Whenever I approach a record, I don't really have a science to it. I approach every record differently. First record was in a home studio. Second record was a live record. Third record was made while I was on tour. Fourth record was made over the course of, like, two years in David Kahn's basement.
I watched a little girl cover her face up and leave her hands in front of her mouth. I saw that girl after surgery, and she was smiling... that's a great source of satisfaction.
When I first came into the business, I had to, for the sake of being able to sell myself as an artist, always be happy and jovial and smiling. I was the happy nice girl, and I am the happy nice girl, but I have my moments, too.
My first fight. I fought a girl that was a little bit heavier, a little bit more experienced and I was petrified because I didn't know what I was getting myself into. And I did really well against her and nobody believed it was my first fight.
When we took on the name The Drifters, we became the new Drifters, and signed a contract to be put on salary, which I think was like a hundred dollars a week, a piece, five hundred dollars for all five of us.
The first record was basically a quick, fast record. The second record, we were going for more of a poppier sound - like a heavy pop sound. For 'Rocket to Russia,' we'd sort of reached our pinnacle. We'd gotten really good at what we were doing, so that's like my favorite record - that's a really good record. It's just great from beginning to end.
This record for the first time - feels like a record that really represents my whole entire life and instead of just a period of my life. And it is really kind of eye opening and it makes me feel really good to hear this record and hear all the years.
When I got involved with The Five Crowns who later became The Drifters, and we got this hit record, I still was looking at this as kind of a fun thing.
Deep down inside, I'm really a black girl stuck in a Mexican girl's body. But I'm also in touch with my inner white girl and my inner Asian girl. I feel like a little bit of everybody.
Everything is starting to make a little more sense to me now. I love the idea that, first of all when I made the record I don't look at the music by classifying it. People have a problem classifying me as pop, or rock, or folk, or alt. The beauty for me is that a thirteen year old girl can fall in love with the record and so can her mom. I tend to gravitate towards artists that are timeless and don't sound dated.
Everybody knows that smiling is for little girls, the gays and certain kinds of fish who are smiling by accident.
I have no idea what was the first record I ever bought, but I think I asked my mom to buy me... um... a collection of Beethoven when I was a little girl because I became very addicted to his music. It might have been piano sonatas.
When the first record came out, I'd go down to radio stations pretty much every day to get the record played, and I would walk in and they'd tell us how much they loved the record, but they weren't sure how much they could play it because they were already playing a girl.
When I first went out on the road with Larry Williams, there was also, like, The Coasters, The Drifters, and The Flamingos.
?"She was not a little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it all, but they were wet smiles.
Basically, a band's first record is them coming together and really learning everything, and then, after they're on the road and really become a unit, the next record slams.