Andreya Triana: I used to sell ice-cream in a lay-by ...now I’m singing for Chris Evans

Seven years ago, Andreya Triana was making ends meet by waiting on tables, selling ice-creams in a lay-by and working in a hearing aid shop.

Now she’s an up-and-coming soul singer who counts Samuel L Jackson as a fan and performed at a party for Chris Evans — where she ended up serenading news reader Moira Stewart.

Triana, 28, who was raised in Brixton, says the memory of her early jobs lies behind her drive to succeed. The singer, right, has spent the past five years making her second album. Her admirers include Jackson, Paolo Nutini — and Radio 2 DJ Evans, who asked her to perform at a party this month.

She said: “It was one of the most amazing and random evenings of my life and it culminated in me serenading and slow-dancing with Moira Stewart. It was one of those moments where I thought, ‘What is happening?’” Her life was very different seven years ago, when she moved to Brighton after studying music technology at Leeds University. She said: “There was a point where I was doing an awful host of crap jobs — I was a sushi waitress, I worked in a lay-by in an ice-cream van, I worked in a hearing aid shop.

“Those memories really do spur me on — those days of not being able to pay my rent, not being able to sleep with stress of just keeping my head above water. It’s no way to live. But it makes me appreciate everything else even more.”

Writing highly personal songs for new album Giants was tough but “very therapeutic”. But she said: “I'm an artist and I can’t be any other way — my songs are about my life.”

Andreya Triana performs at the London Citadel Festival in Victoria Park with Bombay Bicycle Club and Ben Howard on Sunday.