Pearl Aday Interview

PEARL ADAY INTERVIEW:
June 6, 2010

Websites: www.cheersloverock.com – www.myspace.com/pearl
Interviewer: Ruben Mosqueda

If you’re a regular Sleaze Roxx reader, you know that I recently did a review of Pearl Aday’s debut album Little Immaculate White Fox — it’s an explosive hybrid of classic rock, blues and soul.  Pearl, the daughter of legendary rocker Meat Loaf, has been on the road most of this spring promoting her album and took some time to talk about her new CD and her plans for the remainder of 2010.  She also spoke about Scott Ian’s involvement with the project, and the feedback she’s received from Anthrax fans about her music.

Sleaze Roxx: You’ve done some touring with Motley Crue and your father Meat Loaf. How did you get the Motley Crue gig?

Pearl Aday: Yeah, I toured with my dad for about nine years all around the world. In 2000 I did the Maximum Rock Tour with Motley Crue. I auditioned for them, I heard that they were going to try out people as background singers. It was a cattle call kind of deal in a rehearsal space deep in the valley. I auditioned for Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars and Randy Castillo, who was playing drums for them at the time. I got picked and was asked by Nikki to help pick the other girl because they wanted two girls. You remember they use to have The Nasty Habits? They were looking to get two singers that would take their place for that particular tour. They called us The Crue Sluts (laughs)! It was one U.S. Tour through summer into the fall with a November tour of Japan. It was a short stint but it was a blast.

Sleaze Roxx: I’m curious, did Nikki or any of the other guys, know who you were when you auditioned for them?

Pearl Aday: I had met them years before when I was a teenager. My dad took me to see them at The Meadowlands and I got to meet them after the show. I don’t know if they knew who I was when I auditioned. I never did ask Nikki about that.

Sleaze Roxx: What’s the inspiration for the title of your new album, what’s it’s meaning?

Pearl Aday: It’s a really cool story actually. I’ll do a long story short for you. When my mom was pregnant with me she was convinced that I was going to be a boy. Late one night, well into her pregnancy, she received a call from one of her friends who said that she had a dream about her baby. She told my mom that I was going to be a girl and that I had blond hair and blue eyes. In the dream I was laying in the base of a tree and was wrapped in white fox fur and that in that dream my name was Little Immaculate White Fox. My mom said to her, “well that’s a beautiful story but I’m having a boy.” Not even two hours later she went into labor and she had me — a blond haired blue eyed girl. It’s been unofficially my name, so I thought calling my first album Little Immaculate White Fox was very appropriate.

Sleaze Roxx: How did you decide to cover Ike & Tina Turner’s “Nutbush City Limits?”

Pearl Aday: There wasn’t a lot of thought put into that, other than I just love the song and it’s one of my favorite songs. Tina Turner is one of my heroines and I’ve always loved her work. There are just so many great songs in her repertoire, but this one just always stood out to me. The bottom line, it’s just a kick ass rock song and I thought that it fit in well with the original material on the album.

Sleaze Roxx: How long have the songs that made the album been around? Are these a fresh batch or are these songs that you’ve refined over the course of time?

Pearl Aday: It’s the latter of what you just said, of course some are older than others. A few years ago I wrote a number of songs with Jim Wilson and Marcus Blake of the band Mother Superior. They are a killer rock ‘n’ roll trio, they were in the Rollins Band for a few years and they played with Daniel Lanois, they are amazing and super talented dudes. I was a huge fan of theirs but it was actually Scott Ian who introduced me to them a few years ago. We clicked and wrote a number of songs together, then we went into Cherokee Studios here in L.A. With Bruce Rob. Cherokee Studios has been flattened since then, it no longer exists. It’s a bummer because that placed had so much history. So we got a demo album recorded and I put together a band with like nine people. The band featured a horn section, organ, two guitars, bass and so on. We played live out of the Strip, during that time we figured out that some of the songs were weaker than others, so we took out the weaker songs. We then wrote new ones to replace them and went back into the studio about a year to year and a half later after, like you said, refining them and making them more cohesive. When we were ready to record them for an album we went in with Joe Barresi, who is a super busy and in demand, and got it done in three weeks.

Sleaze Roxx: Three weeks? That’s pretty quick, and the album sounds amazing.

Pearl Aday: Three weeks with the exception of “Nutbush City Limits” and also “Broken White” which was the last original song we wrote for the album. We recorded that at Matt Sorum’s home studio with a producer by the name of Jay Ruston and tacked that one at the end.

Sleaze Roxx: You recently completed a solo tour. Are you performing the entire album? Are you doing additional material that was not on the album?

Pearl Aday: Right, we finished our tour — we did the West Coast, the Midwest and we did a couple of shows on the East Coast. It was a headlining club tour and we played for about an hour. We play most of the stuff on the album plus we slipped in a couple of covers. One being John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery”, which is a bluesy song with this country rag vibe. We do a stripped down version of that with just me, the guitar player and the bass player.

Sleaze Roxx: What are your plans for getting out and doing additional live date in 2010?

Pearl Aday: We’re working on that right now actually. In fact I just received an email this morning from an agent concerning some potential live dates. We’re just trying to figure out what we can do right now. We don’t have any tour support from the label or anyone else. We’ve received offers from some of the summer festivals, but we have to look at them closely to determine if it makes financial sense because we’re out on our own. We don’t have a surplus of money where we can load up all our gear, hop on a plane and go play. It’s expensive. I’ve got to be able to pay my band. I’d love to play everywhere but we must be able to do that without losing our shirts.

Sleaze Roxx: I have read various reviews and they compare you to Janis Joplin. Do you consider that a compliment or cop out?

Pearl Aday: First of all I’m definitely flattered by the Janis Joplin thing, but I don’t agree with it at all. Janis was a one of a kind, there hasn’t been anyone like her before or after. I understand that she is the epitome of the female rock singer. When people think of female rock singers they turn to her. Other than that I really don’t know what to say, other than I was named after her — that’s the only connection. I guess the short answer is that I’m flattered but I don’t necessarily agree with the comparison. I think a lot of people don’t know what to do with that, so they reach for what they know for comparison.

Sleaze Roxx: Right out of the gate, the first track on the album “Rock Child”, is an explosive way to open the record. It just socks you upside the head. That’s something that even Janis Joplin didn’t do but you did.

Pearl Aday: I like that. Explosive… that’s cool. Thank you, I like that a lot.

Sleaze Roxx: As you said earlier, you wrote with the guys from Mother Superior and then you put a band together. Did you have to encourage Scott Ian to get involved in the process?

Pearl Aday: He didn’t have to be encouraged. Scott is Anthrax — he’s a metal guy, always has been and always will be. He’s very much a rock ‘n’ roll guy, he has Angus and Malcolm Young tattooed on his arm you know? He loves Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, AC/DC, The Who — stuff like that are the reason he got into playing guitar to begin with.

He wasn’t in the first incarnation of the band. It wasn’t until recently that he started playing live with me. We live together, we do just about everything together, so it was a natural progression that he then play guitar in the band to see if it worked. It just made sense since he was already involved with refining the songs and working on the arrangements. He’s just an amazing rhythm guitarist, I’d be crazy not to want him in the band. On this tour that we just completed we got a number of Anthrax fans coming to the show to see Scott, but afterward we have heard a lot of positive feedback from the fans who love what they heard and bought the CD, or plan to as a result of the live show. That makes me feel good, that we’ve reached an audience that primarily listens to heavy metal.

Sleaze Roxx: Thanks so much for your time Pearl. We hope to see you live sometime later this year. Take care.

Pearl Aday: Thank you for your interest and support.