Place To Be – Breath & Wire

East Brighton Trust believes that civic infrastructure, through cultural experiences and opportunities, is about creating the places and relationships that give communities greater access to the arts, creativity and personal development.

At Moulsecoomb Place, we’re developing a creative model that brings musicians, artists, dancers, designers, poets and other creatives into the heart of one of Brighton’s most deprived communities – creating space to work, collaborate, share ideas and give local people opportunities to experiences and to take part in creativity.

Place to Be celebrates the people making that happen: creatives who live, work in or have a connection to this part of the city.

Our first Place to Be is Breath & Wire – Cate Ferris and Leroy Horns, local Bevendean residents and musicians, who have recently made The Eaves Studio in the loft of the Manor House their new creative home.

Friend of EBT and respected and experienced local journalist, Brian Bell, carried out the interviews, with Gary, our CEO, taking the pictures.

Breath & Wire

In the loft of the Manor House in Moulsecoomb Place, The Eaves Studio is a hub of musical activity, filled with keyboards, saxophones, a drum kit and the familiar scatter of instruments and recording equipment that signal a space where creativity is constant. This is the new HQ for the Breath & Wire collective – aka Cate Ferris and Leroy Horns. Both are well-known and highly respected musicians on the Brighton scene – Cate’s a vocalist, songwriter and multi‑instrumentalist known for her lush, soulful, genre-blurring sound, while Leroy’s a saxophonist whose wonderfully expressive playing features on internationally acclaimed reggae, dub, drum & bass and avant‑garde jazz releases.

Cate’s story

A third‑generation Brightonian, Cate’s musicality was always encouraged and supported at home, but she cites Dave Glasson from legendary 60s surrealists the Bonzo Dog Doo‑Dah Band as a pivotal influence on her musical life: “Dave taught me at Blatchington Mill School and he was hugely supportive of a very young and very shy songwriter. He encouraged me constantly, even getting me to sing my own songs as part of the Brighton Festival on the beach. I think that might have been the moment I decided I wanted to be a singer songwriter.”

From there, Cate began appearing at open mic nights at the Sanctuary Café – a much-loved and missed beatnik-style hang out of the noughties – and busked on the beach. She didn’t learn guitar properly until she went travelling, teaching herself every song on Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car album because it was one of just two records she’d brought with her. Then came a year studying Indian classical flute in central India, followed by stints in indie bands and hip‑hop collectives. But when asked if she remembers one ‘aha’ moment when she realised that music was her true calling, she thinks back to a night in a crammed hostel room thousands of miles from home: “I just let rip. It felt like I’d freed myself from the constraints of insane shyness. The reaction in the room was beautiful. Everyone was singing. I’d completely forgotten about that moment until now.”

Leroy’s story

Leroy’s story begins far from Brighton. “I moved around until I was about six – born in Devon, lived in Bromley with my nan and my parents, then landed in Medway. Medway definitely shaped who I am.”

This was a place marked by the rise and fall of the Chatham dockyard, but also by a fierce DIY music scene – garage punk, Billy Childish, and the influence of nearby Canterbury’s prog rock. “I grew up playing sax in punky, proggy bands… not the traditional route.”

His path into music started quietly: a junior school teacher who played recorder, a mum who loved Acker Bilk and bought him a clarinet, a first saxophone at eleven. Saturday mornings at Medway Music Centre gave him clarinet choirs and a training band – the beginner ensemble where young players learned how to play together – but it still wasn’t a calling.

Then everything changed at fifteen when he lost his dad. “I went off the rails – working in pubs, drinking too much. I had to get out of that life.” He drifted until his sister enrolled on a BTEC music course and he followed, needing to find a fresh focus. Travelling at twenty‑four brought the first real turning point – he spent time in India, followed by a year in Australia, busking, improvising, and picking up jazz gigs. “By the time I left, I was living really well. I could cover my rent in a few days of busking. That was the moment I thought: “If I can do this in someone else’s country, I can do it in my own.”

But a deeper ‘aha’ moment came much later, finishing his album Transients, which became a stand‑out show at Brighton Fringe: “I realised that what I’d been doing all those years was unpicking emotions through music. Not conventional therapy, but using the saxophone to channel whatever I was feeling. If I was angry, I’d play aggressively and feel better afterwards. I’d been doing that since I was 15 or 16 without realising it.”

Honesty and connection

So when Breath & Wire are putting their music out into the world, what are they hoping people get out of it? “Honesty” says Cate. ”A sense of seeing the world through my filter, I suppose. My lyrics can be quite brutally honest – sometimes a bit cutting – but there’s always an element of hope and space in them.” For Leroy, it’s about reaching for connection: “I’d like to give people a sense that they’re not alone. That feeling where you can make more sense of something through music. Maybe they’ll just feel a bit lighter, or a bit more connected.”

A sense of home

At this point in their lives and careers, Moulsecoomb Place represents a significant shift – a chance to root themselves more deeply in the local community and to build something that reaches beyond their own musical projects. As Cate puts it: “The more you look out, the more varied and brilliant this area is. I really want to run a choir here. And we’ve been looking at music sessions for young people on Saturday mornings – creating more of a musical hub here.” She talks about wanting to offer the kind of opportunities that shaped her: spaces where people can learn, experiment, and feel held by music.

Leroy feels the same pull. “Knowing what creativity has given us individually and as a little family unit with our son – to create space for other people to have that same experience is really exciting.”

He’s already thinking about a new monthly night at The Skep, imagining community bands, shared workshops, and ways of making music accessible to people who might not otherwise get the chance. “It would be great to help people who can’t afford lessons,” he says. “Keyboards, little bands… just giving people a way in.”

What strikes both of them about Moulsecoomb Place is the support. “People here are already asking how they can help,” Leroy says. “What funding we can apply for, how to make our ideas take shape. It feels tangible.” Cate agrees: “It feels possible.”

The meaning of success

And when the conversation turns to success – what it really looks like, what it means now – they both speak with the kind of clarity that comes from years of dedicated creative practice. Cate reflects on the long view: “We’ve got to the ripe old ages of late 40s and we’re still doing music in one way, shape or form. Music is a big part of our lives, a big part of our son’s life, and it’s definitely a linchpin for each and every day that we live. So I see that as a massive success already.”

Leroy adds: “If you’d asked me ten years ago, success would have been very much focused on what I was doing musically – to have a show, to tour it, to be sustaining myself from my personal music career. But now – and I think that’s why it’s coincided with moving into this space – it’s exciting because the community is becoming the focus.”