Artist Name: Layla Rae Cash
Gender: Female
Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee
Age: 22 (d.)
Genre: Country

Layla's story: Layla Rae Cash came to the second season of StarFactory as one of the most nervous and shy characters around. She had trained as a lawyer, and at 22 she was one of the older contestants on the show. However, she managed to wow the judges with her unique country voice and her impeccable guitar skills reminiscent of the late-great Jonny Cash. Her trademark was the way she had the ability to change what were pop songs into rather authentic-sounding country classics. Despite being quiet and keeping herself to herself - she was not known as being one to socialise with the other contestants - she grew in confidence, and by the tome the live shows surface on TV, she had grown from a self aware, self conscious young woman, into someone who, on stage at least, looked completely relaxed and at home in what she was doing.

By the time the second season of StarFactory met its rather premature demise in January of this year, Layla had become something of a fan and judges favourite, against all the odds. Shaking off the stigma of being older than her counterparts and managing to break the shackles of nerves and stage fright, her booming voice and emotional performances were enough to have crowds and judges alike on their feet. But this success was to be somewhat short-lived. The cancelling of season 2 of the show after its second week would mark a rather abrupt end to what had been a glamorous fairytale of a rise in the life of Layla Rae Cash. The long flowing dresses, perfectly styled hair and flawless makeup was a thing of the past, and she was return to the hard slog of fighting for fame that she had experienced earlier in her embryonic music career.

After some difficult decision making in the weeks after the show ended, and some heartfelt pleas from her family to return to Tennessee, Layla opted to stay in New York to chase her dream, now confident after her appearance on the show that she would have what it takes to get her somewhere in the industry. After hastily recording a demo and sending it out to a number of independent labels in the city, Layla was signed in late February by LuckyGoHappy Records in New York. They announced that she would be able to release one album, with proceeds from this paying for tours and a potential second album. However, the release of her debut record Love Stories of a Girl in the Big City was a complete failure. Nationwide it sold 1,500 copies, and Layla was swiftly dropped from the label that had promised her everything without a single single or video ever released.

Ashamed to go home with her tail between her legs, Layla spent the next 6 weeks touring New York off her own back. This saw her play a number of Starbucks around the city and as far afield as New Jersey. On a good night, however, she was playing to crowds that maxed out at about 25. It was a depressing time for someone whose career had promised so much when she made her mark on TV. Less than two months after she pledged to forge her own way with a resolute stiff upper lip, Layla realised that was costing her three times as much to travel, live and play as she was making. It was at this point she made the difficult decision to return to Tennessee.

Back in Nashville, Layla spent the next three months of her life hiding away making banjos in the back room of her uncle's store. By the end of her tenure there, she had developed quite the addiction to cupcakes and gravy. Ashamed of her failure and with no future in the career she dreamed of, she had begun dipping the former in the latter almost every time she breathed. This meant that by the advent of the summer, she looked like someone who had spent the majority of their time inhaling other people and absorbing their mass. She had two options - form a tag team with Big Van Vader in independent wrestling promotions in the south, or get fit again and make another dash for the top with a second bite of the fame cherry (not that she needed anything else to eat at this point).

It was her choice that was to mark the change in her life. She decided to go for the latter, and with Adele as her inspiration, she started writing songs about being a fat girl in love. On the side, she subsidised her career with a part time job in the local zoo. This gave her enough money to fund the release of her second album Love in a 'Frigerator. Sadly, however, the album never saw the light of day. On the eve of the record being sent to press, Layla Rae would be at work in the zoo when a particularly amorous penguin would attach itself to her exposed calf and hump to its heart's desire. Squealing in a desperate attempt to get away, Layla accidentally let out the mystery mating call of a particular tribe of Giant Panda, sending the lesbian Ting Ting wild in her enclosure mere feet away from where the penguins were marching. The amorous bear would slay 7 visitors in its bid to find the fellow sapphic teddy, before drowning in the penguin enclosure after chasing an emperor penguin it is thought it mistook for a panda vibrator.

Despite all of the violence going on, Layla managed to escape the disaster. However, just an hour later, she would be delivering the Heimlich maneuvre to a customer who was choking in the gift shop. The dislodged peanut ricocheted on a wall and came back, striking Layla in the eye. As she stumbled backwards, she tripped over a model train headed to "Toy Town" and fell onto the fretboard of an unfortunately placed yet strikingly accurate lego model of a guitar (Fender Statocaster, of course) which impaled her torso. Despite not killing her, the Lego model was only holding her organs together with one long piece, a green base and four singles. Doctors told her family that she faced spending her life as a Lego zombie unless they pulled the plug, which they mercifully chose to do just three days later.

Layla did not leave the world without making an impact though. A week later at her funeral, the cremation process was halted when melted plastic from the Lego still inside her got into the machinery and halted the furnace. When the process restarted the next day, 17 people were taken to hospital suffering from fume inhalation and poisoning from the burning plastic. She is survived by her mother and father in Nashville, Tennessee.

1991 - 2013