ABOUT THE ALBUM
On 6th July 2012, a 13-year old Michael Mikey Brennan made his debut solo performance in the Bower Grove School annual music assembly, wowing the entire school hall with a rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" and Ed Sheeran's "Lego House", accompanied by the school music technician, Mr. Toby Starks (founding member of Wheeler Street, The Starks Family Band and later, The Lowly Strung). Studio versions of the two covers were subsequently recorded in the school music room's recording studio. "Hallelujah" was originally planned to be released as Mikey's debut single, with "Lego House" as the accompanying b-side, but the idea was scrapped, acknowledging the fact that the song had already been defined as a debut solo hit by X Factor winner Alexandra Burke in 2008, and thus "Mean Mikey" was released as the debut single instead in October 2012, while the two covers of "Hallelujah" and "Lego House" were respectively published to YouTube in January 2013. Mikey and Mr. Starks went on to record two more cover songs in 2013. Starting with "When You Say Nothing At All", the Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz-penned country hit which was first recorded by Keith Whitley in 1988, followed by Allison Krauss & Union Station in 1995, and former Boyzone singer Ronan Keating in 1999, for the British romantic comedy film Notting Hill. Mikey and Mr. Starks also covered "Hero" by Enrique Iglesias, which they performed in the school annual music assembly for July 2013. The cover was released to YouTube in January 2014. It remains Mikey's most viewed cover on YouTube.
Mikey and Mr. Starks recorded their second cover of "Believe In Yourself", in February 2014, the theme song to the children's television show, Arthur (one of the most popular educational shows of Mikey's generation), performed by Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers, the children of the legendary late Bob Marley. Mikey and Mr. Starks' next cover was the 1987 Michael Jackson classic, "Man in the Mirror", co-written by Californian singer/songwriter Siedah Garrett, who duetted with Jackson on the studio version of "I Just Can't Stop Loving You". Two months later Mikey and Mr. Starks would record a cover of Jackson's 1995 R. Kelly-penned ballad, "You Are Not Alone".
In April 2014, newly recorded acoustic versions of Mikey and Mr. Starks' renditions of "Hallelujah" and "Lego House" were released. The former in the vein of the style of Jeff Buckley's 1994 rendition, as a tribute to the late icon. Buckley's version was Mr. Starks' favourite version of the song, while Mikey's favourite version was recorded by John Cale, formerly of New York proto-punk band The Velvet Underground, in 1991, whose version inspired Buckley's cover and was featured in the 2001 DreamWorks Animation classic, Shrek (though it was Rufus Wainwright's version that was featured on the motion picture soundtrack). Mikey and Mr. Starks would later record acoustic remakes of their covers of "When You Say Nothing At All", "Hero", "Man in the Mirror" and "Believe In Yourself" too. The last of Mikey and Mr. Starks' official covers, by which point after their focus shifted to original material for Mikey's debut self-titled album, was Randy Newman's "You've Got A Friend In Me", the theme song to Pixar's classic Toy Story franchise, Mikey's all time favourite film series. The cover was released in July 2014. In June 2015, the two recorded a duet version of the cover, inspired by the duet version of the song by Randy Newman and Lyle Lovett, from the end credits of the first 1995 Toy Story film, with Mr. Starks singing Newman's lines, while Mikey channelled Lovett.
Following the release of Mikey's debut self-titled album in June 2015, which featured his 2013 covers of "Hallelujah" and "Lego House", he graduated from Bower Grove School and went on to study Music Performance at MidKent College. The remaining covers, alongside "Hallelujah" and "Lego House", became part of Mikey's 2016 Covers compilation album, which also features a live ensemble cover - consisting of Mikey on vocals, Mr. Croft on keyboard, Mr. Starks on drums, and the school's music teacher, Mr. Wells on bass - of "(I'm Gonna Be) 500 Miles" by The Proclaimers, one of Bower Grove School's personal favourite assembly songs, which was recorded for my Mikey's GCSE Music performance coursework (along with the acoustic version of "Hero"). The album also features a one-take cover of "Just The Way You Are" by Bruno Mars, performed by Mikey and Mr. Croft during the recording process of their third original song "Can't You See Me" in 2013 (the second track from Mikey's debut self-titled album), and a cover of The Beach Boys classic "God Only Knows", performed by the staff and pupils of Bower Grove School (including Mikey) in November 2014, to commemorate Children In Need week.
