Sharliza Jelita has lived a life that constitutes the perfect ingredients for being a musician. Hailing from Singapore, where she lost both parents at an early age and had a hard time fitting in at school because her peers thought her to be ‘different’, she found solace in music. Duran Duran, Culture Club, Suede and Radiohead convinced her that England was where she had to be to realise her lifelong dream of being a popstar.

So, at 17, she came to the UK – thanks to a scholarship – and eventually formed a mad-cap indie band called The Rrrs. Rehearsing and writing songs in the basement of a student dig in Leamington Spa, Sharliza balanced her musical dreams alongside a multitude of jobs to survive life as an immigrant.

By the time the Rrrs had begun achieving plays on regional radio, playing gigs and festivals throughout the UK, Sharliza joined the Access to Music programme, where she was awarded the National Student Music Award of 2008, presented to her by Lauren Laverne and Soweto Kinch.

The Rrrs swansong was a single launch party at The Fly on New Oxford St, resplendent with balloons, sweets and complete with a midget comedian. Sadly, their drummer migrated to Berlin shortly after, so the band played a series of finale shows, dancing Bez-style to an iPod, before being disbanded.

Determined not to let music take a backseat, Sharliza played guitar in the electro-pop collective Death Metal Disco Scene, who were featured in Dorian Lynskey’s First Sight feature in The Guardian. She also did a couple of theatrical solo shows featuring feathers and plastic swords.

An attempt to settle down towards a simple life was thwarted by a songwriting course at the Academy of Contemporary Music in January 2011, where she realised that music is and will always be her number one passion. Fuelled by a quarter-life crisis, her mission in life is to serve happiness, entertainment and catharsis to mankind.