Age: Old enough to drink
Originally From: Queens and Brooklyn
Now Lives: Kinder, New Jersey
Current Bands: Lava Baby
Website: www.lavababy.com
Email: lavababy1@aol.com
Discography: In The Right Place, Big Muff, Lava
Favorite Beats/Licks: 16th note beats. Duran Duran are one of my faves from the past.
Left or right handed: Right

Lava Baby's Miss Brown has been hitting the skins since her early teenage years after her first experience playing a kit in her boyfriend's basement. Two Sonor sets and one Pearl Export later, Miss Brown makes no apologies for her lack of formal training or inability to read music, as her band Lava Baby continues to make inroads into the music industry.

Described as "cartoonish girl-fueled pop" by the Village Voice and "rife with candy-sweet pop hooks and bouncy 80s-centric grooves", Lava Baby draws increasingly large crowds at their performances. In 2000, they won the VH1 Undiscovered Artist competition and in 2002, one of their songs was played on the soundtrack of a Dawson's Creek episode. Competition trophies and residuals don't really pay the rent though - to progress to the next level, Lava Baby needs to secure a recording contract with a label that will promote their work and market them effectively. Miss Brown believes that once the music is available to the masses, it will speak for itself. Indeed, Lava Baby's upbeat grooves and catchy lyrics will have you singing or humming their tunes long after the stereo stops pumping.

Read on to find out more about Miss Brown's drumming career and the steps that Lava Baby has taken in an effort to secure a contract with a record label…

DG: What inspired you to play drums and how old were you when you started?
MB: Someone inspired me to play drums. When I was in grade school I had a boyfriend and he played the drums cause his older brother played the drums. So one day I was at his house and he was showing off on his drum kit and I was interested. I was always kind of competitive - especially with boys - and I was like, "I can play… I can play better than you! Let me show you," and that kind of inspired me to play the drums. I'd say I was 13. I asked my dad, "For Christmas, can you buy me a drum kit?" and we found an ad in the paper for this $200 drum kit. A little junior kit, I think it was, and he took me to get it, and from then on…

DG: Did you take lessons when you got the kit or did you just bang on them?
MB: Yeah, that's what I did. I was just like, I'll teach myself. So I had all my favorite music that I liked at the time and I got right to it. I wanted to learn these pieces and I would blast the music so freakin' loud, while my parents weren't at home, and I would learn the beats - I would just duplicate them. So that's how I learned how to play.

DG: Have you ever taken lessons?
MB: No, I haven't. I'm not embarrassed. Some people think you need to take lessons to learn how to do things, but I don't agree 100% with that. There's a place for everyone - how you learn, and what you bring into it.

DG: So, your first kit was a cheap $200 kit - what do you play now?
MB: Well, cheap as in how much it cost, but it was a Sonor kit - I still have it. I think it's a jazz kit, because it's really small. After a while, once I had a job and my own money, I moved up to a Pearl Export which, for the money, was good. After a while, I saved up and got what I always wanted to get - a real Sonor S-class.

DG: And your favorite sticks?
MB: They're Vic Firth. And believe it or not, they're Classic Metal sticks. That's what they're called - cause they're weighty. I like the red tips on them. The other ones are called Classic Rock Crushers. They're just longer and heavier, which I like. But they're not like logs or anything.

DG: You live in New Jersey, but you play in New York. How do you lug your drums around?
MB: We have a studio in Midtown where we all rehearse. We're in the infamous music building at 38th and 8th - Madonna's been there - she came from there. The Strokes are in there now…Splendor. A lot of people are coming out of that building.

DG: How do you feel about dealing with sales guys with attitudes who work in drum stores? Do you ever get intimidated?
MB: No, I don't. I go in there with confidence because I feel like I have one up on people…they don't know that I actually am a drummer - an established drummer, who really knows how to play. They just see me as this girl. I left [feeling intimidated] behind years ago. I used to be a little bit like that, where I could feel a little bit insecure, cause these guys are all big schooled drummers and they teach, but I got over that. Insecurity is just your own thing. There was one store I went into… we were looking at getting some drum pads and triggers and I'm talking to the guy at the drum department and I could just tell that he was asking, "Who the **** are you? You're just some chick. You don't know what you're talking about." I just got that vibe from him. He got distracted and left me alone in the dust cause someone else was going to buy something. I just left because you never do that to anyone. You don't leave them in the middle of showing them something and go somewhere else.

DG: Who are your favorite drummers and what do you like best about them?
MB: One of my favorite drummers is Keith Moon.

DG: What do you like about his drumming?
MB: His craziness…he has no rules; he just does what he does really, really well…except when he was f***** up on drugs and alcohol, he'd play really off. On the records and some live shows I've seen videos of, he's just great. He's got a style that no one else will ever have. Roger Taylor from Duran Duran - he's underrated. He was a really great drummer! Especially for the type of music he was playing.

DG: What, if any, differences do you find between playing with female musicians and male musicians?
MB: You get better communication among the women when you're playing - or in any situation, just hanging out. I think that guys are very…they're guys, you know? They're talking about Major 7ths and… I think there's more bonding among the women.

DG: What was your best comeback to an ignorant comment made about your drumming like, "Oh, I didn't know girls could play like that," or "that was pretty good for a girl."
MB: I've gotten that before. I think people don't even realize what they're saying and then put their foot in their mouth. I probably have just shrugged it off and took it from where it was coming from - some schlump in the audience.

DG: Do you play by ear and intuition or do you spend a lot of hours practicing and focusing.
MB: No, it's very much by ear and intuition. Like I said, not being a schooled or taught drummer, a lot of it comes from feel. It's a groove…and I'm very groove-based because of it.

DG: Who are your current influences?
MB: Current stuff, I can't really say because I don't think there's anything of a great caliber out there, especially in the last few years. I have some bands that I love and I like the styles that I hear, but I latch onto a lot more older stuff. It has more character. I like 60s stuff I, Motown, 70s funk R&B, O'Jays, The Commodores, Earth Wind and Fire, The BeeGees. Call me what you will, they are so great! Much greater than what I'm hearing on the radio now. It's time for a big change - Teen Pop came along and it's still kind of hanging around but everything has a shelf-life to it.

DG: We were talking about drumming being a male-dominated field. As a woman in this field, do you think it's been a hindrance or a help to you?
MB: I think it's helped. I have to step up a bit more. I can't slack, you know - getting away with cheap beats. There's always this little sense of proving yourself because it's a male-dominated field. And you don't want people to be like, "She's just a girl," or anything like that. You just want to be considered as an equal. I get that a lot too, people who say that I'm really good - not just as a girl.

DG: Do you find that you like playing out as much as you like rehearsing or recording?
MB: I like playing out because it's all these things you've been preparing for - now you can go out and show it off, which is very cool. Yeah, I like playing live. Rehearsals you have to do. It's like going to the gym. You've got to practice to stay good.

DG: You said that you've never taken lessons, but do you know how to read music?
MB: No. And to be honest, I have no interest in wanting to read music. What would be the real need for me to have to learn that? Is it going to accommodate anything else I want to do? Probably not. I'm not going to become a session player. I don't think it would be beneficial. I'd rather focus on learning an instrument.

DG: Do you have a day job and if so, what is it?
MB: I do have a day job. I work part-time for a graphic designer/photographer in northern New Jersey. It offers me the flexibility that I need for pursuing my band interests.

DG: Have you found that getting exposure through the Internet has helped you guys in promoting your music?
MB: Oh yeah. Without the Internet, we probably wouldn't be at the level that we're at today. It's helped worlds. It is a necessity if you're in a band and want exposure. We've gotten a lot of exposure through it.

DG: What are your aspirations as a drummer?
MB: To get some respect from the community. I don't want to be looked at, because I don't play jazz, that I'm not a great musician, that I can't play. I don't pretend to be something that I'm not. I never will. This is what I do. If I can be really, really great for Lava Baby, then I'm happy as sh** - that's the reward.

DG: The Village Voice called Lava Baby's music "cartoonish girl-fueled pop," and Billboard describes your songs as, "rife with candy-sweet pop hooks and bouncy 80s-centric grooves." How would you describe the music of Lava Baby?
MB: It depends on which CD you're talking about…probably the first one…when that came out, things were a little different with the band, stylewise, a little lighter, sugary, a little more fluffy than we are at this moment. That's not where we are now - we've got more edge to it, more guitar.

DG: Do you think your audience appreciates that you're a little harder and less, maybe, fluffy?
MB: Yeah, you base everything on New York. It's a hard sell. We're not fake, we're real people. We're not meant for where we're at here, in the indie world of New York, although we're doing really well with it. People are responding to it. We've had a lot of really good responses to our Pink CD.

DG: What role do you play in the Lava Baby songwriting process?
MB: Not all the songs are written by one person, it's collaborative. Some of them are independent ideas. I write my own songs with basic cords but then I pass them on to Mark, our guitarist, and in a week or two he'll have a finished piece we can work with. We're trying to portray this unit, because we're not just three girls. We're not a "girl band", even though everybody considers us one, which is fine. We're a band with three girls in it, dominated by women because we're three and there are only two guys.

DG: So the guys play as much of a role in the band as the women?
MB: Of course. That's the way it should be.

DG: What do you think your role as drummer in the band is?
MB: It's the spine of the band, the backbone…

DG: Lava Baby's been compared to bands like The Go-Gos, The Dixie Chicks, The Bangles, and Josie and the Pussycats? What do you think about that?
MB: I think some of them are accurate and some are totally way off. We think we're more of a Veruca Salt meets the Bangles meets Josie - with the Veruca Salt edge first. The Go-Gos reference kind of bothers us, because we're so not the Go-Gos. I just think they take this girl thing and people just lump us it into: "Girls in a band = The Go-Gos." Happy, poppy, means Go-Gos and the Bangles. We love the Bangles' first album, before they got commercial.

DG: In 2000, Lava Baby won VH1's "Undiscovered Artist" competition. How did that influence the direction that Lava Baby took?
MB: It was fun. It was a very, very cool experience, 'cause we got to do the show. It was an actual TV show at the Bowery Ballroom with a big audience of people voting.

DG: What happened following your VH1 success?
MB: A lot of people thought that this was going to open up a lot of doors - an A&R guy knocking on your door, but none of that happened, cause none of those people were actually in the audience. The people at VHI were great. We got a lot of praise, we met someone from the WB…

DG: Is that how your song ended up being played on Dawson's Creek?
MB: No, we sent them a press kit and forgot about it, then we got an email from them. It's great, 'cause we get a little money from it, and exposure. Sell your stuff, don't sell your rights, though!

DG: So you're in the process of securing a deal with a record label - tell us about that process.
MB: It's a long and hard one. Actually, it's involved. You have to have the right people on your team to get the material into the right hands. You can't get it to every possible label out there - it's about finding the best possible label for your music. I think that people don't realize that there are certain labels that are more suited for your type of music, your genre.

DG: What are some of the labels you're pursuing?
MB: Let's see - RCA, Lava Records, which would be ideal, Arista, Epic, Interscope and two indies with BMG distribution, which may be better for us, because we'd get more attention. It's not about the money - about getting a huge advance. We'd forgo the advance if you gave us a lot of marketing and muscle to get our release out there. I really think it's going to take off once it gets on the radio.

DG: Once you do the research and decide which label will be best for your band, what's the next step?
MB: Well, in our case, we have a person who is shopping for us - a rep. He reps some big producers, one who did some Aerosmith records. He can get in and see some big people and mention, "Oh, hey - have you heard of this band? I represent them…" It's so much better than getting a lawyer to shop you. We've learned this all the hard way. If you don't have someone in your corner who's got some kind of a rapport, they're just gonna be like, "Thanks, yeah, bye!" Or they'll be like, "Yeah, send it," and you try to call them for weeks and weeks and they're not returning your calls. There's a pile like this [motions a stack with her hands] of CDs…how do you get them to actually listen to your CD. I think that people don't realize that. Not everyone can do this, not everyone can hook up with someone who knows people.

DG: So you guys are doing pretty well. You've got two self-produced CDs, you're playing all over town. Do you think that you could get to the next level without a label?
MB: I think we could. We've been doing this a while, and it's so DIY - everything's so slow. I think we're at the point where we're ready to make that jump. It would be so helpful for us - it's a matter of, "Do you want keep doing the DIY?" And, honestly, no, I don't want to keep on doing this, but we could. I think that ultimately we could be really successful with it. But I don't know how much longer that's gonna take.

DG: Although your audience is quite broad, the type of music you play often appeals to a younger audience who can't get into shows at clubs…
MB: Yeah, lots of people can't come to our shows. It's not even 18 and over - in most cases, you've got to be 21. It sucks. We don't want to do an all ages show, because there aren't many venues for that in New York. I think we're much more suited to be with a label. It's like all the arrows are pointed there. It's what we're meant to be. And it's not a bad thing - it's a good thing.

DG: Are you worried about labels in any way? Are you worried about getting signed?
MB: Yeah, I think you get so used to doing everything on your own - you're so independent and used to making all your own decisions. You're doing everything on your own and someone else comes along and is like, "Hey, now we're the man," and for me, it may be a little hard. I'm a free spirit - all of us are - and we're gonna have to listen, I guess… bite our tongues a lot.

DG: Is the increased monetary stability attractive?
MB: It's a sad reality that it comes to a point where you ask yourself how much further can you go on your own money, if you don't have a lot of it. It's almost like a business. This band is very much like a business in those regards. We're gonna just fizzle out if we don't get picked up and Dawson's Creek here and there is not going to float the band for that long.

DG: So given all of that, what is the ideal future you see for Lava Baby? And how will you know when you've 'made it'?
MB: Made it? The ideal goal for the band is to get signed with a label that backs us up, puts some muscle in the marketing of the band that gives us a chance to get out there with the Matchbox 20s and the Sugar Rays of the world, because I think we're right up with them. I want to get the music to the masses, I really do 'cause I want them to judge for themselves if they like it. It will speak for itself - everything does. Throw it against the wall and see if it's gonna stick. First of all, we need someone to take that chance and let us be a part of that. And the next thing is to let us throw our music against the wall to see if it sticks. Let the people listening to the radio decide. They'll propel us to where we might go. And I've always tried not to talk about it like this, but that is our goal - to get a label.

DG: Where do you think you are in that process of signing with a label?
MB: Close, but I've felt this way before and I don't want to get my hopes up. But this really is what I want to do, this has always been what I've wanted to do.

DG: Once you've got the label, then what? What's the next benchmark?
MB: The Billboard charts. Well, it's not just the charts. It's not just getting signed, because everyone knows that getting signed is the beginning of the end, blah, blah, blah, the beginning of a lot of headaches. But you have to go there. You can't miss that step. So the 'made it' thing is that when I hear my song on a commercial radio station in New York City, that will be the "made it." Whether they play it once or 50 times after that, doesn't matter. The first time that I hear it, I can say that I've made it. Can you imagine that? Hearing your own song on the radio? That's one of my dreams in life. But, like I said, I don't get my hopes up and fantasize about what may or may not be.

DG: One last question, what would you be doing if you weren't a drummer?
MB: I like that question! You should include that in all your interviews.

DG: We do - we just left it until the end.
MB: I would be a chef. Yes, I would have been a chef if I didn't pursue music because I have this real interest in cooking. I took a lot of classes. It was going to be my other career, anyway. It just didn't work out with the music. It's still what I'm going to do if the music doesn't work out…but I feel like things are going pretty good. At least I have something to fall back on - I'll be in the kitchen!

*** Update: In June, 2002, Lava Baby signed with a new BMG distribution indie label called Liquid 8 records, out of Minneapolis. Liquid 8 is planning to release Lava Baby's new CD in late August and you should hear them on the radio as well by then. Look out for Lava Baby at the free South St. Seaport/Sam Goody Summer Series concert in August in New York City!

© July, 2002 Happy Mazza Media, LLC.
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