Just as she was fresh out of a recording session, CP caught up with Lourds Lane, the writer, composer, and one of the cast members of SUPERCHIX, a rock opera set to debut in New York City on February 1st. Lane opened up about the inspiration behind the story, which chronicles the journey of a young woman as she fights her way out of an abusive relationship and discovers how to love herself. She also dishes on how she found cast members, her role in hosting the Medusa Festival, her hopes for the future and what it’s like being a full time rocker/writer/musician/composer.
Clubplanet: Where did you come up with the idea for a rock opera?
Lourds Lane: Well I’m in a touring rock and roll band [Lourds] and it really just sort of happened on its own because I’ll instinctively write really dramatic songs. Also, every year I host and help organize this event called Medusa Festival, which features female-fronted bands and it’s usually edgier chicks. I scout out and find all the best underground bands and a few well-known bands and put on this really big show. Because of that, I knew these amazing female musicians and singers.
Yeah, I was going to ask where you got the cast from.
Lourds Lane: It’s from doing the Medusa Festival because I see so many incredible front women, singers, musicians, and I’m just like wow, let’s put together an all-star situation so I can write for all my friends, handpick my friends, and chose the people I want to hang around with.
Did you previously know any of the cast members from when you were touring with Lourds?
Lourds Lane: I’ve toured with a few of them in the past. I hang out with some of them and they’re all totally my friends now. There are a few members that are new, that the director brought in, but other than that a lot of the cast was handpicked by me and they’re from the underground rock and roll scene. I thought it would be cool having this edgy rock and roll show going on off Broadway. It’s like real actors that are rocking out, and it’s all female. You just can’t go wrong with hot chicks rocking out.
I know that you sing and play a variety of instruments. How long have you been playing music?
Lourds Lane: I started playing violin and piano when I was three years old. I started really young, writing music at four. Then, I was classically trained on violin, so I was like a little prodigy. I played Carnegie Hall when I was six. My upbringing was mostly classical music. I toured around the world with huge orchestras. I just always wanted to connect with the crowd and there was this one time that I jumped off the stage when I was like, seven, and I started to play into the audience.
Whoa, that’s pretty hardcore for a seven year old.
Lourds Lane: Yeah, I just wanted to get closer to the crowd. I didn’t want to be a certain way, a certain person on stage playing this violin. I started walking down the aisles, playing to people and realized this is why I’m doing this, I just love music. The problem was, I totally broke all of the classical rules and my conductor thought I was making a mockery of classical music. I’m glad it happened because it really shaped my brain. I mean, if my conductor harnessed this energy and wanted to work with it, I probably would still be a classical musician and not a rocker, but because he was mad, I started not caring about playing music how it’s supposed to be played.
It sounds like that was your turning point as a musician.
Lourds Lane: Yea. I’d finish concertos the way I thought they were supposed to be written and just do my own thing. I was enjoying music rather than just doing what my mom wanted me to do. So, that’s pretty much where I came from. Music has always been in me, but I like to break the rules and do what I want to do; and what I want to do now is take the format of rock and roll and sing it to Broadway, where it’s just edgier. It’s like there are no rules, and if there are, we’re breaking them.
Who are your biggest musical influences?
Lourds Lane: Rachmaninoff and Queen. Classical music, like Chopin, but then there’s David Bowie and The Beatles, which I discovered later in life. I felt like that kind of inherent drama in Queen was something I could really relate to, like the quirkiness of it, like the really fun upbeat songs and then heavy triumphant songs.
How are these influences seen or heard in SUPERCHIX?
Lourds Lane: Queen songs have no rules to what you can and can’t do, and that’s the way our musical is. From jazzy numbers to punk rock music, it’s everything. Some of the girls are quirky and funny, so I’d write quirky, funny tunes. Then another girl is more sexy and jazzy, so I’d write that for her.
What inspired the actual storyline?
Lourds Lane: Every single vignette in the show is based on personal experience. To make an honest story, you have to get down to the core, so I always write from personal experience. I don’t even know what the rules are for a rock opera. I’m far from Broadway, but I just started writing and all of a sudden I have a full libretto and the producers and investors were like ‘Ok, let’s jump on board.’ It was really organic, like a natural transition from all the rock and roll I’ve been doing and just...my life in general. I just wrote it all down and next thing you know, here we are.
What was the most difficult part about molding this whole thing into creation and setting it into motion?
Lourds Lane: I think whenever you dig deep and write a story from personal experience that you want people to relate to and understand, the most trying part, for me at least, is reopening wounds and then trying to re-heal again. During the time I was writing the piece, I was like one big open nerve. Thinking about exes and constantly bringing back memories, so that I could talk about it and sing about it, was hard. But, the way I normally write, I expose myself and try to heal from it.
You’re basically performing chunks of your past. That must be really hard to do.
Lourds Lane: Yeah. I mean, of course I stretch things to make it more dramatic, but everything is based on something from my life. You can look back and be like ‘Oh, this was that guy; this was that person’. It’s all based on an absolute true story, but like I said, you also have to be creative to make it work as one piece.
Where do you see SUPERCHIX in five years?
Lourds Lane: I see it on Broadway and in theatres across the country and licensed worldwide. It’ll be one of those shows where little girls will say ‘I want to be in Superchix one day’. There are characters for everyone out there that all people can relate to. I think that it’s a show women and children will want to perform themselves. It’s going to have a youthful fan base that will come again and again.
Do you think it will be like
