RAW DEAL

GILLES RAWSON

Band Bio

By Adriana Rubio

Gilles Rawson and Bret Sinclair are “Raw Deal”, a rock band now based in London and increasing their fan base worldwide with a shaking rock sound and new album entitled "All Our Yesterdays".

 Gilles Rawson was born in Nice, France in April of 1982. Rawson fell in love with rock music at a very young age and started playing in bands since he was a teenager. He is a singer song-writer, plays lead guitars (electric and acoustic) and mandolin in studio and also on live performances. Gilles achieved a BTEC National Diploma in Popular Music, and also has Drama studies for Theater plays.

Gilles Rawson musical career started as a lead guitarist for a period of long two years in Coventry for a group called “U-Turn” and also for “Submission”, a punk-rock band fronted by Donna Crawford. Soon after the two years gigs were done, they all disbanded. Gilles came up with the idea of forming “Cortez”, a four rockers band with Donna Crawford on bass guitar. They wrote great songs together and toured the night-pub circuit in Coventry until disbanding in 2002 because of some musical differences. However, Gilles' delicate and clean-clear voice along with his unsophisticated guitar sound made a perfect match with Donna Crawford's rock-solid bass lines.

Gilles Rawson first album debut is entitled “The Artist Formerly Known As Good”. It’s a compilation of the best demos he recorded over the last two years and a half. His songs walk around the human sentiments, dealing and highlighting topics of people’s everyday living such as love, disgust, hate, faith and guilt among other human issues. A must listen.

As previously cited, Gilles Rawson teamed up with Bret Sinclair, a lead guitarist from Australia. Bret was born in Armadale Kelmscott, Western Australia in 1979. Bret has achieved a BTEC National Diploma in Popular Music, attended Music College and excelled gaining distinctions. His passion for music showed up at the age of 11 and made him explore the sounds of various instruments by playing guitars, saxophone, drums, bass and piano. But when he was 16, he discovered that the best way to express his creative mind was by playing guitar and devoted to it playing in several local bands until he moved to London and met Gilles Rawson in April of 2011. Charlie Savigar, a talented musician, recommended Bret to Rawson in times where he was in need of a drummer. However, Gilles felt Bret was more suited to playing guitar as there are different guitar parts in his songs and would work better on their music sound. A true assert. 

Gilles and Bret work very well together musically and support each other in all counts. Gilles left the lead guitar behind and plays now rhythm guitar while Bret blows your mind up playing lead guitars. There is a funny story about a song they created in 20 minutes and which is actually one of their fans favorite. They were at Bret’s home studio one day. Gilles was reading a magazine and Bret was playing a riff on his guitar, a riff that made Gilles remember how much he loves AC/DC. The two were excited about it, recorded just that riff and within 20 minutes they wrote all the music and lyrics to the song on a rough version with vocals and it's become one of their fans favorites.

Gilles and Bret have experienced all kinds of things while trying to succeed with their music… they really know what the ups and downs of being in a rock band mean. But they never go down even in times where they played for zero audience in Camden. They were playing a gig at Monkey Chews bar, watched all of the open Mic acts and ended up on last at 11:00 PM. Everyone took one look at them, walked outside… and they played to an empty room. But after they started playing, a bunch came back in and shouted out loud approval. The bar staff cheered them.

Gilles and Bret are currently presenting themselves as “RAW DEAL” with an album entitled "All Our Yesterdays", a pure and genuine manifestation of the music they can make: Rock!