Deborah Bonham Discusses Family Members and Her New Album, 'Duchess' - Noisecreep

'Duchess' is your first North American release. How did end up hooking up with Rhino Records?

It's an amazing story. It was a guy who was managing us at the time. He was more of a friend and agent. He took my demos to Robin Hurley, who is the VP [of A&R] at Rhino and he loved it. I was playing in Malta with Robert Plant at a festival and I did the support slot, and Robin flew over to see me perform there. It was amazing to me because at [47] to get a deal with a major label is fantastic.

Your first album, 'For You and the Moon,' was made in 1985 when you were a teenager, and the second, 'The Old Hyde,' in 2004. In between, did you leave the music business?

My first record, I got tied up contractually. It was really nasty. It ended up really horrible. I couldn't do anything for about 10 years and it really did screw me up. I thought, "I can either sit and cry about this or I can just go out and learn the industry." So I started working in an office capacity doing anything, at lots of different record companies on a temporary basis. I worked in marketing, distribution, A&R. I worked all across the board and I ended up working for Warner's legal department and I worked on some contracts.

I learned what contracts are like ,and I went back and looked at my old contracts and I fought it through the legal system and won and got out of it, so I was able to record again. Then, I started again, but unfortunately because I had started pretty young, without a shadow of doubt, the industry is very ageist. It's not easy when 10, 15 years later, you're told, "Well, you're a bit old now." Now, age doesn't actually matter to me at all because it's all about the music. I'm not trying to be out there as a some young sex god [laughs].

Were you writing all that time as