QUARANTINE PROFILE: Lewis Knaggs
We’ve launch a profile series to highlight how artists are spending their time during quarantine. Several times a week we’ll highlight a new artist across the globe and see how they’re keeping busy during COVID-19 lockdowns.
Lewis Knaggs started out as a cinematographer in London and has grown into a wonderful musician over the last few years, releasing a handful of great singles. Plus side of being multi-talented is being able to make his own beautiful videos, which you can see below for his latest single “I’ll Survive”. We chat with Lewis about how his lockdown has been going, coffee and what we should take from all this.
Where have you been spending your quarantine?
In my flat in east London, my sister moved in to keep me company which was great, as I would have been very lonely otherwise…and probably even more crazy by now.
How have you been staying busy during quarantine?
Yeah I've been making loads of music and also lots of videos for my music…and other peoples music…
Anything new you’ve learned? / Something new you’ve done:
I have learnt how to play the guitar a bit better I think…and make really good coffee’s cause I bought a fancy coffee machine just as we went into lock down..you know the one that you put the beans in the top and all that jazz, epic.
What quarantine trend have you fallen prey to?
I jumped on that “houseparty” app for, around 1 weekend…then deleted it because I felt like my brain was melting even more.
Song and Album you’ve had on repeat:
Sam fender - Hypersonic Missiles
The song “The Borders” from that album Is my fave right now in the world.
What’s a song that is your go to comfort jam?
There's a Song by the Chili Peppers called “Tear” which I love, it feels like a warm hug. Definitely my comfort jam.
Something keeping Lewis sane right now: So this sounds silly, but this road was actually a great saviour during lockdown, I shot like 4 different music videos on this road...as its blocked off at both ends ! It's right near where I live so it meant I could keep working without technically doing anything illegal. It's also next to the outdoor velodrome where I would go and cycle to keep sane, and test out mixes of new songs!
If you could only watch one film or TV show for the rest of time what would it be?
Breaking Bad probably, really into Vikings at the moment too…
What’s something you miss the most right now?
Everything !! Normality …
Are there any livestream concerts/events you’ve really been inspired by or enjoying right now?
The Idles Abbey Road live stream is by far the best thing I've seen…ever.
What do you hope we take away from this?
I do feel rested and re-set, it’s made me think about what is actually important in life…The carpet has been pulled from under most people….you take away the routine of work, going out and the hustle and bustle of normal life, and your left with the bare bones of your life. So it’s a good time to think about your past and reflect on how you might want to approach the future differently…
Anything new we should know about that you’re working on?
I’ve been in the studio a lot during this time…as it's just me and the engineer so it’s very socially distanced…So lot’s more music dropping soon! As well as videos that came from the height of lockdown :)
QUARANTINE PROFILE: Violet Skies
We’ve launch a profile series to highlight how artists are spending their time during quarantine. Several times a week we’ll highlight a new artist across the globe and see how they’re keeping busy during COVID-19 lockdowns.
Somehow we’re in September already and still trying to cope with this year. Therefore we’re still doing these Quarantine Profiles. Today we bring you our chat with the lovely Welsh songwriter, producer and artist, Violet Skies. She’s released a relatable quarantine EP entitled Lonely back in April and has been busy on new music and learning guitar…which you’ll find out more when you read her Quarantine Profile below. She’s also a co-runner of the awesome all-female producer, songwriter & engineer writing camp called sheWrites.
Violet Skies Online: Spotify | Instagram | Twitter | Facebook
Where have you been spending your quarantine?
LA, I'd planned to be home in the UK but it's not safe to travel back yet so I'm sticking it out here.
How have you been staying busy during quarantine?
Making music everyday, meditating sporadically, eating junk food, napping in the afternoons, learning guitar, Zooming my family every weekend, RuPaul's Drag Race, Killing Eve and I May Destroy You and Normal People.
Anything new you’ve learned?
I play guitar now! Never used to but I worked on it non stop for about six weeks and now I write with it and it's been the most incredible breakthrough for me musically. I've actually just bought my first acoustic so I don't have to keep using a borrowed guitar.
What quarantine trend have you fallen prey to?
Plants. Except I'm pretty awful at keeping them alive. My friend, artist Sarah Close, gives me plant pep talks over zoom in between our writing sessions.
What’s something new you’ve cooked/baked?
Sweet potato and butternut squash cakes, and Hawaiian butter mochi cake
Go to quarantine snack:
Whatever is left in the cupboard
Song (or album) you’ve had on repeat:
Emilie Nicholas - Let Her Breathe (PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM!!!!!)
What’s your go to song to make you feel less alone?
“No Humans” - Emilie Nicholas
If you could only watch one film or TV show for the rest of time what would it be?
The Office (US)
What’s something you miss the most right now?
My baby niece. I miss her so much it hurts and I'm really terrified I'm missing important moments
Anything new we should know about that you’re working on?
New music. Songs I've written and are coming to completion with the production soon!
INTERVIEW: Agent Envy
Agent Envy
The Photo Ladies Interview
Alejandra Jiménez, who goes by the moniker Agent Envy, recently released her debut single, a haunting cover of Deftone's "My Own Summer". Infusing sultrier vocals and a heavier emphasis on synth and industrial elements, she creates her own unique spin on the classic Deftone's hit. Born in San Diego, Jiménez has been singing for as long as she can remember and was immersed in musical theatre since she was a small child. She learned guitar in middle school and discovered her love for rock music, later fronting her high school rock band. She counts Tool, Massive Attack and Nine Inch Nails as a few of her musical inspirations. Having since relocated to Brooklyn, NY, she aims to express the darker side of life through music and art, with her Agent Envy persona drawing from her experiences as a freelancer in the graphic novel industry and her career as an international private investigator. Having worked and traveled continuously over the past few years, music had taken a backseat for Jiménez until this past year. Determined to make music and art a priority, she has created an in-home studio and made time each day for music, resulting in her debut single and impending EP. With plans to release more singles, music videos and behind-the-scenes looks at the making of her music videos, Agent Envy has given us plenty to look forward to. You can connect with Agent Envy via the following links and check out her latest single “Spiral”:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | Spotify | YouTube | Songwhip
You recently released your cover of the Deftones song "My Own Summer". What can you tell me about the inspiration behind your rendition of the song, as well as why you chose that particular song as your debut single?
I’m a huge 90’s rock and metal fan, so many bands from that era have influenced me as a musician, and the Deftones are no exception. My Own Summer is probably one of their most well-known tracks, and I knew that I wanted to go for a real classic like that. In my rendition, I opted for a more sultry vocal approach with a heavier emphasis on synth and industrial elements, which are a recurring theme in my sound.
What can you tell me the idea behind the video and why you chose to shoot parts of it in red lighting?
To me, this song is about isolation from the rest of the world, whether self-imposed or not. I wanted to create a visual that matched that feeling, something a little dream-like and cyclical, maybe even unsettling at times. The “red section” as we were referring to it during production, represents sinking further into that isolation and the twisting of reality that goes with it. Red neon is also a bit of a running theme in my branding imagery as well.
Your persona of agent envy is described as being born from a desire to express the darker side of life through music and art. In what ways do you feel music and art have been catalysts for this expression?
I’ve always gravitated towards things that are a little dark. Books, movies, and music on dark topics, edgy fashion, dark imagery, etc. I just feel the most comfortable and excited by these things. Music and art are the best ways to express any range of emotions, I just tend to focus on topics that aren’t quite as sunny.
I read that you have drawn significant inspiration from film scores. What can you tell me about your love for film scores and how they've inspired you? What would you count as your favorites?
I’m very visually-oriented and whenever I’m writing music, I’m always thinking about what kind of scene in a movie it would be played in. I feel like this helps me to create a consistent mood around each song that transports the listener. I love action movies, sci-fi and fantasy, so these are usually the types of film scores and sound tracks that I’ll reach for. My all-time favorite movie is the Matrix, which had a really significant impact on me as a kid. The concept, the characters, the music, the aesthetic, were unlike anything I’d ever experienced at the time and it really stuck with me. So many of the artists featured on that sound track have become my favorites over the years.
What can you tell me about your life as an international private investigator, as well as a freelancer in the graphic novel industry? How did you become involved in those lines of work and how have they influenced your music?
I can’t disclose much about my career in investigation, and I prefer to keep my music and my job as separate as possible. The graphic novel work was something I did throughout college and for a little while after. I worked closely with one of DC Comic’s top colorists prepping pages for him in a process known in the industry as “flatting.” It was tons of fun and I got to work on just about every major DC character out there, and always made point of attending Comic Con in either San Diego or New York. There was a point in time when I wanted to make a full time career out of it, and I’d still love to write and illustrate my own graphic novel one day.
You grew up in San Diego and have been performing since you were young and were immersed in the musical theatre scene as both a performer and spectator. What can you tell me about your childhood and growing up in the theatre? Did you grow up in a musical/artistic family?
I’ve been singing for as long as I can remember. My parents actually used to get complaints from my pre-school because I would routinely sing during class. After a few school plays, I ended up auditioning for larger-scale productions locally, started formal voice lessons and continued to act, sing and dance in various shows through my senior year of high school. I started learning to play the guitar in middle school and ended up as the lead singer in my high school’s rock band (which is what we had instead of a marching band), and that was when I realized I really loved being the front woman in a band. That in particular for me was a real milestone because it’s tough as an alto to land leading roles in musical theater, where soprano voices are the most sought after. Rock music is another world, and I started to really come into my own.
My mom is an artist. She’s got degrees in illustration and ceramics, she makes jewelry, she cooks fantastic meals and decorates incredible desserts, and she’s where I get my obsession with “making things.” My dad is a psychiatrist, but played trumpet in a band for many years and I credit him with educating me in all things rock and beyond. Plus he’s the root of my interest in detective novels and action movies.
What can you tell me about moving to New York for college and what that transition was like for you, moving from California to NY? Having not gone to many concerts until you moved to NY, what was it like to start becoming more immersed in the music scene? What do you like to do for fun in the city?
San Diego and NYC couldn’t be more different if they tried. The people, the architecture, the weather, the population density, are all very different. New York is a very competitive place compared to San Diego but there’s a lot to love here too. The awesome thing about the New York concert scene is that basically every artist is guaranteed to perform here, so I got to see so many musicians that never made it to San Diego. I generally spend half of every concert paying attention and the other half thinking about how much I want to be back on stage. Going to shows is a great way for me to find inspiration any time I feel like i’m in a rut.
Outside of going to concerts, I love spending time with my friends doing basically anything. Going to the movies, dining out, grabbing drinks are all staple activities. I also love venturing out into the trig-state area during the summer and fall and renting out a house with friends. Of course, things are a little different now due to Covid, but we try to see each other as regularly as possible.
You talked last year about having the time to think about how you had been living your life and the way you wanted to live it. You mentioned having lost sight of what truly drives you- being creative, making art, dreaming of characters and becoming them, making music, singing and performing. What can you tell me about that revelation and your journey of bringing those things into the present and doing what drives you?
Wow, you’ve really done your homework! A few things happened all at once. I had just ended a relationship, I had a fairly-serious health scare, and I had been working and traveling incessantly for several years. I realized that while I was really successful at what I did, I had forgotten to make time to pursue what I really loved, which is music and art. I read a quote somewhere, the gist of which is that you should be living each day as you wish to live your life, because your days are your life in miniature. That really stuck with me, and I could see that even though I had dreams of pursuing music, I wasn’t actually spending time doing that on a daily basis. To change that, I started carving out 2 hours a night to work on music, and I pretty much haven’t stopped since.
You moved last year into a new apartment that now houses your own in home studio for music production and recording. What has that been like for you to have your own studio? Do you record and produce music for other artists besides yourself?
Having my own home studio has made an enormous difference in my ability to create music more effortlessly. I’ve been able to acquire some more gear and instruments that I didn’t have space for in my previous tiny apartment, and that has really opened up my options creatively. It’s also just psychologically beneficial to have a designated space to make music. When I sit at this desk, I know it’s time to get to work. Currently I’m only working on my own music, but I’d love to work with other artists later down the line. I think it’s really crucial to be protective of your time and energy, so I am trying not to spread myself too thin.
As someone who has traveled a lot, what is your process for making music on the road and how does it differ for you from making music at home?
Depending on how long I’m traveling for and how light I need to travel, I usually opt for less gear for the sake of not having to haul too much through TSA. A laptop, headphones, a midi controller and my songwriting notebook are the basics. I use my phone to capture my initial ideas via voice notes, and then I’ll sketch out the instrumentation and structure from there. When I get back, I’ll record a more solid vocal demo at home. I also love to use travel time to brush up on my theory as well, especially since I usually won’t have access to a guitar.
You have mentioned having a love for analog. What can you tell me about your love for analog in such a digital world? Do you incorporate digital aspects into your producing/recording process as well?
I love technology, but I really hate staring at screens all day. I try to minimize that as much as possible by keeping paper notebooks, calendars, etc., instead of having everything be digital. Of course, these days most production is done digitally but a lot of the instrumentation we use is real-world. My music is a solid mix of both.
You have talked about how one of the things you have struggled the most with during quarantine has been the self-imposed pressure to "maximize" the time you've had to do something productive every waking hour. How have you tried to overcome that struggle and the subsequent anxiety, uncertainty and exhaustion? Are there any lessons you have learned as a result or things about yourself?
I’ve gotten back into journaling which has really helped. I felt like I had totally lost track of the days and yet I was trying to do so much at once. All of a sudden everyone’s time was spent entirely online instead of in-person, and I needed to find a way to get a grasp on reality again. I think a lot of that anxiety also subsided when it became clear that things weren’t going to go back to normal any time soon. I felt less pressure to maximize my time at home while I had it, and could focus more on planning longer term.
What can you tell me about your upcoming single "Spiral", which will be an original song? What can you tell me about your process of creating original music and what can people expect?
“Spiral” is a rather personal song about hookup culture and my tendencies to engage in it, even though I know how it’ll play out every time. It’s about the games we play with other people to try and get what we want while maintaining some illusion of dignity and control. I’m so excited for everyone to hear it and I really love the way it turned out.
My songwriting process usually starts with lyrics and melody at the same time, I rarely write to any accompaniment. I’ll start with singing into my voice memos and build out at least a first verse and first chorus before i move onto any other parts. In terms of subject matter, I always write from personal experience and I make a point of expanding my topics beyond just relationships. There’s a whole other host of topics in the range of human experience that deserve songs too. I’ve got songs about sleep walking, about hospitalization, etc.
What's next for you?
I’ll be releasing the music video for “Spiral” shortly after the song release. I don’t want to give too much away but it’s turning out really awesome and it was pretty exhausting to film. I’m hoping to release a few more singles this year, leading up to my EP, Hybrid. In the meantime, I’ll be publishing behind the scenes videos for each of my music videos, as well as throughout the studio recording phases, for those who are interested in a more in-depth look at my creative process.
QUARANTINE PROFILE: Navvy
We’ve launch a profile series to highlight how artists are spending their time during quarantine. Several times a week we’ll highlight a new artist across the globe and see how they’re keeping busy during COVID-19 lockdowns.
I discovered Navvy’s track “Mad At You” last year and it quickly became an anthem of mine. Now we have some new tunes to love with her latest EP The Final Pieces. It’s another beautiful piece to showcase her unique songwriting with frighteningly honest lyrics about relationships, friendships and everything in-between. Hailing from Auckland, New Zealand Navvy lets us know how things have been in quarantine and the new EP.
Where have you been spending your quarantine?
I have been at my parents house in Auckland, NZ. It's actually been wonderful to spend time with them, because I usually travel a lot, so it's nice to have what felt like infinite amounts of time to sit and chat or whatever.
How have you been staying busy during quarantine? (or not keeping busy is totally fine too)
I really appreciate you saying 'or not keeping busy', because it has kind of felt like quarantine has been an excuse for competition around who works the 'hardest'. Which is so subjective, ya know? Working on music 8 hours a day 5 days a week would not be productive for me, so I haven't been doing that. But I have written a bit, both on my own and on zoom with some wildly talented people. I have also done a lot of painting, both water colour and paint by numbers. I go skating at night when the streets are quiet. I have felt busy, I guess.
Anything new you’ve learned?
I had never really painted before but I LOVED the idea of it. I am the type of person that really hates being bad at things, so if I don't pick it up right away, I tend to just give up. With water colours, I feel like it always looks kind of messy and fluid, so I have actually been really enjoying that. I also learned to candy walnuts, which is the easiest thing in the world but has such a huge pay off (they're delicious).
What’s something new you’ve cooked/baked?
At the beginning of quarantine, my mum would wake me up in the morning by saying "The bakery is open" and we would do a lot of baking. It wasn't necessarily new stuff, but it was so fun. I made mini pecan pies one day that were excellent.
Thing keeping Navvy sane right now:
My mum holding my skateboard, mainly because she is the only thing that keeps me sane EVER, but also because she actually looks 15 and it's made me laugh a lot, and also, the fact that she is holding my skateboard says so much (I probably pretended to tie my shoelace so I wouldn't have to carry it on the gravel). It was taken on one of the streets in our neighbourhood one day.
Go to quarantine snack:
Probably candied walnuts. Which I think are made to go on top of things, but are delicious on their own. Also mandarins are so yum.
Album you’ve had on repeat:
I LOVE albums. I am such an album person. At the start of quarantine, I would listen to an album a day while I somberly danced through the empty streets at night. A few stand outs were Golden Hour Kacey Musgraves, Barbara Trixie Mattel, and 3, 2, 1 Lennon Stella. That last one particularly stuck. I also listened to Punisher Phoebe Bridgers last night and wow that album is something else.
If you could only watch one film or TV show for the rest of time what would it be?
Film: Hot Rod. There is not a circumstance in which I watch that film that doesn't make me laugh.
TV Show: I think Gilmore Girls.
Anything new we should know about that you’re working on?
I have an EP of songs I absolutely love out on September 4th. This one feels really special to me, because it's not just songs about a boy who broke my heart, it tells other stories from my life too. It's called The Final Pieces, and it is kind of me closing the door on 2019.
VIDEO INTERVIEW: Flora Lucini & Creature
Flora Lucini & Creature
The Photo Ladies Video Interview
At the beginning of the Summer, the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin pulled the truths about racial inequity in America into sharp relief. Demands for change in the form of protests resounded for weeks. Though many of the performative actions are now tapering off, there is still injustice, and still work to be done.
In New York City, local hardcore/punk musicians Flora Lucini (MAAFA, The 1865) and Creature (Rebelmatic) have spent the past few years organically building a tribe of Black musicians and fans. Prior to the COVID-19 lockdown, they brought their powerful songs and dedication to the scene to a monthly residency at Max Fish on the Lower East Side, offering a safe space for their peers. With live shows currently on hold, the two have not ceased their efforts. Rebelmatic recently released a killer new album Ghost in the Shadows, both they and MAAFA are featured on Bandcamp compilation Shut it Down: Benefit for the Movement for Black Lives. Also be sure to check out MAAFA’s self titled 2017 demo.
I recently sat down with Flora and Creature at Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn to discuss their music, tribe, impact on the scene, as well as current social and racial issues in the country. That interview is compiled in the video here. These are their voices. This is their power.
INTERVIEW: CrowJane
CrowJane
The Photo Ladies Interview
For many artists, writing and recording music can be considered a form of therapy and for LA musician, makeup and makeup effects artist Heather Galipo, her new solo album was just that. Galipo, who goes by the moniker CrowJane, is releasing her new album Mater Dolorosa today. Described by some as experimental and avant-garde, those descriptions could be used to describe the album. A genuine and unconventional artist with no desire to be the next big thing, Mater Dolorosa is an honest album that was years in the making for Galipo. As she was slowly writing the songs for the album, she also joined three other bands- Egrets on Ergot, The Deadbeats and Prissy Whip. Earlier this year, she signed with Kitten Robot Records, owned by musical icon Josie Cotton, and the album was recorded at the Kitten Robot Studios. Galipo worked closely on the album with producer and LA punk icon Paul Roessler (The Screamers/Nina Hagen/45 Grave/The Deadbeats), who runs the studio. Having worked with Roessler on other projects/bands over the years, he convinced her to put pen to paper and write about the loss, abuse and addiction she had experienced. The result is Mater Dolorosa, 10 tracks that are a raw and vulnerable expression of these experiences. “A lot of thought and experimenting went into this album,” she replies about this collaboration. “A variety of experimental percussive sounds, some coming from instruments that we made out of various materials like bed railing, tin cans, foil, etc. This album is uncomfortably personal which makes me feel exposed to the public. It is riddled with pain and self-reflection from personal experiences and the state of the world. At the same time, it shines a light on some of the beauty of being so exposed and overcoming obstacles. It's a love story and it's an expression of gratitude to so many that have left a stamp on my life and helped me grow.” The first single from the album, "Terminal Secrets", was released on August 18th. “Lyrically, this song was inspired by the idea that a person can have a smile on their face but be screaming on the inside,” she told Postpunk.com, who premiered the single and video. “What is portrayed on the outside doesn't always reflect what is actually going on inside a person and within their mind. People can spend so much of their life chasing for money, power, security, validation, fame, 'success', and wake up to the realization of the 'monster they have become' on their journey to obtain or achieve it.” The second single, "The Pharmacy", was released on September 8th. Aside from music, Galipo has a visual art background in surrealism and horror and has built a career as a professional horror effects makeup artist. A lifelong love for painting and drawing morphed in high school into a decision to pursue makeup effects. After spending over a decade in the indie film industry, she recently made it into the makeup union and has since worked on high profile shows such as Star Trek: Picard and Ryan Murphy's show Hollywood, to name a few. With plans to make more music videos and start writing her next album, CrowJane is definitely an artist to keep on your radar. You can connect with CrowJane and purchase her album via the following links.
You'll be releasing your debut solo album Mater Dolorosa in September, an album that has been years in the making for you. You have discussed how the album was uncomfortably personal and riddled with pain and self-reflection from both personal experiences and the state of the world. What can you tell me about the experience of making the album and coming out of that place of pain into what you have described now as a sense of gratitude for your growth and the lessons that you learned as a result?
Well, I play in 3 bands and am the only girl in all of them and most of the time I am playing guitar. In one of the bands I am the lead vocalist, for a band called Prissy Whip. With the band I've been in the longest, I play guitar primarily and it's such a different thing to just play guitar, as opposed to singing and being the frontperson and writing these words and expressing yourself through lyrics. Something like poetry and writing, it's something I've always done. When I was in high school, I remember I'd always write poetry and stuff in the back of my notebook when I should have been in class paying attention (laughs). I was writing poetry in the back of my notebook or drawing pretty things in the margins. I have this very already kind of intense emotional connection to writing and using writing songs and art and all of that as a form of expression and emotional release. At the time, I think I was just, and I think this is something a lot of people go through, a bottled-up person with a lot of emotions and a lot of trauma. And that's not special to me in any particular case. I think every human being has their own version of traumatic events that have happened to them. But with this particular situation, I didn't really know where to put things in the sense of "How do I navigate through everything that I'm going through?". It felt like a very heavy weight. I was never, like, in therapy. I got put into therapy once in high school. It was this terrible situation where it was a really strict Christian who tried to convert me and got my dad involved and it was weird. I would smoke weed before I would go and would go there really high and really happy and I remember at one point she was like "You seem happier" and I was like "You're right, I am" (laughs)! I would try any way to get out of stuff like that and would ignore anything that was like self-reflection, even though that is exactly what I needed. So really I was in my own self-bondage and would let everything that felt like a traumatic event that I'd gone through all control me and affect me in my day-to-day life. This album was a particular breaking point. I was going through my addiction and it was at its peak, I think. I fell 12 feet though a skylight and was in a back brace and scared the shit out of everyone I love. Paul (Roessler), my music producer, was one of those people. He even wrote a song about a girl falling through a skylight (laughs)! He's one of the people that would be like asking the universe to help me and to help get me sober. I'm a very love-centric person and when I was writing this album, it was a lot of relationships that didn't work out and one of them was even abusive. Two days before I sang the song...I do a cover on the album of "It's A Man's World" and wanted to do it in a very feminist kind of way. A lot of people cover that song but sing it in a very pretty way. It's a good song but the only band that I know, and it's a band that I am actually inspired by who covers that song, is a band called The Residents, and they just fuck it up and make it weird. I wanted to fuck it up and make it weird but also wanted to bring a feminist energy to it, like "Yeah. It's a fucking man's world but we're doing our best to change that!". 2 days before I sang that vocal track I was sexually assaulted and throughout all of this stuff Paul said "You're going to write about it". This is one way that I know how to navigate through this and that makes it better. This is a very good therapy, and of course every art form is, but sometimes I feel like when you are in the heat of all that stuff, you don't want to do anything. I'm sure a lot of people are going through that in quarantine, with this country on fire and the world being weird, and you want the drive to do all of the things, but sometimes you just don't. Paul was the push that was like "write songs about it", and so I did. At first, they were primarily about the relationships that I was in, and I was just expressing what it was like to go through this process of trying to have something like a romantic relationship, and you're not taught in school how to do such a thing. I feel like people don't commonly go about it in the way of like "Hmmm. This is an interesting experience to have in life. Let me research it and read books about it first". You're just kind of thrown in there and fumbling around and guessing and have a lot of probably not so great or healthy ones. Or at least in my case that's how it was. Even though it started off being centered in a lot of that and just writing about a lot of that stuff, I'm happy that I did it because it did help get me through it. It makes it really personal in a way that isn't like me just playing a guitar part in a song. It forces me to be vulnerable.
The album is titled Mater Dolorosa, which translates to Mother of Sorrows, one of the 3 artistic representations of a sorrowful Virgin Mary. Also, the album will be released on September 15th, which is the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. What can you tell me of any personal significance of the album title and release date?
Mater Dolorosa...Lady of Sorrows...I thought that it was fitting, just with the vibe of the album and what it's about (laughs). But I've been sober for over 5 years now and have gone through all kinds of different experiences and it's not all woes and turmoil. My life is way more amazing now than it's ever been. But Mater Dolorosa was kind of a universal God shot in that September 15th is a celebratory day of Mater Dolorosa. I met up with the label and we were talking about release dates and Gina, who works with Josie (Cotton), said "Hey. I looked it up and September 15th is a celebratory day of Mater Dolorosa and we were like WOAH!". It just so happened to be the day we were talking about releasing the album, so we were like "This is perfect. Let's release it on this date". Along with the representation of the meaning of what Mater Dolorosa is, Paul was in a band called The Screamers that I love a lot, and I have all of these little symbolisms, sort of a love letter play on words and hidden between the lines sort of stuff. It's kind of like a love letter to Paul and The Screamers and I like the meaning and imagery of Mater Dolorosa a lot. So that's where that came from.
What led you to want to experiment with different kinds of atypical instrumentation on the album, such as metal bed frames and crumpled up foil and just whatever was around?
I feel like I am a very experimental person in general when it comes to art forms, particularly music. I'm inspired by so many different bands that really bend the rules on music. So many of my friends and people that I make music with are the same way. It's fun for me to explore, because I feel like people can get pigeonholed very easily and stuck in this very guitar/bass/drums model. Everything's been done, you know? Everything's been done. At the same time, I'm a self-taught musician, so I'm in the studio and Paul is telling me to write these songs. I was just going to do like a guitar-acoustic type of thing but was like "Too folky. I don't want that". How many people do I know who made a solo album and it was a folk album? Even if sometimes that vibe will come naturally, there was also a part of me that wanted drums on a track. There were some tom drums in the studio and I decided to bang on those for a little bit. I think the trigger for the inspiration came when we were making a song, and I was in the vocal booth, and the mic was still on. I walked out and there's this sliding glass door that opens and closes in order to go into the other room where you listen back, where the recording board is. When I opened and closed it, it went "swoosh" and the microphone caught the sound. When we listened back, both Paul and I liked that sound. I think there was just a realization and something that clicked there where we realized we could make all of these cool sounds that we could add into the music. Paul is really good at stuff like that. We could make them and use what's around the studio and the apartment as instruments that sound really cool. Then we were off on this whole new thing and everything in the house could be used for really cool sounds. It's interesting, because even places like Disney used to do that, like with soundtracks to cartoons or whatever they were doing. A lot of the times there were these homemade instruments they would use to make a specific sound of like "What does this cartoon character falling off a mountain sound like?". I'm into stuff like that and I researched it and so we just started banging on stuff and a lot of it sounded really cool and added a really interesting, experimental flare.
What has it been like to be signed to Kitten Robot Records? Having been friends with and worked with Paul (who heads Kitten Robot Studios) for several years now, what do you feel you have learned from him over the years?
I call him and his wife Rachel my little angels. Woah, I feel emotional. I didn't expect that. He's like a mentor, you know? And he's really supportive and inspiring and it's not just with me. I see it with him and Josie too. If he were here, he'd be saying some smart-ass comment about this I'm sure (laughs)! Like "I love it when girls cry" (laughs). There's a humor and humility to it. It's been really cool. I've done music for a long time now and have been signed to a label before and basically it didn't do much. It gave us a tangible record on vinyl that we couldn't afford anyway. This is the first time I have been signed to a label that has...you know, it's a newer label so they are driven to expand and become bigger. The push to expand and become bigger with them is existent and that's the first time that I have had that from a label. I'm getting interviews left and right and photo shoots and really good PR. I was just going to put this album up online and call it a day, but Paul put a lot of time into this album too and was like "I want you to try to shop it around and let's see what happens". In a lot of these situations, I like to take myself out of them. It's not all about me. I wanted to shop it around for him and for the project. And then Kitten Robot was into it and they wanted to put it out and I'm just really grateful and appreciative of all the support. It's really cool that all of these magical things keep happening, like it was just supposed to be a digital release and then one of my friends who is also starting a label said they would partner up with Kitten Robot Records and make vinyl. They really wanted the album to be on vinyl and I was like "Woah! Now this is going to be on vinyl? Cool!". And now I have interviews with all of these magazines talking about it, which is cool. This is way more than I ever expected from it. I don't know if it's going to go anywhere. It's never my drive to be like the next big thing or whatever. You know, my music is, like, weird. I'm a weirdo and my music's weird (laughs)! I don't expect everyone to love it. It doesn't have this, like, very basic structure of catchy choruses that happen time and time again, even though I think it's really melodic and beautiful. I think the work that Paul and I did is really cool. I also know that the vast majority of people are listening to the top 60 radio hits, like Taylor Swift or whatever. But I think that everything that is happening is really awesome and it's been a really cool experience.
You have talked about growing up in the punk scene and about how punk rock saved your life. What can you tell me about the early days of the LA punk and underground music scene that you were a part of when you were younger and how it's evolved over the years?
Yeah, sure. I'm happy that you used the words "that punk rock saved your life" because yeah, I say that and it's true, as much as it kind of destroys your life at the same time (laughs). You know, I say the same thing about music...a blessing and a curse. And I'm not really a religious person when I say these terms. They're just the easiest terms to use. When I was in high school, things weren't the best at home. There was a period in my life where my mother died from cancer at a really young age and I was just mad. I was mad and had all of this energy and there was this group of kids that hung out at the wall. It was called the wall. It was this brick wall and they were all of the goth and punk kids and I was just a nerd who liked to read books. There was something that just drew me in to these kids. I think my siblings at the same time were...like my brother was wearing Doc Martens and was always listening to music with these big headphones and had the Dead Kennedys CDs and The Doors and things like that. All of these things in my life were moving me towards this music and these people and everyone that I knew, like these kids who hung out at the wall or in the janitor's closet, were all going through something too. I feel like that's the part where the punk kids became my family and where them saving my life comes in, because people need people to a certain extent. We were all going through this shit and like, the music just lets you, it's just that you could connect to it so much and in a political way too. And then you go to these shows and that was our escape. We would go to these shows and get into the mosh pit and chip our teeth and get bloody and bruised and whatever. It felt good and we'd feel so alive!. At the same time, the darker side of that stuff is where the addiction comes in. There was a lot of drinking and a lot of these musicians and writers that I would idolize, like Hunter S Thompson and a lot of musicians in the punk scene, were all kind of these, like, broken people with troubles with addiction but amazing at what they do. And I'd think "Oh, I'm not addicted to anything". I had this way of romanticizing that narrative and it wasn't until later in life, like now, where I realized that that's actually the sad part of their story. With Hunter S Thompson, for example, I wish he was alive now with all of these different things in politics happening. I want to know what he would write about. It would be amazing. But anyways, I just devoted myself to punk music and it became my life and I became a nerd about that since I was a nerd anyway. And I just researched the shit out of it. I wanted to go underground and underground and underground and find all of the deeper cuts, since it's kind of the music that a lot of bands didn't really make a profit off of. Like, I love The Screamers so much and it's a legendary band, but Paul was telling me this story about he got, like, a check in the mail for The Screamers and it was a dollar. It's just, like, bootlegs everywhere and people don't make money off of it and that's fine. When I started to be in bands and play music, I just got more and more friends who were punk nerds. When I got out of high school, my friends that were more musically inclined and into music actually wanted to make music. The partying came to a halt. It got ugly there. It became more about making music and making art. And the underground scene in LA, like with my band Egrets on Ergot, was really cool. It felt like everything I had read about in books, like this is happening. I always would say how I wished I was in the music scene in the 70s. If I had a time machine, I would go back to the blues days. I wish I was in any sort of musical world besides the one I'm actually in (laughs). It felt very thriving and cool and underground and everyone was dressed up and expressing themselves in cool styles and going to the shops and to Glitter Death and we'd play upstairs in sort of the attic area. The whole store was shaking and was probably unsafe but whatever. We were all hanging out there until 2 or 3 am and we were in Hollywood and it felt really cool. I think it started to get a lot of traction and post-punk, even though it was underground, started to get a lot of traction and became a pretty popular thing here in LA and more and more people started to come out to shows and my band Egrets on Ergot got more and more traction. If you would have told little punk me in high school that one day I would be playing with The Deadbeats and I would be sitting within the studio or I would meet Paul Roessler from The Screamers or I would be playing in a band with Rick Agnew from Christian Death, I wouldn't have believed you. Or that I was going to be on tour with The Weirdos in your band. I would have said no way. I remember when I was going to shows and watching bands up on the stage being like "Man, that would be so cool to do something like that" but feeling like I probably never would. But I have, many, many times, and it's actually one of the places I love to be the most. There's nothing else that I've done that is like it. I get really awesome feelings and sensations of expression and loss of time when I'm doing makeup and makeup effects for example, or painting. But there's just nothing like performing on a stage and connecting to people and their energy. There's just nothing like it.
In recent months you have rediscovered your love for art forms that you haven't really touched for a while, most specifically photography. A lot of the photography you have done has been for the album artwork and the artwork for the album's singles and you have collaborated with Rachel Roessler, who is also a photographer. What can you tell me about getting back into photography, as well as the inspiration behind the aesthetic of your photos, which have a spooky, witchy and at times spiritual vibe to them?
I used to do film photography with my sister, and just photography in general. I would always be the model for my sister in her photos. She got really into it, as well. My relationship with Rachel kind of feels that way. I took a class at Cal Arts and would be in the darkroom developing my film and stuff like that and I don't know. I stopped doing it for a long time. I think when Covid happened, a lot of my artist friends...my world had become music and film and both of them will keep you really busy. Painting on canvas and photography is something that I hadn't touched for a while. I got the chance to during this Covid time. Rachel is really into photography too and we both have these kinds of dark aesthetics. There's just a mood to this album that I really wanted to represent and I kept getting all of these ideas of things I thought would look really cool, and I was also able to use my make-up and effects skills. For one of the photoshoots, I wanted to recreate Mater Dolorosa, so I made a prosthetic at home with swords going through my heart and made it kind of gory. I got an idea to go to...it was when it was raining for days and days in LA and I think it was the most rain we'd ever had. Everything was so green. I just love misty, cloudy, foggy environments and the mood it creates. It's my favorite mood, even though it's kind of sad, but it's just comfortable. I think, like, healthy people who are going to the gym all the time or something probably like the sun the most and are up at 6 am (laughs)! Rachel was diving back into her photography too and we wanted something to do. I didn't have the release yet. Kitten Robot Records wasn't even in the picture. We were just like "Wanna go take photos? I need something to do. Let's go take some photos. Let's go to the mountains and walk around". So we did and I do have a spiritual, sort of witchy side to me and I just like nature so much. Through becoming sober and through even this time in Covid, this sort of grounding connection to nature has been something that has been really important to me. It reminds me to get out of the concrete jungle and to stare at a tree or go into nature and look at how beautiful the world is and to remember that outside of people and politics and things that could be considered ugly, there's also all of these beautiful parts of the world to explore. More and more ideas kept coming to Rachel and I and we were like "Ok, let's do this. Let's be a murky, creepy witch person in the water". We are both kind of inspired by this horror type of imagery and it's been really fun. I really like what we've done.
You recently released the single "Terminal Secrets", which was inspired by the fact that what's portrayed on the outside doesn't always reflect what's going on inside of a person and their mind. What can you tell me about the song and what you feel it reflects about today's society?
It's funny, because to me it's saying what's underneath the mask of your personality and what's really going on inside. And then it just so happens to be, at this point and time in the world, that we have to wear masks literally (laughs)! It can be so hard to see people's personalities through these masks. There's just no expression. I just feel like there's so much pressure in society to present yourself well, and I don't know. Maybe this is some old sort of 50s mentality or something? And being emotional or crying is seen as sign of weakness. I think for a lot of people, it's hard for them to communicate about this stuff that's probably going on inside of them. It's hard to be vulnerable, and as humans everyone has kind of like their ego and it's just what naturally happens. How do you break that and how do you shed that? I see it a lot of the time in the film industry and in music where there's just a lot of facade. I think especially in LA. It feels like things just lack depth because people aren't being genuine. That or their really, really genuine and maybe saying too much, which is maybe where I fall into the line (laughs). I'm like at the opposite end of the spectrum. But I wanted to write about that and I've seen it time and time again, where people just get a little taste of success and they want more and more and more of it and just "How do I make it in LA and in this industry? Who do I need to know and how can I be their friend so that I can get closer to my success?". Part of what I talk about in the song is this monster and waking up to the monster you've become. And maybe it's the loneliest you've ever been because you don't have any kind of relationship that has true depth. It's all surface level "friends", but it doesn't start out that way maybe. In the song it kind of starts off with sounding like you're in a happy place and are doing it for fun and for the right reasons and then when you get a taste for success it can easily turn bad. It's like a mindfuck, you know?
You also released a video for "Terminal Secrets" that uses stop motion animation. What can you tell me about the process of making the video and your love for stop motion animation?
My friend Jenny (Nirgends) directed the video and she goes to Cal Arts and is an animator. She's one of my favorite artsy people to collaborate with, outside of Rachel, because she's really driven and has a lot of really cool ideas and a unique style. Me and her have decorated a whole building for one of my band's release show and were inspired by Yayoi Kusama. She's an artist who does a lot of installation art and she'd decorate a whole room usually in a series of dots and it looks really surreal looking. We wanted to make this real looking world for the show and we called it The ACID test and it was kind of a legendary show. I had worked with her before on that and she's done music videos for my other bands before, so I thought about her as soon as I got the opportunity to make music videos. I hit her up and asked her if she wanted to make one with me and that I didn't have much money but would build the art and we'd have some money for materials. She was like "Yeah. I've always wanted to make a pixel animation". Her and I both have the same connections and inspirations from, like, The Brothers Quay and different stop motion animations. We were talking about that and Peter Gabriel's music video for "Sledgehammer" came up and we discussed doing it in a portrait type of mode and we talked about the theme of the song and how I wanted the music video to be about faces transforming. When I say "the monster you've become" in the song, I wanted to develop my own face into the monster and shedding my skin time and time again. She was like "Ok cool. Can you build a mask of your own face?" and I was like "Yeah. I have a lot of time in quarantine right now" (laughs)! I had never filmed anything in stop motion before and it was a really cool experience but it's a lot of work. We did 12 frames a second. Sometimes people do 24. Even with 12 frames a second, just half of that, we'd be shooting all day and walk out of there with 10 seconds of footage and the song is over 3 minutes. Along with pre-production, we were working on that music video for weeks. She made the art for it and the collage and the wall and I made all of the plaster faces and masks. It was an interesting process to make a mask of my own face. It's kind of funny to see yourself in clay, without hair and stuff. I felt like I was, like, my dad. I looked old and I looked a lot like my dad and was like "Ugh!" (laugh)! But it was a fun process. My friend Ashley (Hooker), who is a body painter, came out and I think that turned out to be a really cool part of the music video of just trying to blend me into the background and painting flowers on me.
You have talked about having a really great team of women working on the video and doing the pixel animation. What kind of support do you see amongst women in the music industry, as well as in makeup and film?
There are so many things I could talk about with this subject. I really wanted to push to have more women making this art and be as connected to this project as I could, because it's important to me. All of a sudden, I realized that I'm working around and with a bunch of dudes all the time. It's almost like people are surprised when they meet a female recording engineer or a female worker in an effects shop. In the effects industry, especially in the labs, it's primarily male based. I think it's been getting better over the past few years and it's better now, but there's a lot of dudes in it. It can feel very, like, "Well she's not strong enough to lift this bag of plaster, so she's not going to do this", but I do know a lot of women and they've done amazing things in the music and the film world. I think there are women who really find their place and really stand up for themselves in both of those worlds. I know a lot of women in bands and they don't like to be called a girl band. If it was with dudes, it would just be called a band, but since there's girls in it it's called a girl band. It's important to me, as a female, to remember to work with other females and to keep it thriving in these industries. I don't have bad feelings against the men or anything like that. Paul is a guy and he's amazing, but I just feel like doing my part as a woman in this world and even as a person in general, how can I help the growth in these areas of the world, whether it be women having more successes and equal opportunities, as well as people of color. I think those are all important things for people and myself to keep in mind when we are employing people or creating something. We all have different perspectives and come from different areas and that can be very inspiring and maybe they can think of things that you didn't think of. Sometimes it's just about who's best for the job or who wants to do it, in terms of where it could be genderless. I think it's an important thing to keep in mind for me.
Going into high school, your passion for painting and drawing kind of morphed into makeup and make up effects. Could you talk a bit about you came to want to make a career out of doing make up and special effects? Is there an achievement or moment you are most proud of?
I was always a thinker and drawing. My sister was an artist too and I knew a handful of people that went to college for art. College always seemed to me, in general, expensive and something that would put me into a lot of debt and being, like, a painter seemed like an unrealistic dream. David Bowie has a good quote about being an artist and musician, like that you have to be kind of crazy to do it. Like why don't you just do something you know will put bread on the table (laughs)? And you know, it's true! You have to really love it and stick with it, otherwise just do something that you know is going to pay you. But I was just trying to think of different ways...like, what am I going to do when I get out of high school and what can I do artistically that I think can bring me money? And I was watching CSI or some show like that with my dad. He just so happened to be home that day and the tv was on, per usual (laughs), and I saw the dead bodies and stuff. And I always loved Predator and different types of sci-fi and horror movies and would do makeup for my sister when she went to the prom or something. It just clicked, like, "Oh, I could probably make these dead people for a living" (laughs)! It's just painting and it's cool and I felt like people in the film industry make a lot of money. So I looked up makeup schools and went to Cinema makeup school. There was a short course and I took the master course and I did airbrushing and beauty and effects stuff and I really fell in love with makeup effects. I was lucky because my makeup effects teacher at the time, his name's Greg McDougall...I was one of the only people in my class that was really, really into it. I would always show up early and stay late and a lot of the other girls who were more beauty oriented didn't want to get dirty, and with effects you often get plaster all over you. I loved being messy. I'm a messy artist, so I was really into it and so he took me under his wing and got me onto productions right out of school. I did a Bigfoot movie with him up in Northern California and I just got a just start and was really passionate and made flyers for myself and put them around at all of the film schools and started to get jobs and was an intern at different effects labs. I did that for, like, a decade or more. I think it's been about two years now that I got into the makeup union, which when you ask me about important moments in my life and makeup career and my favorite thing, getting into the makeup union was HUGE. I mean, huge. I was doing a film in the Arctic, like 3 hours away from the North Pole, on this little island in an area called Pyramiden, which is technically owned by Russia. It's close to Norway and is this little island where the North Pole is and I was there for a month with no tv, no internet...nothing. It's just you and the polar bears, a bunch of Russians, your film crew and snow. That's it. It's such a beautiful place. Before I left, I had turned in all of my hours and everything to the makeup union and then left for that job and was in the snow for a month, disconnected from the world. When I got back home, I got my letter saying that I had made it into the union and I was just like "Holy Shit!". That's where you get the big boy jobs. Like, with all of the films that you love and tv shows, you now get the opportunity to be on those shows and be a makeup artist on set. I love American Horror Story and I loved Game Of Thrones and you just get the chance to be on stuff you love and when you tell people about it, they're like "Oh yeah, I know that show". Before, I was talking about indie things that no one has heard of and you're treated maybe not that great on set and the projects are low budget. When I got into the makeup union, it was huge and you have to meet people now. It was kind of like starting over. I'd been in the indie world for over a decade and now you're in the union with all of these other people who don't you and you have to get to meet them and kind of prove yourself as an artist. There's Make Up Artist Magazine and there was a guy that asked if anyone wanted to do interviews who had a unique story or something. I said "I shot a movie for a month in the Arctic. Is that interesting?" and he was like "Yeah!". I went and talked about it and some of my friends were getting on Star Trek: Picard and usually a lot of the new Star Trek series are shot and filmed in Canada but they did this series, Picard, in LA. A guy named James MacKinnon is the department head for it and the department head for American Horror Story is this woman named Eryn Krueger Mekash. These are the rock stars of the makeup industry. So I do this interview and we're talking about Star Trek when the interview is over and I'm saying how I hope I can get on it. That would be really cool. But how do I do that? I don't know him. And he was like you should send him (James MacKinnon) a Facebook message. In my head, I'm like "No Way!". It seemed so unprofessional to hit him up on Facebook. But there's a part of me that likes to pay attention to little messages that I think are from the universe, so as much as I thought it was embarrassing and the wrong thing to do, which is what my head was telling me, I felt like maybe it was suggested for a reason and maybe I should just do it. What's the worst that could happen? So, I worked on my website for days and days and got everything all together and then sent James MacKinnon, this rock star makeup artist, a message of Facebook and said "Hey. I have some friends who are on Star Trek and I would love to be on it. Here's my stuff". I watched interviews with him and he talked about how he used to work at Taco Bell and stuff and I was just really inspired by his story. Some days go by and he sends me a message back and asked me to text him and I did and more days go by and he was like "Can you work on this day?". I was like "Woah! This is actually happening!" And there's this guy who I love too and have known him for a really long time, his name is Jerry Ayers. I used to work at an effects lab with him and have known him since I was young. I've been doing this since I got out of high school, so I was around 17, and I think I met him when I was like 18 or 19 and I'm almost 30 now. I knew he was on Star Trek and I hadn't seen him in so long and it was my first day going to Star Trek and I think it was one of my most exciting moments in the makeup industry. I was so nervous because it's such a big show, and mind you, all I'm doing is background stuff. I'm seeing all of these people that I love who I haven't seen in a long time and it's the biggest set I've ever been on and it was so cool. I'm so appreciative to James MacKinnon for giving me that opportunity. I got to learn from that and got to reconnect with Carrie and we have this friendship now. I met Eryn Mekash, who does American Horror Story, on Star Trek and she got me on, Ryan Murphy has this show out called Hollywood, which is a period piece, and I got to work on that. Just being around those people is really cool and they are so funny and down to earth and are into all of the same shit I'm into, you know? They're all musicians too, kind of, and are all into the same shit and it's really cool.
Aside from your album release, what's next for you?
I have at least 2 more music videos coming out. I keep getting hit up by friends in the film industry, like directors and people with cameras, who are like "Hey! Wanna shoot a music video for your solo album?" and I'm like "Yeah! The more the merrier. Let's do it!". A lot of them are out of work and just want to create. So I have 2 music videos coming out. One is for my next single "The Pharmacy", and that one really reflects my love of horror. I'm a demon and did my own make up and am a demon in it and it's really witchy. And then there will be a video for "A Man's World", and that one is a really surreal black and white, noir meets grunge kind of vibe, and I'm really happy with the way that one came out. A union VP, his name is Mark Evans, did the camera work for that one and my friend Nesto directed that one and my friend Michelle Hernandez directed "The Pharmacy". These are all film people. I really love the way that they came out and think it's really fun. In terms of what's next, I don't know. I think some film is kind of coming back, but having hundreds of background artists on set, which is primarily what I was doing, probably won't come back for a while. Even if Star Trek and American Horror Stroy are supposed to shoot again, it will probably be with a minimal crew. I'm kind of just doing non-union stuff again and helping other friends make their music videos and just trying to stay creative. I think I'm going to make more music videos. I'm sure of it. I also want to start writing the next album. There's a lot of promo for this album going on, and that's cool, but I'm also just getting more and more inspiration to write the next one and am excited to do that. I'm excited to write songs again and to focus on that for a while. And as much as I like promo, the social media stuff is like "oh my god". I'd rather you shoot me (laughs). I just want to create art. I don't want to worry about finding more followers, but that's just the world that we're in.
PLAYLIST: September Favs
By now you’ve come to love our monthly music playlists (thanks for the constant follows). We bring you another playlist of 22 diverse tracks we’ve been enjoying the last month, highlighting all The Photo Ladies different musical interests. Hope you enjoy!
With 100 founding members, and over 1000 Photo Ladies part of our community, we all have a huge variety of musical tastes, and we plan to showcase them each month through our upcoming playlists. Full playlist below, along with some Photo Lady blurbs behind the choices.
“The world lost Justin Townes Earle August 23rd, 2020 at 38 yrs old. His music needs to be heard so he lives on. Americana lost a great story teller and an incredible voice. ”
“As a traveling photographer I deeply related to this song about touring and this Nashville band is doing rock music so well, I had to share!” - Jessi McKee | @jmckeephotos
“Been super excited for the return of Lewis Del Mar! The new album is everything I’ve been hoping for the last like 5 years we’ve been waiting for this.” - Carolyn Lederach | @Cled1024
“This song is a stripped back version that’ll fit perfectly into any of your quarantine playlists” - Whitney Hensley | @whitneyhensleyphoto
“While “Best Part of Me” was specifically written for acknowledging your mental health and making time for self-care, Madison thinks the lyrics can resonate with a lot of people struggling to cope with the current state of our society. “I can only imagine the anxiety, depression and anger people are feeling right now and I think ‘Best Part of Me’ can help to reassure that while it feels like the world is burning or even ending, it’s okay to take a day, cry it out and then get back in the saddle and kick some ass the next day.” ”
“Sylvan Esso. They never let me down, and this song actually makes me feel being stuck inside during quarantine in a tiny NYC apartment is totally fine. ”
“I absolutely love this Flo Milli song thanks to the beat and her reworking lyrics from a Snoop Dogg song into a chorus.” - Edwina Hay | @arenotphotos
“From the new album “Ghost in the Shadows” by NYC hardcore band Rebelmatic. I’ve been working on a video interview with frontman Creature, and have included this song.” - Stephanie Augello | @sawjello
“I heard ENGLISH BOYS on a Discover Weekly Playlist and instantly fell in love. Hearing the vocalist sing about burning down all of the preconceived notions in her mind is super refreshing during these uncertain times. ”
QUARANTINE PROFILE: Tedy
We’ve launch a profile series to highlight how artists are spending their time during quarantine. Several times a week we’ll highlight a new artist across the globe and see how they’re keeping busy during COVID-19 lockdowns.
The soulful Tedy joins us for another lockdown chat! Tedy is currently based in Montreal and bringing us his latest EP Boys Don’t Cry today. It’s chock-full of signature Tedy tracks, which are laced with a rhythmic pop/atmospheric R&B sound that we can’t help but love. Boys Don’t Cry is already getting added to my favorites for this year. Be sure to check it out below and see what Tedy has been up to during quarantine.
Where have you been spending your quarantine?
I’m solo quarantining in my Airbnb in Toronto and have been taking some walks here and there around the city.
How have you been staying busy during quarantine?
I have to keep busy, I am a workaholic by nature. I need to feel like I’m doing something at all times or I will drive myself insane. So I try to write music all the time. I will literally turn everything off and write.
Anything new you’ve learned? / Something new you’ve done:
Not necessary a new skill, but quarantine definitely made me think a lot. I’ve learned that it’s okay and it’s not selfish to want to be happy and do what you want!
What’s something new you’ve cooked/baked?
This quarantine I haven’t cooked once…not going to lie. But I have been cooking since I was 5 and can cook anything! If I wasn’t a singer I’d be a chef.
Anything new we should know about that you’re working on?
My new EP comes out on September 11th. Also, I’m currently writing for my next EP so that’s exciting!
Go to quarantine snack:
Almonds! I love the tiny Sriracha flavoured packs!
Song (or album) you’ve had on repeat:
Dominic Fike - what could possibly go wrong on repeat
What’s your go to song to make you feel less alone?
Daisy - “Ashnikko”
What is keeping you happy?
Experimenting with different styles or writing music and evolving my sound.