Veronica Nightshade

Veronica Nightshade is an Australian singer and songwriter. Born Veruca Knight, she adopted her Veronica Nightshade stage name when she began her career as a club singer. Her URAPS career began in early 2010, when she participated in the 11th season of URAPS Idol. She impressed the judges with her big voice and her left-of-field song choices, and won over the public during her time on Idol. She was eliminated in 6th place. Since appearing on Idol, Veronica has enjoyed numerous top 10 hits in the UK and Australia, as well as major successes with studio albums "30 Days Of Night" and the #1 follow-up "Dancefloor Militia".

Early Life
Veruca Knight was born on June 17th, 1986. Growing up, she developed an interest in music and singing, pursuing vocal training from the age of ten. Veruca found her musical interests shifting towards the electronic, and began immersing herself in club beats. She spent much of her teenage years scoping out nightclubs around Melbourne and listening to all the music. Taking a university course in technical production, she met up with an amateur producer and they began cutting demo tracks together, which virally spread through the underground club scene, gaining Veruca a small following. During this time, she was also going out to clubs and performing gigs, singing her demo tracks. This got her noticed by a Sony BMG representative who approached her about participating in an all-girl tour showcasing four up-and-coming singers. Veruca agreed to the tour, and performed alongside Cat DeAluge, Amali Willems and Paulina Kookookachoo on an Australia-wide tour. The four girls formed a group called D.I.V.A.S and recorded a single together in order to promote the tour. The single was a runaway success, with popular demand for a full-length album. Veruca agreed to record the album, believing that it would be a one-time deal and was prepared to move back to her solo career once the album had run its course. Veruca's announcement to leave the group was met with severe negative reactions from the other girls who accused Veruca of selling out and not being a team player. Veruca was replaced in the group, but they never saw the same level of success.

With her time in D.I.V.A.S behind her, Veruca went back to her club roots, re-vamping her sound and adopting the Veronica Nightshade stage name she is now known by. Veronica travelled across the world checking out the club scene in various countries. It was during a trip to America that she met DJ Sylar Monaghan, and they began working on tracks together. Veronica was to be included on Sylar's 3rd single "You Can't Hide" by his dance music project Schizophonic, but the single was scrapped despite Veronica already recording her vocals for it. A year later, Veronica auditioned for URAPS Idol with "3 Words" by Cheryl Cole, not wanting to type-cast herself as a big-voiced diva. The judges were impressed with the audition, and she made it through into the top 10. Her tenure on the show was relatively short-lived, she was eliminated in 6th place after performing on the show for five weeks.

"30 Days Of Night" Era
Following her elimination on URAPS Idol, Veronica went straight to work on new solo material. She recorded a studio version of "Army Of Clones", which she performed on a Ben Johnston-themed week of Idol. This version was in line with the electro-rock original version as recorded by Ben, and was included on the IDOL: Encore album which featured studio versions of each of the top 10's best performances. Veronica intended to release her cover of "Army Of Clones" as a single to support the album, packaging the single as an EP with her solo material. Public reception of the single was extremely positive to the point where Veronica ditched plans for her EP, and instead recorded extra material to turn the EP into a full-flegded album. She kept "Army Of Clones" as the lead single for the album. The song was remixed by American DJ Chris Cox for its single release. Veronica enlisted a number of A-list producers and remixers to handle the production of her album, including names from both the US and the UK, as well as from Australia. The finished album included collaborations with Ben Johnston and Elice Claire, as well as Australian singer Ricki-Lee. Ben is featured on the album version of "Army Of Clones" while Elice features on a re-written and re-recorded version of her breakthrough #1 hit "Keepin' U Up". The album and the single were both released to stores on September 27th, 2010, and was released simultaneously in both the UK and in Australia.

"Army Of Clones" was a top 5 hit for Veronica in the UK, and it was released simultaneously with "Not Broken" as the first Australian single. "Not Broken" was a top 10 Australian hit, and was later released in the UK where it became another top 10 hit. In early 2011, "Away From You" was released as the third single from the album, becoming another UK top 5 in a surprise chart placement. Also in early 2011, Veronica recorded new material for "60 Days Of Night", a companion EP released as a re-package of "30 Days Of Night". For the EP, Veronica worked with 4Tune, Kleo and Romo as well as a fresh batch of producers she hadn't previously collaborated with. The EP was led by a double A-side release with 4Tune, including a re-recorded take of Veronica's version of "Keepin' U Up" and a new song called "Say Goodbye". The single became Veronica's first top 3 hit. "Black Widow Sting" was released as the album's fifth single, with Veronica being contractually obligated to release the song having purchased the demo from Romo who wrote the song. It debuted at #7, but peaked in the top 5, becoming the biggest single from Veronica's debut era. To bring to album to diamond sales, a remix EP titled "The '60th Day' EP" was released, featuring duet remixes of songs from the two parts of the album. This release continued Veronica's streak of top 10 hits.

"Dancefloor Militia" Era
Veronica initially stated after discovering her pregnancy that it might be up to a year before she released any more music, but she started recording her sophomore album mere months after finishing off promotion for her debut era. Veronica shot music videos for the first two planned singles, "Rain" and "Light Up The Dark", while she was still in the early stages of her pregnancy. "Dancefloor Militia" was initially scheduled for a November 2011 release alongside "Rain" as its lead single, but mixing and mastering issues prevented the album from being completed in time so the album was postponed. "Rain" was also initially going to be cancelled, but after the song impacted early on the digital charts, only the physical release was scrapped and the single was kept on as a promo single. The video has not yet been released. "Same Script, Different Cast", a Whitney Houston and Deborah Cox cover, was recorded by Veronica and Paige White for a tribute album dedicated to the late Whitney, and was initially planned as the lead single to "Dancefloor Militia", but again the release was changed to a promo-only single. No video was shot for this promo single.

"Light Up The Dark" was later released in May of 2012 as the lead single alongside the album. "Dancefloor Militia" impacted at #1 in both Australia and the UK, and "Light Up The Dark" also topped the ARIA chart. In the UK it impacted at #2, becoming Veronica's largest UK hit. "Stop The Record" was released as the second official single from the album in June 2012, becoming another major top 3 hit for Veronica. Fan favourite "Eclipse" was announced as the third single to be released from the album, with a September release date to coincide with Veronica's debut headlining UK tour, named after the single. "Eclipse" won a tight chart battle to become Veronica's first #1 hit, and also her best-selling single in the UK. "Crave" was revealed to be the fourth and final single from the album, released in November 2012. It became Veronica's fourth consecutive top 3 hit. Veronica has received multiple nominations at the 2012 ARIA Awards, including the public-voted Song Of The Year category for "Light Up The Dark" which she won.

Personal Life
Veronica is close friends with many of the recent Idol alumni, including winner Genevere Johnson from her season, jazz singer Riley Brendan, pop singer Iris and urban/R'n'B singer Sienna Martinez. Veronica is also best friends with Midnight, as well as collaborators Ben Johnston and Elice Claire. Veronica's enemies include her former D.I.V.A.S bandmates, but of these, her biggest enemy is Cat DeAluge. Veronica is married; her husband's name is Jonathan Hargreaves. The couple went to the same high school although they were in different year levels, with Jonathan being two years her senior. The couple met at a nightclub and their relationship developed from there, with Jonathan proposing to Veronica prior to her time on IDOL. Veronica dedicated a song from her album to her fiance, having written it about her time on the show and being away from him while he was at home in Australia on the other side of the world. In mid-2011 the couple discovered that they were expecting a baby, and their son Jared was born in March of 2012.