Indie Artist Music Hustle
Indie Artist Music Hustle Podcast with Blonde Intelligence is where you will experience exquisite cranial repertoire. The podcast (Available on your favorite podcasting platform) provides entertainment news, thoughts on celebrity gossip, independent music artists, as well as businesses that contributor to the music and entertainment industries. The purpose is to provide exquisite cranial repertoire. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button!!!! follow me @BlondeIntelligence @RRoneice. Also the channel name is That Blonde Broad.
Indie Artist Music Hustle
Navigating Love and Music with Bella and the Vertigo Waves
Bella and the Vertigo Waves take center stage in a fascinating conversation about their journey from a solo act to an electrifying band with a sound that's hard to pin down. Imagine blending the essence of 80s pop with the raw intensity of 90s grunge, topped off with a hint of metal. That's what Bella and her band bring to the table, as they discuss the unique influences each member contributes. The twist? Bella's boyfriend plays a pivotal role both on and off stage, adding layers of complexity to their creative and personal dynamic. Get ready to explore the evolution of a band that started as a solo act in 2017 and transformed into a full-fledged band by 2019.
Through the creation of two distinct albums, Bella and the Vertigo Waves share their artistic journey and personal growth. Their debut album, "Aligned," is a poignant reflection of navigating mental health and trauma. In contrast, their latest album takes on a more mature sound, drawing inspiration from iconic rock legends. The conversation dives into the intricate balance of maintaining a personal relationship while working together professionally, underscoring the importance of communication and understanding within a partnership. And with Bella's father on lead guitar, the layers of both familial and professional collaboration become even more intriguing.
Creating an album during the COVID-19 pandemic posed unexpected challenges and triumphs for Bella and the Vertigo Waves, offering a testament to resilience. Imagine nurturing a project like raising a child, as the band navigated remote collaboration and the absence of live feedback. This emotional rollercoaster brought a deep sense of accomplishment as they finalized and shared their labor of love with the world. From the cathartic nature of songwriting to the profound pride in their finished work, this episode captures the steadfast spirit of artists forging ahead in uncertain times.
Hello everyone, welcome to this week's Indie Artist Music Hustle with Blind Intelligence. I'm your host, ms Ronnie, where I always seek to give you exquisite cranial repertoire. This week we have a very special guest All the way from Kansas City. We have Bella Vertigo Wade. Did I get it right?
Speaker 2:Bella and the Vertigo Wade.
Speaker 1:Well, what we're going to do is take over and let you tell everyone a little bit about yourself, since I already messed up the name.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yeah. We're a rock band from Kansas City City.
Speaker 2:We have been playing as a full band for about three or four years now probably as a full band yeah, um, I started off, um, under the name Bell and the Vertigo Waves in 2017, but I was a solo artist and so so it was kind of like I'll give it a band name and then hope that I can find the band later, right? So I put that record out in 2017 and, over the years, got a band together and we've been playing together for since about 2019, I would say and yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the current iteration, I would say, is 2019. A lot of us in the band started out as basically like we were hired guns for her first record. Uh, when she first started it was kind of a little bit more like, would you say like all pop kind of singer songwriter sort of a thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah and um, john, who is our lead guitar player, and myself were two of the members that she hired essentially just to be the musicians to record her songs for her. Um, and then, midway through the recording process, uh, bell pulled me aside at one point and was like, hey, we should like actually start a band. And I was like, aren't we already like in a band? Because I just the process of everything went so well that it was kind of like, yeah, this is like already happening. And then during kovat, basically so Bella and I have been living together for about what three years four years four years she knows Four years, she knows our anniversaries and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Are y'all a couple?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that has its own share of interesting. It's hard sometimes to know which hat I'm supposed to wear. Am I her co-worker? Am I her producer? Am I her boyfriend?
Speaker 2:There's a lot of them. There's probably an hour worth of stuff we go into there. But yeah, we started, we started dating, uh, probably like six months into playing music together, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the timelines are blurry, but yeah, yeah, yeah, um. And so during covid that was when we had started um working on our new record, which was more of a collaborative with the band as opposed to members, kind of just playing stuff that she wrote on her own. So a lot more influences, a lot more production, for sure. And we found a usage for the last 18 months of everything kind of being closed off. I spent countless hours writing in here. She's the lyrical genius and so she takes a lot of the stuff that I do and puts words to it, and then we throw hundreds of demos at the band and then we compile everything up together. So yeah.
Speaker 1:So what is your genre? Because I've interviewed several different bands and each band still has a genre of people. Don't automatically assume that it's rock. So what type of genre?
Speaker 2:It's the hardest question to answer because, yeah, you're right, rock could be a lot of different things. I think we have. We all have a lot of different things. I think we all have a lot of different influences there's, you know, we have some like 80s, sort of like 80s pop influences and some 90s grunge influences.
Speaker 3:And you know, we've had some people say like your band sounds like if Taylor Swift was in a metal band or if Lady Gaga collabed with Metallica yeah, kind of a you know melt pot of a lot of oh sorry, it's a mixture of a lot of different things going on yeah, I think the the distinction that we have is that generationally there's even kind of a big distinction because, like I'm, I'm about 10 years older than Belle, so I'm way more of a 90s kid. But Belle is like an old soul so she grew up listening to like the Cure and like 70s, 80s kind of you know, pop punk type stuff. Um, john is like a an old head so his all his stuff is like 80s heavy metal. Um, and then our other guitarist and elliot, they're a little bit more modern, like zach, likes a lot more like progressive, uh, heavy production stuff elliot's like he likes a lot of hip-hop stuff, so a lot of his drumming kind of fits in there.
Speaker 3:Um, so the best that I've ever heard it summed up is we're your parents' favorite band. I would say if we had to classify it it would be like pop, glam metal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So y'all have five members.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I know that you told me that you had been working under the name since 2017. So how long did it take you to get the last member Jesus.
Speaker 3:Oh, can we swear by the way on this before I get a little crazy? I mean hey, do you?
Speaker 2:Okay, good to be, careful um okay, I mean probably 2017 is when my album came out yeah 2019 is when we played boulevardia.
Speaker 3:That's a festival in kansas city um, I think so two years I think two years, yeah, we've been with the same group of people that feel like the right fit yeah, yeah, we've gone through three drummers, two guitar players, but the core has kind of just been me, you and john yeah, our lead guitarist so do you think that y'all are unique eclectic group, or are y'all just?
Speaker 1:I mean so do you think that, because of all the different styles that you name, that's what make y'all eclectic? Or I mean, how do you describe yourself?
Speaker 2:I think so. I think, like us learning to sort of feed off of each other's different influences keeps things more interesting and keeps us from feeling like we're trying to imitate one certain sound too closely. Um, I think that, like our musical differences do kind of come together to create something that's, you know, not too much of like a replica of something that you've heard before.
Speaker 3:But I'm also not trying to like toot our own horn and be like we're the most unique thing, because obviously that's you know, not real, but yeah it's a weird, um, it's a weird question to have to ask yourself because on one hand, you don't want to like nobody really thinks that they're hot shit, especially if you're like like if you're, like you know, really really kind of in the game, like everybody deals with, like the imposter syndrome, so it's a weird dynamic of like you want to kind of sell yourself and be like we have something that you can't find anywhere else, so buy our record.
Speaker 3:But also, like we all kind of struggle with like feeling like I mean, half of the songs on this new record are about feeling like you're a fraud. So, um, but yeah, I would say I would say because of the, the age range as far as musical styles, it's kind of a compliment that everyone kind of is like we don't really know how to describe you yeah you know, so, bella, I want you to tell me about this 2017 album that you did.
Speaker 1:I want you to compare it to the latest project, tell me how you kept your signature sound throughout, from 2017 until now, and how have you evolved?
Speaker 2:wow, okay, um, yeah, so in 2017 I put that album out. I would have been 19 years old, so a lot of that album was very what?
Speaker 1:what was the name of it?
Speaker 2:it's called Aligned Um.
Speaker 2:I was going through like a lot um with my mental health at the time and so a lot of it was just kind of sorting through some trauma and trying to figure myself out and, being 19 years old and, you know, learning how to have relationships with people at all and exist in the world, um.
Speaker 2:So I think in a lot of ways, that album was like processing a lot of things and it was um, you know, yeah, and I think now with the album that just came out, it's a lot more self-realized in a lot of ways. I feel like the material not to say that one is good or bad, it's just the difference um, I think in a lot of the songs that I wrote for on this album, it's a lot more of like knowing, discovering who I am and what I really want, um, I am and what I really want, um, and so, yeah, it just feels like a lot more of like a coming of age, like grown-up album for me. Um, I don't know, is there anything that I'm missing there that I've told you about? I?
Speaker 2:mean I could give you someone who's been on both sides of like the creative process some observations yeah, creatively I think I just I'm very restless, um, when it comes to like artistic things and I can't really stay put for very long. So when I made the first album, a lot of my influences were a lot more like singer-songwriter type influences, kind of mixed with some like alternative 80s music like the Cure and the Smiths, and then, moving into this album was kind of when I tapped into like some of my more like rock influences like Joan Jett, ozzy Osbourne and all of that. And so I think when you tap into that different energy lyryrically and emotionally, you tap into different things as well and different themes that you're writing about.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to ask you a question now. I want to know how have you balanced between boyfriend and producer and do you think that you serve more of a protector role over her career, being that there's a lot of wolves out there in sheep clothing?
Speaker 3:yeah so when, when we first decided to, we first decided to start dating, be together, live together the whole nine, I was very much more of wearing the boyfriend hat. I think the shift happened again, not to keep bringing this up, but when covid, for like when everything in the midst of covid, because that was when I took a lot more of a production songwriter role. Uh, actually, I never told you this before. I had a good comparison between your first two records. This is relevant to this. Your first record was angst. Your second record is anger, which is like what kind of happens when you grow up. Um and uh.
Speaker 3:So a production standpoint, we that one was more collaborative, which then I became more kind of involved in our I mean our baby together, instead of just being like a protector. I mean, let's be honest, like it's named after her, she's, she's what everybody looks at. I'm kind of riding her coattails, I'm in the back, I'm the one that kind of builds the car. She gets to speed it down the highway, kind of a thing you know, um, I think like it no yeah I say that, I say that with affection.
Speaker 3:But uh, the other advantage that I think she has is john um. Our lead guitarist is actually her dad.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So so how cool is that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I have. So I have three hats. I have boyfriend, no, four hats, boyfriend, co-worker, producer, kind of son-in-law sort of. So the how do I I, how do I say this? Um, sometimes we have to figure out if the conflicts that we are running into are creative or interpersonal. Um, hey, I have a demo, do you like it? And really the question is, do you like me as a songwriter, as opposed to give me a critical production analysis of this thing versus you know, I need an encouraging sort of a thing and it took us basically two years to figure that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've really had to learn to be very straightforward with each other. Like you know, anybody comes home from work and, you know, might want to tell their significant other, oh look at this cool thing I did today and have them go. Oh, that's awesome, I'm so proud of you, you work so hard. But when you come home to your coworker and you're like, look at this thing I made today, you have to be very clear about our do I need a boyfriend response or do I need co-worker response? Um, and knowing that for myself too, has been a big thing, because I think I had to learn, you know, what I needed in the moment, like, do I need a constructive response here, or do I need to feel like him, as my significant other loves and supports me as an artist?
Speaker 2:You know, knowing the need is important to being able to communicate it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So tell me this this is a question for both of y'all what made you decide to hire your dad in the band? Decide to hire your dad in the band, and did that give you any reservations about?
Speaker 2:do I want to be a part of this? Yeah, so my dad and I have been playing music together since I was about 16 years old, so my dad was in the picture before Jer was really um, so when Jer stepped into it to to a degree, he knew what he was getting himself into. My dad and I would play open mics and coffee shops, just like a more stripped down, like acoustic version of what we're doing now. Um, and yeah. So when I went in to make my album, it was a given that my dad was going to play on it because we had been working together. And then after that is when Jer kind of came into the picture.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think there were really very many reservations. He and I actually work really well at being able to interpret, from a creative standpoint, sort of Belle's intent behind what she's getting out of the songs that she writes. The running joke he and I always have is we try to play a game of is this song about you or me? So it's like obviously she's going to write about her dad or her boyfriend most of the time.
Speaker 2:Ironically, most of the time it's about neither, yeah, but not saying it's ever happened before.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, um, so it's definitely like a language thing that we we work really well on. John knows how to uh bring out a lot more of her, um, melody line stuff into the way that he writes his guitar. Versus me, I'm kind of a lot more of like the foundational sort of structural she writes. She writes her lyrics primarily off of the things that I structure, and then John knows how to kind of bounce back and forth almost in like a guitar vocal dialogue with her. So it's a. It's really cool. It really kind of like amplifies what she does. And he and I trust each other enough now that we sort of like know how to stay out of each other's sort of process. And then when things come together, then that's when he and I get to really sort of pick stuff apart and you know, but all of it kind of centers around.
Speaker 1:However you fit into it okay, tell me, why did you describe the last project as angry?
Speaker 2:The most recent one.
Speaker 3:I mean that's my observation, so I can probably I.
Speaker 2:So I've been in therapy for the last four years, working through a lot of my own you know trauma and everything, and I always viewed anger as a bad thing when I was a teenager and I was always a person to want to appease and to want to just be whatever anyone wanted me to be, to want to be a chameleon. And as I've worked through some of my trauma and emotions, I've, like you know, discovered anger in that and I've discovered the value of it and the good pieces of it. It's something that's important but needs to be well managed um and so.
Speaker 2:I, yeah, I think once I've found more emotional honesty within myself of, you know, not just letting people push me around or not just feeling like I need to be a chameleon all the time. I've gotten to know myself and I've gotten to feel what that anger is. And so with this last record, songwriting was a healthy place for me to channel and process that, because it did feel a little bit like you know stereotypical superhero movie where they get their powers for the first time and it's just like chaotic, they don't know how to like use their superpowers. So I think in a lot of ways, like songwriting is how I manage that and process it.
Speaker 3:I would think that, um, there's kind of a there's kind of two sides to this sort of I'm sure this is probably something you've heard a lot if you've uh, interviewed a lot of other like artists is some people lean really heavily on the side of you. Kind of you just write what you know, you write what has happened to you and that is like a means of like processing whatever you know. Most relational songs are because it actually happened to you. You're not like making up a story, you're actually. You're actually sort of putting a little bit of yourself into it.
Speaker 3:And her first record was a lot of, you know, death in the family, a lot of like emotional stuff that happened to you when you were like a kid and that just sort of like a grief kind of a processing. And then most of the songs, uh, on this new record were pretty much like, chronologically speaking, were like the next three years after that. After all of that was processed out and, given the fact that we were locked inside of a house for, like you know, one point, I was like almost 10 months, there's a lot of pent up, you know, seeing what's on the TV every day, seeing like how people are responding to things that are happening. Like you know, there's so much like it's, it's everything's happening at such a frenetic, frenetic pace. I think that's a word, um, and that's how everything was. Yeah, frantic, yeah there we go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, um yeah, yeah, and that that's kind of like how emotionally it was processed and even like lyrically it's very much like you know, hey, this is how I feel, this is what I wrote, and then, and then you would go. You would go oh, that's how you wrote, this is how it makes me feel and then I'll say it, and it was, and everything was just like oh yeah, that's exactly you know.
Speaker 3:So, anger, not like I'm pissed off, but more like this is, I am describing how I've been feeling. You know what I mean, yeah ownership of feelings yeah, yeah, there you go, yeah, the therapy, a description, yeah, absolutely math and counseling oh, okay, I see, that would also explain.
Speaker 1:That would also explain why your questions are good I guess, yeah, you're like you actually want to know this feels good so I want you to actually tell me about this latest project. I want you to tell me the name of it, how long it took you to complete it, what distribution you use and why did you decide to use it and everything up until the release date. Talk about it.
Speaker 2:Okay, um, so our album is called Lorelei. It came out on May 28th so it's been a little bit under a month now. The recording process took nearly two years because we did write and record throughout COVID so there were a lot of limitations to the process there. Um, yeah, we recorded from, we wrote and recorded from our house and then took things to the studio. I recorded vocals in a different studio. My dad recorded guitars from his closet in his house. It was a little bit of a like mixture of a process I've never really like. It's very. It was very new to me because my whole like method leading up to it was always you write a song and then you play tons and tons of shows before you record it so that you know that this is how you want the song to be.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And we obviously didn't have that option to sort of play songs out to test run them. So it was doing lots of demos and playing them together and really working out the kinks. It was a very different process than I was familiar with leading up to it.
Speaker 1:Do you think it's more special?
Speaker 3:Honestly, yeah, I personally. I think for me, the biggest reason was we. We didn't get the, we didn't get the benefit of getting a crowd response to to dictate to us whether or not something was going to land, and so we really had to trust our own intuition and how the song made us feel ourselves After basically sending everything out to be mastered.
Speaker 3:I only cry in front of two people One of them is her and one of them is my mother, and it was one of those like I called her as I'm leaving the studio and was like, hey, so I just sent off everything to be mastered, Like it's all ready to go. And then I was like I paused and I sort of stared and I was like, hey, so I just sent off everything to be mastered, Like it's all ready to go. And then I was like a pause and I sort of stared and I was like, by the way, I just want you to know that I'm about to start crying. So, anyways, I feel like, and then, just like it was like that kind of a thing.
Speaker 1:But the happy cry was a sense of accomplishment.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, it was the pandemic for me which you know. Is it over? Is it not over? Who knows? It's so confusing, but it never really. Yeah, it never really felt like for me that it was over until then, because that was the summation of everything that I had been working for throughout the whole time, and so it was like this weight came off my chest and then, when I talked to my mom about it, I mean, she was pretty much like, uh, the way that she summed it up was the way that you feel right now, regardless of how this lands or what anyone else might say, no one else will get to feel this way about it. The reward is in this, really, really. That's why you'll see people that work so hard for something and they break down and it's. It's like a strangely isolating feeling, but also like really good, because you're like no one else can really understand, but they also don't get to feel this good about it yeah coming out.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, so it was. I feel like I totally lost sight of the question. Uh, no, just talk about the sight of the question, though, no, just talk about the process of the album and the release in it.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I think.
Speaker 3:I mean, yeah, that was. It was very. It was segmented out. It was here are some demos, ideas. A lot of the stuff that we worked through was, hey, here's an entire parted out song, and then you would be like I have all the lyrics for this. There were probably only a couple songs that were actually collaborative in the sense of we actually all were in a room together. They have an idea? Oh yeah, play this drum, beat on it. Oh, we could do a guitar thing here and kind of go from that, because we were so isolated. There was a lot more sending emails or you, you know phone recordings of of ideas for things and um, yeah, and I think that that challenge did make it feel so much more intimate, I guess intimate and like exciting when we finished, because it challenged.
Speaker 2:It challenged us all as individuals and our motivation, because we didn't know what was happening with the world. We didn't know if we put this album out, if we were going to be able to play shows, when and there's so much mystery. It challenged our relationship. It challenged like everything. I mean it. You know, we know it can be annoying to parents to say this, because I'm not saying it's the same thing at all. I had four little siblings, so I know kid world very well, but the only analogy I can think is like it felt like it was our kid. Like everything that we did revolved around it how we spent our money because making a record is not cheap. How we spent our money when we slept, uh. How we managed our relationship with each other, how we managed our health, like it how much of our dates was really just talking about the kid the band, yeah, so it all felt like it was unto this thing and so having it be done was this very surreal.
Speaker 2:You know, I think it's very similar to like the feeling of grief, but the positive of that, where you're like it feels like this, separating, but as opposed to how grief is very sad, it's a happier like sending your kid to kindergarten yeah or you know, to school.
Speaker 3:You know I mean I don't know I don't have kids, but you know it's the best I can come up with.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, I do agree with you with with it being like a, a child, because you gotta nurture it. You're gonna put love into it, you're gonna nourish it and then, when you're ready to present it, such as as your child graduate, when you're ready to present it, you're proud of it, yeah, and then you also got to let it go and let it find its own way yeah and you can't.
Speaker 3:yeah, and that was that was kind of the cathartic release aspect, was like I mean, I even when I was talking to like our engineer the last day I was in the studio with him, was like hey, like I almost kind of don't want this to be over, just because, like I've seen you like three times a week for the past year, like you know, it's like therapeutic for you with something that you look forward to.
Speaker 1:It kept you from going having a fever. Yeah, that was an outlet for you. I mean I understand that, because then it was like it's like your favorite show come on in the season end and it's like well, what am I doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure, Absolutely yeah Um did we answer your question entirely? I was going to say you, should you want to break down, like why it's called Lorelei and like all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, do you? I mean, yeah, I can do that. Yeah, so the album is named Lorelai it is people ask me and it's true it's based off of the character from Gilmore Girls. Okay, so the reason for that is my best friend passed away about two years ago and so the song on the album, lorelai.
Speaker 2:I wrote about her because we used to watch Gilmore Girls together in the hospital and throughout, like she was going through hospice care, um, near the end of her life, and so we watched Gilmore Girls a lot and I was always like, yeah, if she wasn't, like, if she didn't have this like sickness, that kind of kept her inside all the time like she would be Lorelai, like't have this like sickness, that kind of kept her inside all the time like she would be Lorelai, like she would be that character that just like took over the town and everybody knows her and she's very loyal, loyal and fun and lovable and um. So I wanted to name the album Lorelai to honor her memory. Um, because she was definitely like, she was a huge part of my life in encouraging me to believe in myself and believe in my dreams and make the record and keep doing what I'm doing do you experience different emotions when you listen to it at different times?
Speaker 3:yeah, absolutely songs, probably more than others.
Speaker 2:I'd did take a guess yeah, yeah, I think the songs on the album Lorelei and Until You're Better are both very specifically about her and they're very challenging to listen to. I think sometimes I listen to them and I time travel in my mind and I feel like I'm with her and I feel that like closeness but sadness. And then there are times when I listen to it and I feel a level of happiness that I was able to honor her in that way and I feel like that she would be proud of me and that she would absolutely love it and that feels very like redeeming to me. Okay.
Speaker 1:I thank y'all for coming. Is there any last words that you want to have? I want you to tell everybody where they can find your album at your social media handles, how they can find you on social media and if you have a YouTube page or anything like that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We have our Instagram and TikTok handles are at the Vertigo Waves. You can also find us at TheVertigoWavescom, where you can find all of our sorry.
Speaker 1:Bellet form.
Speaker 2:Uh-huh, the Vertigo Waves, the V-E-R-T-I-G-O-W-A-V-E-Scom. That's where you can get all of our links to find our music on iTunes and Spotify. We're all over. Any streaming platforms that you may listen to. Uh bell in the vertigo waves is on YouTube. We have three music videos for the album that came out that you can watch on our YouTube channel.
Speaker 3:Um, there was one more I was going to say well, we're, we're going to be releasing a fourth one um video yes, we will be releasing a fourth music video on our youtube channel, so make sure you go subscribe to us there.
Speaker 2:It's okay. Um, if you're listening and you want to book our band for a show, you can email us at bookingbatvw at gmailcom. And uh, maybe we can come to your city and play a show yeah, that's kind of the next step for us.
Speaker 3:I think is uh, we've had we did a record release show. We sold out and it was like, oh okay, people like music again and also like it. That was obviously very cathartic, but a lot of people there I was like I don't know what to do now and they were like you need to podcasting platforms. You can find us on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Facebook. Whenever I get around to it, I am going to upload to Twitch, instagram, linkedin and on the blog wwwblind-intelligencecom. And remember to like, share, subscribe and comment, because it's very important to the logarithms bye, bye, thank you so much.