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Thanks for having us. We are honored to be here. We are still getting us to the lime light and getting recognized. We are especially honored to be with a former band search winner it really helps calm ones nerves.
Bridgeport is already full of celebrities and well known bands and musicians making it very hard to break into the scene. Starlight Shores is known for its up and coming singers, bands, and other hopefuls. So producers are more willing to give you a chance in Starlight shores then they are in Bridgeport. There are also agents and directors willing to work with those just starting out in Starlight Shores while very few in Bridgeport. Although not every director is a good one or on the up and up as I discovered during our last video shoot.
I met the other members of my band at a Simfeast. I decided to participate in one shortly after I arrived in Starlight Shores to try and get my name out there. The other members of the band also performed there. Kesha did a magician routine, Mackenzie did an acrobat and Mary Ann sang like I did. I could tell from watching their performances that Mackenzie and Kesha were not happy at all with what they were doing. After the show in which we all lost by the way I introduced myself to Kesha and asked if she would like to go to the Karaoke bar for a drink. She asked if her roommates could come along and I said sure. While at the bar Mary Ann mentioned she and her sister Mackenzie had always dreamed of being in a band and becoming rock stars. I laughed and told her that was my dream as well. I said we should all just group up and make it happen and they looked at each other and said done let’s do it. And that is how our band got formed. We then decided to all move in together to make it easier for rehearsals and the creative process to work.
Well Mary Ann, Mackenzie and I are all Diva’s and the three of us really didn’t think this band thing was going to work out. Karen kept telling us we were in denial of the success we could achieve and we just had to open our minds to it. So that is how the Diva’s of Denial part of the name came about. Karen is known to be a little evil and pulls pranks like a Pixie or a Fae. When we started calling her our little Pixie prankster she took Pixie as her nickname and that is where Pixie came from and we became the Pixie and the Diva’s of Denial.
The creative process is mostly a group effort, but there are times when one of us gets hit with a big idea and they will bring it to the rest of us for consideration. We try and incorporate ideas and suggestions from everyone, but sometimes an idea just doesn’t work for that particular song and we will write it down in our collective thought notebook for consideration and use for another time. We try not to let any one person have complete say on any one project, but there have been songs where one person’s ideas have been used more than the others. As a whole everyone has a say in every project that we do.
I grew up in Twinbrook and always dreamed of being a rock star. Being a virtuoso and having natural star quality it just seemed obvious I was meant to do great things and be famous. I got started in music as a toddler with my little toy xylophone that I took with me everywhere. In high school I joined the coir and won several state championships with the choir and as a soloist. I was born and raised in Riverview. I got into music very late. I didn’t play my first musical instrument until I was at college. There I took piano lessons to fulfill an extra curricular credit. Being athletic and a natural born performer along with star quality I thought I would be a great magician and travel the world with a circus. Well that didn’t turn out so well. As Karen mentioned earlier in the interview I was a major flop at doing magic. But once I started my piano lessons in college I stuck with it. Piano is the way that I become unstressed and relax when thing become too stressful or hectic. My sister, Mackenzie, and I are from Sunset Valley. I have been involved in music since she was 10 yrs old, but Mackenzie didn’t get into it until she was 16. From the time I was young I knew I wanted to be a singer. I joined the school choir in junior high and stayed there all threw college. I just didn’t want to do anything else but sing. I participated in several local singing contests and one quite a few of them. I also started playing the guitar at the age of 12. Noting relaxes me like playing the guitar and singing a song. I don’t mind playing the guitar and being the backup singer for the band. Karen and I have discussed that on our next CD I will be the lead singer on two of the songs, so the format is working well. I didn’t show much interest in music until my teenage years. I was more into gymnastics and acrobatics then I was anything else. But being a professional acrobat in a circus doesn’t pay much and is a hard life to live, so when Mary Ann moved to Starlight Shores I stopped traveling with the circus and moved there with her and was trying to make a living as a professions acrobat. I did OK but wasn’t really happy where my career was going. Playing the drums was my way of relaxing since my 16th birthday when my Aunt gave me a set of drums for my birthday that year. Why she gave me drums I will never know but I fell in love with them instantly. So becoming a drummer for the band just seemed a natural thing to do when the band formed.
We draw inspiration from Joan Jett, Heart, Pink, Lady Gaga and others. We all like Pop, HIP Hop, Rock as our choices of music. That is why we work so well together our tastes are so similar that it made it easy to come up with a style for our band.
It has been frustrating, exciting, nerve racking, stressful, a big learning experience but most of all it has been fun.
We wanted a way to get our name out there. Playing in the clubs and bars of Starlight Shores has been great and we have really made a name for ourselves, but we want to be known outside of Starlight Shores. SIFF seems like a great opportunity to be seen and be heard by thousands of people. It is a great first step to international fame.
The song we are doing for SIFF is “Set Fire to the Rain”. It’s a song about domestic violence. We want to raise awareness about it because thousands of women suffer and die at the hands of their husbands or boyfriends every day. It is something that can be stopped and prevented if people would step up and help these women who desperately need it. But people tend to look the other way and don’t want to get involved because it isn’t their problem. We say it is their problem what if it was their daughter who was suffering silently. They would hope that someone would take notice of the bruises and step in and ask if they needed help or brought it to someone’s attention before it was too late.
We are planning our next CD which we hope to release in Oct. We hope to achieve I nternational stardom but even if that doesn’t happen we are having fun and enjoy making CD’s and music videos. We hope to be around for many years to come.
Thanks again for having us we enjoyed talking to you.