it.

"So now I have a fairly decent range and I'm able to sing the soft and I'm able to kick it out loud by combining my chest and my head voice ? it just creates a nice medium throughout the song, instead of startling you like a Mozart piece."

Ms Barnum also took diction in university and sings in French, Italian, Latin and German.

She also studied opera and was in a chamber choir, did choral work and the sheet music style, and that's good she said.

Ms Beazley told her that she would eventually have to quit choirs and go solo, which she said was fine with her, because in a choir, everyone has to blend with the same voice."

Singing solo was good and little did her teacher know that Ms Barnum and her friends had a secret rock band.

"It was on the sly because we couldn't do any singing outside of school," she said, "We would be slamming every Friday night, which was a no, no, because I went to a Christian college."

"My voice teacher was kind of upset when she found out. I have a bit of a rock edge going on, but classical training, so I can be prim and proper and you can have the Governor or if you want to get drunk with some rock I am cool too."

Ms Barnum said most people have natural talent, but she also wanted to have something to fall back on and a university degree provided that.

"I don't have any money, but I am not the starving artist," she said, "I am thinking about going to London to sing in the Subway (Tube) ? they sound really good down there. I just want to sing really."

On the question of whether she would see her name in lights, the singer came up with an interesting answer.

Ms Barnum said: "Now this is going to sound really clich?, because every singer wants to be an actress, but I see my name up there on the credits on some really cool independent film."

She was also the understudy to Hollywood actress Robin Givens' in a local play, in which Ms Givens did not want to act, but direct.

Ms Givens told her that she reminded her of herself when she was younger.

"I don't know what she was like when she was younger, so I hope it was a compliment," she said.

Being serious, she said if she could encompass anyone it would be Barbra Streisand and her reasons were that she was absolutely terrific on both screen and stage.

Ms Barnum has also been featured in two commercials, one which advertised milk because she had white teeth and the other for water.

She also models for her friend, local designer Amethyst, who designs the Spirit Wear Collection and she modelled last Thursday at the 'Show Off' Magazine launch party.

"I stay involved with stuff that doesn't concern music, because I take it so seriously and I don't want to wake up and write a song that doesn't make any sense, like Pink Balloons," she said.

Many of her songs were written by Vejay Steede, because she thought she was not a songwriter, but when she did start writing she said: "It was like, oh my goodness that's so wicked. You won't be hearing any of those because they are unabashedly rock!"

Other members of the band are Dwayne Mello, guitarist, Abimbola (Bim) Bademosi, who manages keyboards and pre-recorded sound, Robert Edwards, keyboarder, and Shine Hayward, saxophonist.

Her background singers are members of the Silhouette band and she added they were hardly background singers ? they are good.

Ms Barnum said she could not say what her favourite R&B song was adding that she led a sheltered life.

"I don't know if anyone, unless they were Seventh Day Adventist would recognise the Heritage Singers, but they are this really sedate eight part harmony group," she said, "So I used to harmonise off that.

And when she and her sister Ruth were with their babysitter they were introduced to MTV, because they didn't have television at home.

In college she was exposed to Hip Hop through the Canadians, who did break dancing.

She also loves British rock band Prodigy.

"Oh I love them," she said, "I love people that I perhaps shouldn't like because of the controversy, but I have seen maybe one or two Marilyn Manson videos and they are really hot.

Ms Barnum feels that songwriters have a responsibility to speak about the issues facing a nation.

Ms Barnum said her heart also goes out to those fighting in Iraq.

"All the people that they are killing every day that they just pile up in a trench and bury. And for the guys who don't believe in the war that have to go anyway... And then they are killed, by like, friendly fire. How friendly was it, if you are dead?

"It worries me and it is not helping the economy any. I mean the dollar is going down. When Clinton was in, the US had excess money.

"Now we are back to a deficit. So I like politics and music. I think that is the place for them."

She thought that U2's Bono found a place for both politics and music.

"If nothing gets conveyed through the music than it is just candy and pop. It's not going to last long, it is just a fad."

When asked if she was still a Seventh Day Adventist she had an insightful response.

"I wouldn't be the people I perceived to be Christians, I would rather be me." she said, "I'd rather be open and not feel like if someone is not the way that we say they should be, that they are not acceptable.

"I believe that change is always from inside to out and that the rules that people have set up for themselves like no jewellery, no make-up, no shellfish, no fish without scales, no meat, no pork no this or no that, does and should not determine that you are a good person."