Saturday, December 6, 2014

Empress on Prince and Morbid Angel

"As early as I can remember, music was such an integral part of my happiness. When I was a baby I got a Fisher-Price record player and my father who was a radio DJ here in NYC for 50 years on 101.1 CBSFM would bring home 45s and 12" LPs. I remember seeing old footage of myself at age five, where I was coordinating dance routines in my bedroom according to the content of each song. I grew up in a very stressful, broken home where my parents violently separated when I was six, so music became my escape and distraction from the pain, stress and fighting.  Music was the force that lifted me up and gave me hope and happiness.

I started going to shows at a very early age. The first concert I went to was Prince when I was eight years old. I won the concert tickets by being the 100th caller on Z-100 radio and I remember being paranoid that they weren't going to give me the tickets if they found out who my Dad was. My first club that I went to was the Limelight when I was 13. It was for a Morbid Angel concert. After that awesome show, they turned it into a club night. Once I saw all those vibrantly dressed club kids and heard that underground electronic dance music, I was hooked. I went every week. Luckily for me, I met Tom, one of managers that first night I went and I didn't have a hard time getting in after that, despite my young age. Since I was so young, I wasn't thinking about what I wanted to do at that time, all I could think about was that was where I wanted to be."

--Outtake from the current issue of The Deli Magazine, out now.

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