Rock guitarist Chantel McGregor is bringing The Healing touch to her Portsmouth debut gig

Last week Chantel McGregor released her third studio album, The Healing – 10 years since its predecessor Lose Control.

When we speak, the release is still a few days away, but the Yorkshire-born artist is excited at the prospect of letting others hear it.

"I can finally say it – it's coming out!” she laughs. “It's come around very quick. It's terrifying. It's all at once, but somehow been so long.

"It is nice to finally hold a CD and go: ‘It's done’.

As a DIY artist, Chantel tells how her “lounge is completely filled with boxes and envelopes” as she prepares to send albums out to her fans.

"It's all a bit crazy and a bit manic. I forgot how much work it is to actually do all the distribution yourself!

"It's done quite a lot more sales than The Shed Sessions,” two volumes of home recordings made during the Covid lockdowns, “and I'm going, bloody heck, this is a lot of stuff to do...”

At the start of her career, Chantel was very much a blues guitarist – with the awards to prove it, she has won five prestigious British Blues Awards trophies, including Young Artist of The Year and best Female Vocalist and Guitarist of The Year twice each – but over the years, has become more ‘rock, and as the press release accompanying the new album says, The Healing is “definitely rock”.

"Yeah, it's maybe a little bit heavier, a little bit more technical, a bit more proggy,” she says describing the general sound of the album.

“And lyrically as well, it's a lot deeper, a lot more personal. I'm excited to see what people are actually going to make of it.

“It wasn’t written as a concept album but it ended up as one in a way. The concept is that as we go through life and all go through really difficult things and harrowing things, we all grieve and we love and we lose people and we go through awful times but we've just got to try and come out the other side.

"But the thing is that everyone goes through things like this, and the healing is just somehow to find a way to carry on, just to emerge the other side. And maybe just to think that everything happens for a reason and to hang on to the fact that things can change and can get better. And that is something I hope the audiences and fans will connect with when they hear the album.”

Even though it has been a while since Lose Control, Chantel has kept herself busy and in the public eye with frequent touring, a podcast series – Tel Tales, and a show on Hard Rock Radio.

So in the end, the new album has come together quite quickly over the past year or so.

“Basically I started writing it last May-June time.

"Obviously I was taking ideas from things that I'd written previously, that I'd made little notes of things. We'd go back through and listen to demos that I'd done and go, ‘well, that's rubbish, but this little section, it's got something in it...’

"And they kind of evolved into the songs and grew from there.”

She also worked closely with rock guitarist Oli Brown and Wayne Proctor of The Dead Collective.

"A lot of The Healing was co-written with them. It's not something I've done loads of before. I've done little bits where I write it and then somebody tweaks it and we throw ideas about a bit.

"But this was a bit more immersive. It was weird for me as well, and I found it quite difficult because in previous times I’ve been a person who writes about other people or writes about books.

"Whereas this one, because it's such a personal album, it's kind of like laying all your feelings and thoughts and everything bare in front of two other people. To me, that was quite uncomfortable at first.

"But then you get used to it and you go, ‘okay, well, you know everything about me now anyway, so I might as well just write these songs and get on with it’.”

How long did it take her to feel that degree of comfort with them?

"Probably two or three months, I'd say. Obviously I knew them as friends, but I've never sort of worked with them.

"When you're writing with somebody it's a more intimate kind of friendship, and you're having to really sort of expose yourself with your feelings, and it's like, ‘ooh’,” she winces, “it's a bit uncomfortable really. I don't like it!” she chuckles.

“It is very exposing. But, if that gets the song and it gets it the best song it can be, then that's what you've got to do. Sacrifice for your art!”

While the songwriting may have been uncomfortable, fortunately she was on safer ground with her regular bandmates – Colin Sutton on bass and Thom Gardner on drums – for the recording.

"I started properly working with Tom about 2019 because he was on (live album) Bury’d Alive. And then Colin has been in my band about 10 years now – the longest I've ever had a bass player!”

The band played a release day show at the legendary 100 Club in London.

“It's one of our favorite places to play,” explains Chantel. “I want to launch the album there because it is such an iconic venue, we've always loved playing there. And it's such a weird room as well – on paper, you go, ‘that shouldn't work’, because it is such a weird shape. But it just has this kind vibe to it where there's so much history.

“You look at the pictures on the walls and everybody's played there, basically.”

This tour will however see Chantel finally playing Portsmouth for the first time, after years of playing in nearby towns and cities.

“I've never played in Portsmouth before. So I'm really, really looking forward to it.”

And her tour van-driving dad, a history buff is looking forward to it too.

“I know my dad wants to go down to the docks and stuff. I'm really quite excited about it."

Chantel McGregor plays The Lens, Portsmouth on Tuesday, June 3. Go to portsmouthguildhall.org.uk.