May 19, 2012

At the Bar with Alexis Brown

Fans will recognize metal chanteuse Alexis Brown as the lead singer of Straight Line Stitch. It was a great honor to complete this interview with her today, while she's currently on tour.

Alexis, welcome to the bar; pull up a stool and order whatever you want on the house. While you’re at it, tell us about yourself.

Thanks for having me. As for a drink...I'm always good with an ice cold Bud of some sort. Now about me... I love Walt Disney's Goofy, old scary movies, love to read old school Harlequin Romance books, love sushi, I have a orange tabby named Waffles (named after Goofy's cat on the Goof Troop Series), I have a Chorkie (Chihuahua & Yorkie mix), & I'm also in a band that I've pretty much lived out on the road with for about the last 10 or so years.

How’s the tour going so far?

Tour is going well, just busy everyday.

I noticed how you mention not intentionally going into heavy metal. How’d that happen?

Basically my older brother Moses was the one that influenced me in getting into metal with bands such as Pantera, White Zombie, Metallica, & Korn. I felt much more comfortable with the genre because I could relate.

What was your original genre of choice? Who are your musical influences and why?

I started out wanting to pursue a music career as a R&B singer but like I stated previously my brother kinda changed all that LOL

As far as my musical influences go, I would say that I'm more so inspire than influenced but anyways some of my influences are 36Crazyfist, GlassJaw, Pulse Ultra, Sade, Metallica, (just to name a few) but ultimately my favorite singer of all time is Stevie Nicks & the reason why these bands/singers influence me is because they're all amazing at what they do.

What was it like learning to scream and how has that impacted your voice (you have an awesome voice, by the way)?

Thank you. Pretty much the way I taught myself how to scream was locking myself in my room with a tiny practice amp & I just started screaming my brains out. I feel I'm still learning though I've learned a lot through trial & error.

So how did you hook up with SLS?

I was in a band in my hometown that traded out shows with SLS & we remained friends. When my band started to fall apart & SLS wanted another singer they called me & I went to try out & I never looked back.



I’ll admit; I’m a fan. Guilty as charged. Love the drums, the guitars, the vocals, the vids. How in the world does all that great music come about? Who writes the lyrics? Who’s in charge of composition?

Thank you.

We all pretty much just write all the time with or without each other around we're always coming up with ideas. When we have a certain amount of time off we just get together & start mapping songs out. I'm usually the only one who will go off by myself to write. But mainly we all write together.


One thing I really like about you are your fans. Seriously. Whenever people come onto YouTube and saying anything remotely disrespectful about you, your fans come out swinging. What’s it like performing in front of such a devoted crowd?

What can I say? We love our fans & our fans love us. There's never a time that I'm not humbled by our fans. They're our world & we wouldn't exist without them.


Will you ever be involved in solo work?

Who knows, I definitely won't rule out the possibility.

How do you organize tours? What’s it like being on the road and on stage?

The band is all in house at the moment. What that means is we pretty much do everything ourselves with help from some other outside sources.

Being on the road is awesome & being on stage is terrifying.


For some reason, I thought SLS was on hiatus. What are you currently up to?

SLS is not on hiatus, as I type we are on the road & will be on the road for the next 2 months.

What’s in store for SLS? Any plans you can divulge?

We will continue to tour & as of now we are writing & we hope to be in the studio by the end of the year.

Alexis, thank you so much for stopping by.

14 comments:

  1. I love this woman. Beautiful, talented, and BOLDLY goes against the grain.

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    1. She doth be lovable. I like how she addresses the crowd.

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    2. Co-signed on all of this. What Amaya said.

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  2. Love, love, love her. She is so beautiful. The metal world still has its fair share of racist shit bags and the fact that she can stay strong and steadfast is empowering. I've dealt with their crap in the crowd and those rents alone have kept me from frequenting shows. She is fierce as hell and she rocked in Maryland last month.

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    1. Did Jada Pinkett-Smith and her death metal band get death threats once? I never knew it was like that in the metal world? o.0

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    2. Oh, yes...they did...There's a lot of "metal is for white's only" or "she/he is good for a nigg3r" comments. I also know of one guitar player from a black metal band that quit playing guitar when he found out that the guitar originated in Africa. It's...unfortunate and heartbreaking which is why whenever I see a brown woman/man of any background make it on metal I am so so proud.

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    3. Leo Princess5/22/12, 4:49 PM

      "I also know of one guitar player from a black metal band that quit playing guitar when he found out that the guitar originated in Africa."

      His loss, the idiot.

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    4. So crazy. People have a right to listen to any genre of music that they like.

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  3. I like the interview, thanks for doing it, black people in metal music need more love :) I'm not into heavy metal, more into nu metal and regular rock. Alexis is really good, I'm going to listen to one of their albums.
    As for racism among metal scene/fans, I've heard about it but never experienced it (never been to metal concerts).

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  4. I'm not a fan of metal period and I'm not a fan of country, but if I see anyone of color on the scene it peaks my interest and this woman is just all types of beautiful. The racist fans need to sit down somewhere and understand that black people created metal! They just came up in it like they do everything and changed it to some mess. I don't understand how you can be racist to the very people that created the genre you are sucking off so hard. Smh Team POC in metal.

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  5. This is why I gave a shout out to her fans. I've noticed that if anyone comes onto YouTube and says ish about her being Black, they promptly get a cyber ass-whoopin'.

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  6. Thanks for the interview!! As soon as you introduced them I almost immediately fell in love with her, the band, and their music! GAAAHHHHH HER BADASSERY KNOWS NO BOUNDS!!!! I can't wait to see them in concert tomorrow!

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  7. Beauty and talent but above all mucho Points for being a black woman going strongly against the grain..PERIOD thats what I call Blacks Magic! But HELLA extra points for being a SADE fan!!! Wow!!!

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