Now Reading: Exclusive Interview with Lethal Princess

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Exclusive Interview with Lethal Princess

May 3, 201823 min read

 

1. How did you get your name Lethal Princess?

At my birthday dinner at Red Lobster in Orange Park, Florida in 2008, a Virgo friend of mine, sitting across the table from to me said, “Are you sure you’re not a Virgo, because you’re a f**king b*tch”. Her husband retorted, “She’s not a f**cking b*itch, she’s a princess”. She said, “uh yeah, a lethal princess”. Everyone at the table laughed and thought that was a great nickname for me, so it stuck, but mostly to tease me about my attitude. Three months later I started managing professional MMA fighters, so my nickname fit in perfectly. I started Lethal Fight Gear a month later. The name has been with me ever since my birthday 2008, and has served me well as a kind of warning label for my personality, lol.

Everyone at the table laughed and thought that was a great nickname for me, so it stuck, but mostly to tease me about my attitude.

2. Where are you originally from? How was it like growing up there?

I grew up mostly in Southwest Florida. I’m a survivor of child abuse, the horrific kind that damages a person for life with a serious case of ptsd, depression, and anxiety, so I can’t really say what it was like growing up in Southwest Florida, because growing up for me was a living nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. I left the area the first chance I was able; spent some time in really beautiful states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, and upstate New York. Now I’m back in the “Sunshine State”, but this time in the Northeast, in Jacksonville. I love it here except for one thing; hurricane Matthew wiped out my favorite beach campsites at Huguenot Memorial Park, and hurricane Irma last year didn’t help the landscape any. I am a beach bum! Salt life forever! There is nothing better to see when you first wake up than the ocean. Such a serene way to start the day. Beach camping is my favorite part of living in Florida.

3. How long have you been into music? When did you know that music was for you?

 

I accidentally became a music producer in July 2017. I am a professional artist, as in large stunning paintings. Fans of my artwork requested I make videos of myself painting, for my YouTube channel. The paintings are over five feet each way, so they take hours to paint. I had to speed up the video so people wouldn’t get bored watching me paint. I needed background music, but I wanted it to be music I love. I was chatting with a young music producer online at the time I decided to do this. He said he loves my artwork, and I love his music, so I asked if I could use his music and list him in the credits. He was ghosting me for too many days in a row for me to bother waiting for “a text back”, so I Googled, “how to make electronic music”. The results stated to download a DAW. I Googled, “what is a DAW”. Haha. I knew NOTHING!!! I downloaded the demo version of FL Studio 12. Twelve hours later I had my first song for an art video, but that is all it took for me to become addicted to making music.

The guy who was ghosting me during that time, called me one night after I’d spent 18 hours grinding out beats, just to be completely dissatisfied to the point of deleting an entire day’s work. When I told him about it in my frustration, he said, “maybe you should stick to painting because making music isn’t for everyone”. That is the exact moment I decided to get serious about producing electronic music. Tell me I can’t or shouldn’t, and I absolutely will. I have thanked him many times for inspiring me by ignoring me, and trying to discourage me, because it lit a fire under me to learn how do it myself. Now I have two creative careers as an outlet for my intense emotions.

I needed background music, but I wanted it to be music I love. I was chatting with a young music producer online at the time I decided to do this.

4. Who are some of your biggest influences

I have Asperger’s syndrome, which is a type of autism, so I am not influenced by anyone else’s sound or style. I am still new at this, so I haven’t yet found my signature sound. If you play all my songs in a row, it will sound like either different people made each song, or like I have multiple personality disorder, haha. Before making my own music, I loved listening to filthy dubstep and dark trap. As my moniker, “Lethal Princess” eludes, my personality is gritty and hard, while girly and sensitive, so that creates contrast in my sound. I love glitter and love songs, but I also love MMA and falling asleep to compilations of the most brutal dubstep drops so loud the neighbors would probably call the cops if they weren’t running a meth lab, haha. My three favorite artists to listen to for the past three years have been Bassnectar, NF, and Jordan Comolli. I have many many favorites, some are the top names in trap, dubstep, and rap, and some no one’s ever heard of who have under 1,000 plays on their Soundcloud. Bassnectar, NF, and Jordan Comolli are the top three artists whose music I put the full playlist on replay when I am painting my huge masterpieces, when I’m trying to process excruciating emotional pain, when I need hyped up, and when I need comfort in times of struggle. I blast their music repetitively, to heal me, comfort me, or hype me up; but I wouldn’t want my music to sound like theirs. Their music is constructed from their emotions and life experiences, as my music is constructed from mine. Music should be original, because it’s deeply personal to an individual’s experiences and creative process.

6. Your sound is very unique and can be originated from multiple genres. What is your favorite type of music to do?

 

I’m still figuring it out as I go. For now I just collect melodic sounds that flow like honey, and harsh sounds that make me scrunch my face or make my dog’s ears twitch. I load up the contrasting sounds and try to make them become besties on a track. Sometimes it works out splendidly and I feel like the master of my universe, and other times I think about throwing my laptop in the river and never listening to music ever again, haha. (As if.) I received a message from a fan in the UK that read, “I don’t know how you do it, but you always manage to take contrasting sounds and blend them together perfectly”. I think that’s because of my bipolar personality. A friend once asked me, “how can you be the nicest person I know, and the meanest person I know?”. I think it’s because I was born a sensitive, kind-hearted person, but life just hammered me so hard for so long that although I am now damaged and twisted, I still shine and shimmer with a humble grace.

I still don’t know what sub-genre of EDM my music would be considered, so my friends and I joke that I should call it Aspiestep, because I have Asperger’s. People with Asperger’s are dubbed, “Aspie”, and none of my tracks sound similar. My style is a mess, but it’s a mess you can vibe to, lol. I love when people write to me, telling me how much they love a certain track. I love when someone listens to my music just to show me support on social media, then they respond with surprise like they weren’t expecting to actually like it. I get the same thing with my artwork. I tell people the price of one of my paintings, they ask, “why so much?”, I tell them, “because it’s that good”, they roll their eyes and make a face like, “yeah right”, then they see my work, their expression is priceless, then comes the exaggerated “wow”. I love it. My music does take people aback when they’re expecting not to like it, but then realize they do like it. My music is so eclectic, if you don’t like one track, try a different one, because they are all different styles. I’m just starting, so as I learn more about producing, and when I find my groove in a solid sub-genre, whether it’s dubstep, or trap, or Aspiestep, my music will shock people on the same level as my artwork. I think my favorite part of the music I produce is the obvious contrast. It suits me.

7. What have been some of your favorite features in your career.

When people are shocked that my music doesn’t suck, has to be my favorite part of sharing my music with the public. I think somewhere along the way, Soundcloud developed a stigma. When we share our Soundcloud link, I think people automatically assume our music isn’t any good. I don’t think you have to be mainstream to sound amazing. If people can dance to, vibe with, or relate to your music on any level that comforts them or amps them up, who cares what platform you found it on. Dance, vibe, chill, mosh, or rock it out any which way the beat catches you, regardless of on which platform you found it. So like my paintings, my favorite part is the “WOW” that comes with their shocked expression. Like just because you’ve never heard of me doesn’t mean my music is garbage, ok. My music may not sound like everyone else’s, but I wouldn’t want it to. Music is personal in a spiritual sense. We connect with what we listen to, but we are part of what we create. There’s a huge difference. I guess my favorite part of all this is shocking people who have low expectations before they hit that play button. Sort of like, “How ya like me now?”, haha!

8. What are some of your goals for the rest of the year.

Well, 2018 is the year of the Dog, and I was born in the year of the Dog, so this is literally my year and it’s going great so far. When I started last July, I was just trying to make music for my art videos. In September last year when I decided to make a serious go of music production, my only goal was to see what I could accomplish in a year from when I first started. My one year anniversary is just a couple of months away, so I am already setting new goals. I submitted “Comfortable Darkness” via Reverbnation to be considered for movies and TV. A couple of moths ago I received an email that it was accepted by their senior curators for movies and tv. That lit a fire in me, so now one of my goals is to produce intense scores for movies. I have four “Aspiestep” tracks in the works right now that I need to finish before I can start on that, so I am hoping to have everything I’m working on wrapped and released by July. Starting in August I’ll focus on tracks similar to “Comfortable Darkness”, and see how much I can improve in that specific genre in a year. For me, everything I do is about evolution and progress more than perfection. If I focus on being perfect, I’ll be setting myself up for failure and disappointment, so I strive to simply improve consistently at my own pace and let the chips fall where they may.

9. Has heartbreak been a factor that has inspired your sound?

Haha! How could you tell? Yeah, I fell in love with a narcissist afflicted with drug addiction in 2014. We re-connected in 2016 when he was in jail I thought, “finally we get to do this right”. I wrote a letter to the judge asking for him to be sent to a two year residential rehab program instead of prison. He came home for three weeks before going to rehab, and something just felt wrong. All the butterflies were being stabbed to death behind my back, and I could feel the betrayal. He relapsed in rehab, dropped out, and went back to his old life as if I never existed and nothing had ever happened between us”. It did more than devastate me; it changed me. It changed my view of relationships. It obliterated my sense of trust. The way he treated me those three weeks he was home, gave me more clarity in retrospect than any other relationship or social interaction in my life. I still more than love him, and always will, so my earlier tracks reflect the purging of those deep emotions into something immortal. I’m in a better head-space now; not necessarily healed, but definitely different… like I’ve re-focused my focus and I refuse to be derailed by my emotions. One of the many tips I’ve read regarding success that struck me so profoundly it has stuck with me is, “embrace loneliness”. It cut deep at first, because I had single and celibate for five years waiting for the right man, just to have life tell me he’s not it. So to think I have to go through that same profound loneliness again,… I mean just kill me ffs. This is where NF’s song, “Paralyzed” gets put on the replay at a volume that rattles the windows. To know you can absolutely get where you’re going, but you just can’t take the people with you who don’t support you, no matter how much you love them, is such a total mindf*ck. This is where self-love and self-worth are so crucial. I already knew about narcissism, but reading about other people’s experiences with narcissists on Quora is how I kept myself from breaking down and contacting him. I would read stories of other people breaking that trauma bond, until I didn’t miss him anymore. I did this for several hours every day for several months. He seemed jealous and resentful of me instead of appreciating me and valuing me in his life. I know why, but it didn’t make it feel any better. Once I made the decision not to dull my shine to accommodate his (or anyone else’s) fragile ego, I noticed myself healing. I admit I was afraid if I healed from the heartache, I wouldn’t have that level of passion to pour into my music, but that’s not the case. I am more passionate than ever with my music, it’s just in a whole different context. I’m happy now, even in the profound loneliness of pursuing lofty achievements.

Once I made the decision not to dull my shine to accommodate his (or anyone else’s) fragile ego, I noticed myself healing.

10. Are you working on any projects right now?

I finished two tracks last month, shopped them around Soundcloud and social media for feedback. I got back an over-all positive reaction, but I am not completely content with them myself. I removed them from Soundcloud to spend some time cleaning them up a bit, and I feel like something is missing for a smooth vibe. “Another Dimension”(Ft. Solo Cino) will be released on all digital music outlets May 18. I hope to have “I Do Like” released June 1st, “Fight Me” (Ft. King Legend) released June 15th, and I am in the middle of “Butterfly High” which will be released in time for my one year anniversary celebration in July. I’ll be selling merch and CDs for the occasion, exclusively on Holonis. There will be contests on Holonis throughout the whole month of July to win free merch and free autographed CDs with photos. I’ve just started a new “Aspistep” track a few days ago which currently has no title. When all this is released, I’ll start focusing on tracks similar to “Comfortable Darkness” for movies. I would like to note, sometimes I wake up and feel the urge to produce a new song start to finish, so in addition to planned releases, I sometimes pop up with extra tracks out of the relentless creativity in my mind. I say it that way because

maybe some days I don’t feel like sitting in one spot for 18-24 hours without taking a break, but some creative thoughts just won’t pipe down until you forge them into reality.

11. Where can our Aborigines find your music?

All my music is on Soundcloud and Reverbnation, but the more recent tracks are available on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and other such music outlets.

AlwaysBeOG

Baariboy

Artist, photographer and blogger.

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