these solos.” She connected with Shae through a friend, and when Shae began FireSky the opportunity arose. Kio K simply answered Shae’s advertisement for a drummer. Kio grew up in Tokyo, but at the time was attending the Musician’s Institute — a music school in California, where Shae and Brenda were based. Like Brenda, Kio K was impressed with Shae’s style. “I didn’t know a lot of girls into heavier stuff,” she says. With rock veteran Josh Freese and Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl as her musical inspirations, Kio was an ideal fit. For their singer, however, the members of newly minted FireSky had something specific in mind, most importantly that the final member should be a “solid rock singer.” They trawled through “thousands and thousands” of YouTube videos, an unenviable task that seems to have at least mildly traumatized Shae. “It was just horrible. Horrible videos that [make] you question, ‘Why did you even put this online?’” Ultimately the search was more than worth it, as they found Anni Sutinen, who they felt would be perfect. Anni herself was not so sure, assuming the message Shae sent her could not be entirely serious. This wasn’t down to any kind of self-doubt, but simple geography — Anni lived, and still lives, in Finland. “I thought, this isn’t serious. But three weeks later [Shae’s] Dad
sent me a message on Facebook, Myspace, YouTube.” This “barrage” of messages from Shae’s dad convinced Anni that Shae had not just forgotten to check her profile to see where she was based. The truth was quite the opposite. “It was actually a plus to me — I had always liked bands from Finland,” says Shae. “It’s like the rock capital of the world.” Having a heavy rock band was a dream Shae had had ever since she started playing, and one gets the strong impression that finding anything less than an authentic Finnish vocalist would have been settling for imperfection. The decision was a smart one that pays off in the music. Anni’s voice is perfect for the sound FireSky are trying to achieve. Astute readers might have noticed a pattern in FireSky’s story — all female bands. This doesn’t need to be a big deal, of course. As Shae points out, nobody looks at an all-male band and says, ‘look, an all male rock band.’ Why should girls have it any different? But clearly FireSky is not single sex by accident. Had the lead singer role been open to men, searching through thousands of YouTube videos before deciding on somebody ten time zones away might not have been necessary. So are FireSky trying to make a point? “I want to end stereotypes,” says Brenda, a touch ambitiously. Shae would rather people did not really 13