Musician went from gigging with mum to performing with Gerry Marsden

A musician went from gigging with her mum as a child to performing with Gerry Marsden.

Jade Thunder, 36, has been part of several bands, became a specialist cover artist and has released her own original music. She started gigging with her mum, Diane Tremarco, as a double act from a young age.

Speaking to the ECHO, Jade, who lives in Wirral, said: “I started singing when I was 11. We started gigging when I was about 13 or 14. Then when I got to about 17, we were doing five to six nights a week, which was hard going because I was doing my A levels as well. But I loved it, I've always loved music.”

Diane was the owner editor of 'The Buz Magazine' for several years, which was a Wirral music magazine. Jade said: “We used to distribute it to the pubs all across Merseyside for free, and the advertising paid for it.”

“My mum would be working 24/7 on it. If she could have done that till the day she died, she would. If you talk to anybody of my age and above, and you say 'The Buz magazine', they all go, oh, I remember that. You could just walk anywhere and there would be a copy."

She continued: “All the artists like me would write their dates for the month, and then all the pubs would write their dates for the month as well. Then there would be articles, interviews, all just music related on Merseyside.

“It was great. It really did knit that community together."

Jade and her mum stopped playing together when Jade’s mum became housebound due to illness in around 2005, though they performed one last show in 2016. She has continued to work with a variety of local groups since.

Jade performing with Thee Gary Murphy Band at Guitar Legends show with Gary Brown (Image: Jade Thunder)

Jade said: “I've been in and out of different bands. I joined the Gary Murphy Band - I think my first ever performance [with them] was when I was 11.

“[I sang] With them at the Floral Pavilion, just as a guest singer, because he wanted to feature a child, a local artist, you know, an ‘oh my god, she's going to be a star’ type thing. Then, over the years I've gone from the guest star, to a backing singer, to backing singer with a bit of guitar on a few songs, to backing singer with guitar on everything, to now front like his right hand woman, which is nice because that's been over the last 22 years that we've grown together.

“Gary's really sort of guided me. He's been a really big mentor and sort of took over from mum when she couldn't.”

One of the biggest highlights of Jade’s musical career is working with Gerry Marsden, who her mum actually met on a ferry going across the Mersey. She said: “Gary was singing and Gerry was there. Gerry just said, you've got to get up and sing Ferry Cross the Mersey, this is like too good to be true. So they ended up singing together.”

Gerry had been “in and out” of Jade’s life since childhood. Before his death, she performed with the Gary Murphy Band, alongside Gerry, at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall in February 2019.

“When Gerry came on, it was magic. I've never heard a room sing You'll Never Walk Alone like that. I had to chew the inside of my mouth to try and stop me from crying, which is quite hard to do. I'll never forget that. That was spectacular.

She added: “I'm thankful to have worked with him, he was a funny guy.”

However, it hasn’t all been plain sailing for Jade. She argues the cover music scene she thrived in isn’t the same as it used to be.

She said: “I think the cover music scene is not as highly regarded anymore. It's a skill. We're entertainers. We go in and we sing other people's songs and we entertain a room and you're there either to take hold of the room or just sit in the background.

“You've got to know your job, but either way you're scanning to make sure there's no fights kicking off so you can let the bouncer know in case they don't spot it before you.

“And then there's other nights when you need to be the singer in the background and nobody cares. You could be there, it could be a CD player and that's okay. But back in the day, it used to be a show to come and watch. You'd go to a pub to watch the band and everybody would stand, everybody would watch and everybody would clap after each song."

Jade continued: “It was just what you did. There are a few venues that still do that, like the Swinging Arm in Birkenhead. That is a music venue where you go to watch the music.

“That's how it used to be years ago. So there's very, very few places on Merseyside that do that now and then today is probably more focused on the original music.”

Jade found this transition difficult, struggling to work out her musical identity for some time until the pandemic hit. The pandemic gave her freedom to write and allowed her to establish other ways to make money. Jade said: “Up until covid, I was doing six nights a week.

“Because all my income just stopped, me and a lot of musicians were like, we need to find something. A lot of them found jobs and unfortunately, they stayed with their jobs because it was good money.

“That, combined with the music scene sort of dwindling in the covered areas, which a lot of these talented musicians were playing in, meant they just couldn't afford to take that leap back.

“So for me, I have to have three jobs to be able to maintain the lifestyle I want, which is probably one or two gigs a week now.”

In addition to her music, Jade runs a quarterly dog magazine called Vanity Fur and designs websites under a business called Hashtag. Nevertheless, Jade argues that adaptation is key to being a musician.

She said: “I think that's just part of the role. Just keep your feet on the ground. You can always be better than your last performance. An ovation with a room full of a thousand people, or a festival with ten thousand people on a stage, it doesn't matter because the next night you could be playing to six people in a pub and it's humbling, very humbling.

“It brings you right back down to earth and you go, wow, I'm not, I'm a musician, but I'm just doing my job like everybody else. It's been glamorised and people think it's easy and it's not. It's very difficult to maintain it and to work at it constantly, to improve, to be better than yesterday.”

Jade has a rule to not look back too much on the past, but still allows herself to have some pride about what she has achieved. She said: “I think when you start looking back and ticking off all the things you've done, that's cool. I've worked with some amazing artists.

“But also, you're only as good as your last show. I don't really even think about what's next. I'm just thankful for where I'm at and that's it. I'm so happy with what I've achieved, but also I don't dwell on it because the minute you do, you start going, you start getting those thoughts of grandeur and ego.”

Get the top stories straight to your inbox by signing up to our what's on newsletter

Win a Tassimo My Way Machine worth £140 and enjoy your coffee shop favourite drinks at home