Latest / WEHM All Access / WEHM All Access - Sag Harbor American Music Festival - Whatever Lola Wants

Transcript

WEHM All Access - Sag Harbor American Music Festival - Whatever Lola Wants · WEHM All Access

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to WEHM All Access, Stag Harbor American Music Festival.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is our chance to get to know this year's performers, and you get the full lineup anytime at StagHarborMusic.org.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: And a time to sit down right now with a very talented performer who's involved in so many different things.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing my research and I wasn't even sure what what to talk about because we can go in so many directions.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: She's very busy and very talented.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Lola Lama.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Lola, how are you?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm well.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for that intro, Harry, and thank you for having me today.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is my pleasure.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh your project, uh, Whatever Lola Wants is performing Friday, September 25th at SAG Pizza.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I wanted to kind of go over a little bit of your history and get to know you a bit because there are a lot of different projects uh you're involved with.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: But I guess I I kind of want to go back to first off, where where did you grow up on the East End?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, I grew up in Sack Harbor.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm at one of my childhood homes right now.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um I went to Pearson just a walk away, though I still made my mom drop me off at school every day in her car.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_02: But um, yeah, I went to Pearson growing up.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: I did a lot of theater in the public high school um program, and that kind of just like catapulted me into becoming a performer and uh following the stream.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: And now I live between Brooklyn Monday through Friday, and I still visit and crash my parents on the weekends.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you when you think back to I guess your earliest memories of singing, uh what's what's that first moment that made you kind of feel connected to the music and know this is kind of something I want to do?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, both of my parents are artists.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: My mom's more in the visual world, my dad's more in the performing world, so I had no um choice but to be a weirdo as well.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I grew up actually originally up until third grade, I was in Houston, Texas, which was a super experimental arts scene.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: My mom had bought a church, a small church that she built our house onto the back of, and she made it a micro cinema, and it had a stage, and my dad had set up a sound system.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: So my sister and I were always like singing music on the mic.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we would play on this like Wurlitzer organ that someone donated.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we were always just like making music, playing games, being on stage, jumping between the pews and stuff.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um, yeah, I would say that's like my earliest, my earliest performance memories.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: And then obviously, we're so grateful, or I'm so grateful that we had morning program growing up at Sag Harbor Elementary School, which was you know us singing every morning in a community setting.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and that made me I'm sure so many kids more like comfortable in their voice and like sing music as a you know community gathering and and a way to uh just yeah celebrate our beautiful community.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: When did you move to Sag Harbor?
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: I moved to Sag Harbor when I was in third grade.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know the math.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think somewhere around 2010.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: I know there was a yeah, we we moved during a really bad like blizzard in the winter.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was definitely a a different welcoming.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, from Houston, yes.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, well, what was it like because you grew up in that scene, your parents uh in Houston, but then coming here to Sag Harbor?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: How did that this local arts community kind of shape your sense as you were growing up of performance storytelling?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think moving here, well, there's definitely more exposure to New York City, which is the hub of theater.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I remember taking some school classes uh with chorus.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: We would go to uh see a Broadway show once a year.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: And oh my goodness, of course, um Bay Street Theater has Literature Live, which was like these, you know, regional level theater productions that you could go to at high school.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: It'd be like 9 a.m.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: and you're watching Death of a Salesman, but you're it was it was pretty magical.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I would say, yeah, the exposure to theater um is incredible, like living out here, and I really think Pearson has like one of the stronger public school theater programs, um, just in like dedication to the set, and it's like a huge um student-driven organization, like all of the pit is student, students help make the sets, students help make the costumes.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we're involved in all aspects, it sounds like.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely, definitely.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: If I wasn't on one stage, like when I was in middle school, I would always try to help out with the high school musicals.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: When I was in high school, I'd help out the middle school musicals, just like anywhere I could uh fit in.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you you trained across acting, um singing, Shakespeare, of course, uh what which which one has felt like home to you?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is it are they all kind of had how do you how do you kind of uh do all of these different things and kind of what what feels the best to you or does it do they all feel great?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I feel like the more I have grown up, the more I love wearing many hats.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think when I when I in middle school and high school, I was very narrow vision on musical theater.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be on Broadway, singing, dancing, acting, eight shows a week.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And the more I um kind of explore these different facets like being a musician, the more I'm like, oh you know what?
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: If I was a full-time rock star, I would be so happy, I would be so thrilled.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: Or if I was in a straight play, didn't sing for you know a year, but put my all into that, I would be really fulfilled as well.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think I've just let go of the labels or put on more labels as like a multi-hyphenite artist, um, and let go of you know this rigid vision of what I want my career to look like because that for an artist that it really doesn't exist.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's very, very rare that you like land in your goal immediately.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, you it's great.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're trying so many different things.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um when did you start formal training?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it would say Harvard Pearson, but I know you did a lot of work in the city as well.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I my senior year of high school, I kind of took a leap of faith and I wanted to be in a sort of conservatory training.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I auditioned for Interlock and Arts Academy in nowhere, Michigan, but it was an amazing campus, and they had, you know, acting, dancing, singing classes, even the academic stuff was like very theater-driven.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I got in truly like two weeks before starting my senior year of high school.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, got off the wait list, and I was like, do I stay home?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I could stay home, still go to Pearson, you know, know everything about how my senior year is gonna go, stay safe, maybe get a good, you know, role in the high school play, or I could like take this leap of faith and go to like the middle of the woods, but really challenge myself as an artist.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I chose the latter.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and it was like one of the best things ever.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: It really also helped set me up for college auditions because it's so different for musical theater.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's like such a big process, and uh they brought us to Chicago Unifieds, which is like where all the musical theater schools and acting schools like join up in one hotel in Chicago for a weekend, and you just like audition eight times a day.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's crazy.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't think I could have done that without interlocking.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: And then I ended up getting into my dream school, which was NYU, and I got in for musical theater, so I studied there uh for two years, and then I wanted more substantial straight acting training, so I went to Atlantic Acting School, and then I went back to New Studio for musical theater, and then my summer abroad I did like one of the best summers ever.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_02: It was with the experimental theater wing, um, and it was in Amsterdam, and it was such a fun way to just like end out my NYU experience.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like by the last two weeks, we were doing like clowning with the red nose and everything.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was just like it was such a ball, so yeah, I was very happy with all my training um at NYU and Interlochen and Pearson.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: When you look back at Interlochen, I'm curious because it was you moved away from home.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: What was that like?
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And what was there something that because it's pretty intense from everything I actually have read about it?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: What what did you learn from there that kind of surprised you being in at that school?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Interlochen was the first except for when I moved to SAG Harper schools in third grade, it kind of got me used to this model that I had followed for following years, which was just being l more okay with being an outsider.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um even among outsiders.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like I felt like, you know, I was a first-year senior and there were fourth-year seniors there who had been at school there every year, but then there were other first-year seniors there that I really connected with and kind of was like it really helped me find my community, and I'd be like, Yeah, it is kind of weird to go to high school for one year with people who've been there for all four years.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but we just like really, we really, you know, supported each other, and um I also think it taught me to take leaps of faith.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, it's always played out to my benefit to just do the more uncomfortable but exciting choice.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah, and I think you know, making whatever Lola wants has even been a leap of faith.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: I have no like background.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I have very little background in Well, I was gonna ask, yeah, with jazz.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what is what inspired you to form a jazz trio?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: I had been listening to jazz growing up.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, my dad has like a very substantial record collection, and it's all sorts of music.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like it goes, it's world music, it's just everything.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_02: He he loves like funk too, but the jazz music always really stood out to me.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I I think like Ella Fitzgerald's voice is just otherworldly angelic.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I also grew up watching the Marvelous Mrs.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: Mazel a lot, and I actually ended up doing some background work for them, and they they um for that show, like they will cut your hair for free.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember going in and being like, cut it as short as you can.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I want to fully immerse myself into this period.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I had like a bob for a couple years, but I've always been into like old-timey, like satin dolls-esque um vintage fashion and pinup girls and jazz music and all that stuff.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why it's always felt so nostalgic for me.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: This is the project that you're gonna perform at the seg pizza.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's Friday, September 25th, whatever Lola wants.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: I know you also have another project.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you're the lead singer, the Cherry Bomb.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's well, in kind of like 80s kind of style rock bands.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're what's that like to contrast with jazz?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of inspired you for that?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: That project?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is at the complete other side of the spectrum.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I love it so much.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: That um that trail kind of born out of in high school, I did a production of um The Wedding Singer, and I played the antagonist, Linda.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: She had blonde crimped hair, and she had one of those like very like pop 80s voices, like ah, and um I had a funny kind of like parody video of me performing something on stage there out on Facebook, and the Cherry Bombs already formed when I joined.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they had been a band born out of Battle of the Fantasy Girl Bands, and they were like, We're actually really onto something.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: This is actually really fulfilling for us, and it started off as all Gen X women, and now it's multi-generational, multicultural.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so basically, yeah, they needed someone to fill in.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: They had a show at Talk House, um, and it was kind of like a last-minute thing.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: I went in and sang karaoke for my bassist, uh, Yuka Silvera and Nika Neskoda, the cellist.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I saying like girls just want to have fun on karaoke, and they're like, You got it.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: So I did that, and then um it just ended up clashing so well that I somehow got swept up into being like this full-time um cherry bomb, and it's been one of the greatest blessings of my life, and uh, we just keep getting better and better, and I'm yeah, it it is like one of the biggest joys I have as a performer.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems too that and I've read about it in your website, you talk a lot about um uplifting women and and uplifting silence voices.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that's really central to your work.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: When did that become kind of a part, a defining part of your artistry?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: When when did you kind of realize that was really important to you?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I think it was there wasn't one aha moment, but I felt that the things that speak to me most um artistically um are you know female-centered pieces of work.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_02: I read in college in Atlantic I had like this huge crucible phase.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I read this play called John Proctor is the Villain, and it was sort of like a modern telling of the crucible, and I loved how it like looked at an old work, you know, an old play, and it questioned if like John Proctor was really an American hero, and it looked at like that dynamic with Abigail, like you know, Abigail is in black and white, she's like the antagonist, but when you look at the like complexities, like how young she was, she was orphaned, all these things.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's just so much more complex than than you know, than that.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, I also feel like a lot of the works on Broadway right now are like jukebox musicals, and they're kind of a bit like commercialized, and I I felt myself like leaning a little bit less towards that and more towards the things that are like just more groundbreaking.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: I also loved watching the National Theater, like during COVID, I would watch those National Theater um like live screenings that they would share for free.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was on YouTube, and one of the shows correct me if I'm like pronouncing it so wrong, but it was Prima Fachi, and it was a one-woman show about this lawyer who um she basically defends men uh who have been accused of sexual assault, and then she gets sexually assaulted herself.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's a one-woman play, and it kind of like you see her perspective shift and how she cannot like ta pull away the humanity from her job anymore.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so anyways, just like groundbreaking works like that, where it's like uh you know, uplift lifting feminist narratives are the things that speak to me the most.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: That that's great.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, what are you uh working on now?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Besides obviously the jazz trios coming to us part of this uh say Harvard Music Festival, which it seems what are you uh what are you kind of involved with now as far as on the stage and singing?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I've got whatever Lola wants and the cherry bombs, and also I'm in New York City, I'm auditioning, um trying to book a contract.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: I do want to go back to my theatrical roots at least once.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm actively seeking representation, a manager, agent who like can appreciate me as a multi-hyphenite artist and uh advocate for me among many mediums.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I have a lot of friends who are producing uh cabarets like at 54 Below or the Green Room 42, and there are all these like sorts of one-night only like theme singing events.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: I have one coming um in October, and it's the music of Ray in her new album, This This uh Music May Contain Hope.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm very looking forward to that.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, very busy.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Lola, it's been great to chat with you and get to know you a bit.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Sag Harbor Music Festival coming Friday, September twenty fifth, five PM.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh kind of kicks off the day there at SAG Pizza.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can't wait to see uh whatever Lola wants, the jazz trio, and really just uh stay in touch and you've got so many cool projects.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for coming on, I really appreciate it.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Uh thank you so much for having me, Harry.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it so much.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, and we'll see you at the uh the Sag Harbor Music Festival.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I can't wait, I'm thrilled.