Even without having listened to any of the sound Echobelly produced, you could see this was not your everyday band. Formed in 1992 by Sonya Aurora Madan (vocals and main lyricist) and Glenn Johansson (guitars), the band was a rare multinational and multi-ethnic collective: Sonya Madan was born in Delhi, India, although she moved to the UK at the age of 2. Still, the Indian appearance is still somewhat there, which gave her a lot of extra attention in the media. Glenn Johansson, who briefly dated Sonya (they remained close friends after the break-up and were actually the core of Echobelly), is a native of Sweden. In Sweden he had the rather dodgy job of editing an adult magazine. Obviously tired of such career, he took his bags and took off to London with the hope of finding a band. Echobelly was totally formed with the addition of Alex Keyser on bass guitar and Andy Henderson on drums. However, the band took an even greater diversity with the addition of Debbie Smith on guitar from 1994 on. Debbie Smith, previously in a band called Curve, was a rarity in many ways in the rock scene those days: she was a female, black and lesbian guitar player. She has actually been named very often as a core role model for women in similar situations, and has become a local icon for those reasons. But above all, she was a quality guitar player. When Glenn had injured his hands, Debbie fill in for him and did so well that "de facto" she became a permanent member of the band.
Echobelly were always somewhat the different one when the Britpop scene was booming and female-fronted pop/rock bands were big. There was Elastica, there was Republica (remember the hits "Ready to go" and the extremely catchy "Drop dead gorgeous"?), there was Sleeper, … I am probably forgetting some more. However, Echobelly (who by the way seem to have invented the term as I cannot find it in any dictionary… the band explained the name as a metaphor for "Hunger for change" or "Desire for a change") were much more openly political than the other named bands who lyrically never went too far on thin ice. Echobelly never shunned politically outspoken lyrics, even when the band and lyricist Sonya Madan said that she didn’t want to be a politician or try to force her views on people. Nonetheless, the debut album "Everyone’s Got One" (1994) had some tracks with a clear society-critical undertone, tackling subjects such as feminism, alienation, boredom. The song "Insomniac" with its kitch-esque video (Sonya wearing a blonde wig and some others wearing Union Jack-shirts) became somewhat of a hit.
The band caught attention and a lot of praise, up to the point that even nobody less than former Smiths frontman Morrissey was impressed enough to personally invite Echobelly to open for him during a tour. Sonya’s vocal style has some slight similarities with Morrissey’s style of singing, leading to some press dubbing her the "female Morrissey". From: https://thepathslesstravelled.wordpress.com/2010/08/16/gone-but-never-forgotten-echobelly/
