Hey how’s it going? Tell us a bit about your band. Members, backgrounds, who does most of the writing, etc.
Well it's mostly me, to be honest. I started this project back in New York when I was writing books and gogo dancing and emceeing the occasional show. I've been a singer my whole life, training classically since I was thirteen, but I had never had the wherewithal to put a band together. But after a while of seeing all my friends do it, I got to a place where I was like, you know, I know some talented musicians and I'm actually capable of paying them in a respectful manner for their time. So we played a few shows in New York. A lot of people in that scene underestimated me, I got a lot of "oh look another pretty girl who wants to play rockstar," and to be fair, I had no actual experience in the music industry. I think they were surprised when I could actually sing. We opened for Killcode the night they signed their deal with Sony, and the guys were like "Wow, you filled the room early and you kept them there. That was what we needed."
I started working with Stacy O'Dell as a producer after that and he and I do 90% of the songwriting together. Usually I come to him with a melody and lyric and a general idea of how I want something to sound, and he brings the instrumentation together.
I moved to LA in 2014 and I knew I could get Bar Sinister to take a chance on me because I'd worked there as a gogo dancer. So I booked a show there and then I hired a set of west coast musicians. We've gone through some different incarnations but I've found some players I really like working with.
If you had to pick a place in the music world in which you belong where would that be? And how do you differentiate yourself from others in that genre?
I often describe us as "if Pat Benatar got signed by Fueled By Ramen." I was definitely inspired by early Paramore, The Pretty Reckless, and Panic at the Disco. In New York, we were pop rock. In LA we're just rock.
To be honest I care less about genre than I do about following my heart. I write the only music I'm capable of writing, which has more to do with vocals and melody than anything else. I think it could be cool to explore working with people who work in different genres, even if that's under a different project name. Michael Patterson, who mixes for artists like NIN and Beck and also runs the Cloak & Dagger party where I am a member, recently suggested to me that it would be cool if I added my rock vocals to cinematic orchestrations since I'm a huge fan of Thomas Bergersen, and I said "Find a guy and sign me up!" So, who knows. Stay tuned, I guess!
Was there someone/something that started your passion for music and what did you start to do to achieve that?
I've been singing my whole life but I was raised on musicals and opera. There was definitely one artist who turned me onto goth/rock music during my formative years and I achieved that passion by ultimately having sex with him, but that had nothing to do with my career even though it was a very personally satisfying achievement.
What is the tedious part of your job that others might not realize is difficult?
Writing a melody/lyric sometimes feels like staring at a block of marble and hoping everything that's not the statue will fall away if you just think hard enough.
Well it's mostly me, to be honest. I started this project back in New York when I was writing books and gogo dancing and emceeing the occasional show. I've been a singer my whole life, training classically since I was thirteen, but I had never had the wherewithal to put a band together. But after a while of seeing all my friends do it, I got to a place where I was like, you know, I know some talented musicians and I'm actually capable of paying them in a respectful manner for their time. So we played a few shows in New York. A lot of people in that scene underestimated me, I got a lot of "oh look another pretty girl who wants to play rockstar," and to be fair, I had no actual experience in the music industry. I think they were surprised when I could actually sing. We opened for Killcode the night they signed their deal with Sony, and the guys were like "Wow, you filled the room early and you kept them there. That was what we needed."
I started working with Stacy O'Dell as a producer after that and he and I do 90% of the songwriting together. Usually I come to him with a melody and lyric and a general idea of how I want something to sound, and he brings the instrumentation together.
I moved to LA in 2014 and I knew I could get Bar Sinister to take a chance on me because I'd worked there as a gogo dancer. So I booked a show there and then I hired a set of west coast musicians. We've gone through some different incarnations but I've found some players I really like working with.
If you had to pick a place in the music world in which you belong where would that be? And how do you differentiate yourself from others in that genre?
I often describe us as "if Pat Benatar got signed by Fueled By Ramen." I was definitely inspired by early Paramore, The Pretty Reckless, and Panic at the Disco. In New York, we were pop rock. In LA we're just rock.
To be honest I care less about genre than I do about following my heart. I write the only music I'm capable of writing, which has more to do with vocals and melody than anything else. I think it could be cool to explore working with people who work in different genres, even if that's under a different project name. Michael Patterson, who mixes for artists like NIN and Beck and also runs the Cloak & Dagger party where I am a member, recently suggested to me that it would be cool if I added my rock vocals to cinematic orchestrations since I'm a huge fan of Thomas Bergersen, and I said "Find a guy and sign me up!" So, who knows. Stay tuned, I guess!
Was there someone/something that started your passion for music and what did you start to do to achieve that?
I've been singing my whole life but I was raised on musicals and opera. There was definitely one artist who turned me onto goth/rock music during my formative years and I achieved that passion by ultimately having sex with him, but that had nothing to do with my career even though it was a very personally satisfying achievement.
What is the tedious part of your job that others might not realize is difficult?
Writing a melody/lyric sometimes feels like staring at a block of marble and hoping everything that's not the statue will fall away if you just think hard enough.
Any form of artistic expression is hard to live off of, what are some jobs that have allowed you to pursue your dream while having a paying job. Do these overlap?
I'm actually an intuitive relationship coach, tarot reader, and spellcraft consultant. My dream existence in this world is to attract a base of people who love the same things I do and want to follow me through multiple genres, who want to listen to the songs I write about love since they follow my relationship-oriented writing, who want to get readings from me when my music touches them, who want to buy witchy merch from me (I make homemade smudge sticks and cleansing baths) at my shows. I hope the people who attend my classes and retreats will be interested in coming to my concerts and I hope the people who attend my concerts will be interested in coming to my classes and retreats.
In the end, you are the gift. The difference is the medium, not the message. What people are inspired by is someone who is staying true to their heart and expressing themselves authentically, and you can do that in any form.
What influence have you had in your community, in your country, in some other country?
I think my primary influence has come from the presence I've had in my community as someone who is committed to her spiritual ascension as well as to holding space for others to heal. Earlier I mentioned Cloak & Dagger, the weekly party I attend and where I sometimes do ritual, and I also have a community of spirituality/sexuality educators I belong to that hold events centered on personal growth and connection. Getting a chance to hold space for people there and work with energy is actually where I get some of the most feedback about my influence. It sounds so simple but being able to sit with someone and give them your full attention and tell them exactly the thing they need to hear in order to move forward with love and confidence in their life is the most profound impact you're likely to have on a person.
I aspire to be able to write those universal themes into my music as well, whether it deals with the empathy of pain or the victory of ascension, and I think those who encounter me know that I write from the heart. There's no reason that contemporary music can't be a vehicle for transformational messages. I'm trying now to align myself so that my concerts influence people the same way that a spiritual speaker would, and that has meant shedding a lot of the ways that I once tried to fit in or be cool. I started this band before I realized the power behind the messages I could give to people, and music is now becoming another way of doing that.
Advice for those who want to pursue the same passion
Fall in love with yourself. Fix your internal shit. Gain self-mastery over your emotional wisdom. Write from the heart. Use your songs to tell people the things they need to hear. Express the things you need to express. Call yourself on your own shit. Your struggles are bound to be someone else's struggles, and they need to know they're not alone. Everyone wants the secret key to success, fame, money, they think meeting the right person or making the right connection is going to do it. Nah brah. Get right with yourself. Music is a spiritual experience. Look at all the great performers and see how connected they were. They're not trying to be something, they're just letting the forces flow through them. Look at David Bowie - he was a brilliant artist but the core of his art came from his ability to be so much himself. The sooner you realize that you have a unique gift to offer the world that's not going to look like anyone else's, the sooner you'll stop trying so hard and start embodying your greatness.
What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town?
Well, the Archangel Michael told me to sing once.
I was at the house of a friend of mine and he told me he had received the ability to channel Archangel Michael while in a ceremony in Brazil, and asked the few of us sitting by the pool with him if we'd like to witness it. Obviously we said yes because who in their right mind turns that down. Sure enough he starts speaking in tongues, in an incredibly precise and measured way but which seemed humanly impossible - just, syllables that a human mouth shouldn't be capable of pronouncing. After the message comes out in the angelic language he retains it for a few minutes to translate it into English, and like the channeling I'm familiar with, the language that comes out is so precise it would be nearly impossible to just improvise on the fly - just the most beautiful, crisp, concise words.
And at one point he looks at me directly and says, "Sing. Your voice carries the angelic chords."
Well, shit. So I go into meditation the next night and I'm like, okay, well what the fuck does that mean. And over the next few hours I came to understand that the angelic nature is precision, that state of flow where we are so lost in the euphoria of what we're doing that everything feels perfect, like we're just plugged into the heart of the universe. And I got the message very clearly: it's not about the voice, it's about the message. It's about the genius of the flow state. Honestly that was the night that I started taking myself seriously as an artist, that I stopped referring to my band as a vanity project. As humans we're all actually terrified of how great we are and that's what keeps us from embracing our power.
But like, if I've got the Archangel Michael as a fan, I should probably get the fuck over myself.
What’s next for you?
I've spent the past year writing and recording my next EP, titled Who Can You Trust. It's the follow-up to the last EP titled It Looks Like Trouble, and as you can imagine, the narrative is about the pain of betrayal and the wounding caused by the lack of self-preservation in the narrative of the last EP. It Looks Like Trouble was all about touching the hot stove out of relentless curiosity, and Who Can You Trust asks its titular question in response. Amazingly enough I found out the answer to that question - I titled an EP Who Can You Trust and it taught me discernment.
That's the funny thing about being a witch, really. All your songs are spells.
I'm actually an intuitive relationship coach, tarot reader, and spellcraft consultant. My dream existence in this world is to attract a base of people who love the same things I do and want to follow me through multiple genres, who want to listen to the songs I write about love since they follow my relationship-oriented writing, who want to get readings from me when my music touches them, who want to buy witchy merch from me (I make homemade smudge sticks and cleansing baths) at my shows. I hope the people who attend my classes and retreats will be interested in coming to my concerts and I hope the people who attend my concerts will be interested in coming to my classes and retreats.
In the end, you are the gift. The difference is the medium, not the message. What people are inspired by is someone who is staying true to their heart and expressing themselves authentically, and you can do that in any form.
What influence have you had in your community, in your country, in some other country?
I think my primary influence has come from the presence I've had in my community as someone who is committed to her spiritual ascension as well as to holding space for others to heal. Earlier I mentioned Cloak & Dagger, the weekly party I attend and where I sometimes do ritual, and I also have a community of spirituality/sexuality educators I belong to that hold events centered on personal growth and connection. Getting a chance to hold space for people there and work with energy is actually where I get some of the most feedback about my influence. It sounds so simple but being able to sit with someone and give them your full attention and tell them exactly the thing they need to hear in order to move forward with love and confidence in their life is the most profound impact you're likely to have on a person.
I aspire to be able to write those universal themes into my music as well, whether it deals with the empathy of pain or the victory of ascension, and I think those who encounter me know that I write from the heart. There's no reason that contemporary music can't be a vehicle for transformational messages. I'm trying now to align myself so that my concerts influence people the same way that a spiritual speaker would, and that has meant shedding a lot of the ways that I once tried to fit in or be cool. I started this band before I realized the power behind the messages I could give to people, and music is now becoming another way of doing that.
Advice for those who want to pursue the same passion
Fall in love with yourself. Fix your internal shit. Gain self-mastery over your emotional wisdom. Write from the heart. Use your songs to tell people the things they need to hear. Express the things you need to express. Call yourself on your own shit. Your struggles are bound to be someone else's struggles, and they need to know they're not alone. Everyone wants the secret key to success, fame, money, they think meeting the right person or making the right connection is going to do it. Nah brah. Get right with yourself. Music is a spiritual experience. Look at all the great performers and see how connected they were. They're not trying to be something, they're just letting the forces flow through them. Look at David Bowie - he was a brilliant artist but the core of his art came from his ability to be so much himself. The sooner you realize that you have a unique gift to offer the world that's not going to look like anyone else's, the sooner you'll stop trying so hard and start embodying your greatness.
What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town?
Well, the Archangel Michael told me to sing once.
I was at the house of a friend of mine and he told me he had received the ability to channel Archangel Michael while in a ceremony in Brazil, and asked the few of us sitting by the pool with him if we'd like to witness it. Obviously we said yes because who in their right mind turns that down. Sure enough he starts speaking in tongues, in an incredibly precise and measured way but which seemed humanly impossible - just, syllables that a human mouth shouldn't be capable of pronouncing. After the message comes out in the angelic language he retains it for a few minutes to translate it into English, and like the channeling I'm familiar with, the language that comes out is so precise it would be nearly impossible to just improvise on the fly - just the most beautiful, crisp, concise words.
And at one point he looks at me directly and says, "Sing. Your voice carries the angelic chords."
Well, shit. So I go into meditation the next night and I'm like, okay, well what the fuck does that mean. And over the next few hours I came to understand that the angelic nature is precision, that state of flow where we are so lost in the euphoria of what we're doing that everything feels perfect, like we're just plugged into the heart of the universe. And I got the message very clearly: it's not about the voice, it's about the message. It's about the genius of the flow state. Honestly that was the night that I started taking myself seriously as an artist, that I stopped referring to my band as a vanity project. As humans we're all actually terrified of how great we are and that's what keeps us from embracing our power.
But like, if I've got the Archangel Michael as a fan, I should probably get the fuck over myself.
What’s next for you?
I've spent the past year writing and recording my next EP, titled Who Can You Trust. It's the follow-up to the last EP titled It Looks Like Trouble, and as you can imagine, the narrative is about the pain of betrayal and the wounding caused by the lack of self-preservation in the narrative of the last EP. It Looks Like Trouble was all about touching the hot stove out of relentless curiosity, and Who Can You Trust asks its titular question in response. Amazingly enough I found out the answer to that question - I titled an EP Who Can You Trust and it taught me discernment.
That's the funny thing about being a witch, really. All your songs are spells.