Nerd Girl No More…
Back in the day, I was in the closet. Behind my frizzy hair, glasses, and straight-A report card, I was a secret headbanger. And behind the closed doors of my comfortable bedroom, I in my comfortable suburban home, I furtively pressed “play”… And what poured from my cassette player? Skid Row, Guns and Roses, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Ratt, Heart, Pat Benatar – oh, and a pinch of Metallica.
All the while I rocked on the sly, I kept my headbanging secret safe from my parents and over-achiever friends. And yet, as the invevitable march of time wore on, it was my lingering anger over the disappearance of mainstream metal, and the long, slow realization that growing up and being responsible wasn’t all it was cracked up to be that led me to long for the music I had loved in my youth – music that was as fun and irresponsible as it was powerful.
And suddenly I thought, “It’s time.” After doing the “right” thing with myself for over a decade – oh, you know, winning a British Marshall Scholarship and studying in London and then founding 2 successful costume companies – I turned my attention to MAKING the music I had loved so much in my youth.
I decided it was time to put those latent Bachelor’s Degrees in Classical Voice and English Literature to good use. Add that to my newly-found love of artistic pole dancing, and a new archetype is born. If Motley Crue had thrown dollar bills at girls, girls, girls, I was becoming an guitar-wielding singer AND pole dancer – a new kind of Heavy Metal Goddess. And not unlike a phoenix rising from the pillar of my responsible adult life – I found my both my voice AND my wings.
