by Deborah J. Draisin
This surprisingly talented foursome of polished
teenagers was formed in Redwood City, CA when
they were merely twelve years old in 2005.
Things have moved pretty quickly for them
since them. They placed highly in two KFOX
competitions, earning them an opening spot
with the Doobie Brothers. They were also offered
slots on both the 2008 Projekt Revolution,
the 2009 Vans Warped Tours and the 2009 Pac
Sun Tour (opening up for Saosin,) and just
recently opened up for Alesana. They also
took away the coveted “Best Breakout
Bay Area Artist” award, courtesy of
the VMAs.
Don’t be fooled by their rather goofy
appearance on myspace – this band is
deadly serious about their art, and it shows;
the songs are kickass.
Picture Me Broken is vocalist Layla Brooklyn
Allman (yes, THAT Allman, but I gave her a
chance to address that right out of the gate,)
lead guitarist Nick Loiacono, bassist Austin
Dunn and drummer Connor Lung. I had the privilege
of sitting down and talking to Layla amidst
this flurry of awesome (and very well-deserved)
stuff happening to them.
Q: Awesome to meet you, Layla - congratulations
on your VMA win!
LA: Nice to meet you, too, and thank you!
Q: All obvious talent aside (which is definitely
not always the case with those who have known
musicians in the family,) what do you say
to critics who accuse you of capitalizing
off nepotism, because I’m sure that
happens.
LA: You know, our music is so far from the
genre of my Dad’s - a kid at Warped
Tour is not going to know (or care) who the
Allman Brothers Band is. It really has nothing
to do with us, we’re going our own way
with our own style of music. I think that
it’s very ignorant of people to draw
the conclusion that I’m all off of my
Dad.
Q: That’s fair – good answer!
You’ve described yourselves as a healthy
blend of Paramore, Heart, Flyleaf, blessthefall
and Scary Kids Scaring Kids.
LA: (both laugh) Yes.
Q: To be honest with you, you’re really
none of the above – you guys are pretty
original.
LA: Thank you so much!
Q: You’re welcome; do you think that
having artists for parents bled through into
your own art maybe a little more than you
realized?
LA: Definitely not. My Dad hasn’t had
a big influence on my music. A lot of people
think “Oh, your Dad taught you”
and really, he hasn’t. I only see him
like a couple of times a year, basically,
so it really has no effect on me.
Q: I actually read that. I have a child who
is a musician like his father, as well –
maybe it just sort of runs in the blood?
LA: Yeah, I do feel like my Dad’s influence
only goes as far as his DNA.
Q: I think it does travel in the DNA –
it’s weird, but it does. My son is sixteen,
like yourselves.
LA: Oh, that’s cool!
Q: He’s finding it difficult to compete
out there. How would you advise him to stick
it out, and how do you balance out career
and school?
LA: It’s really tough. If you’re
going to be in a band, you need to make sure
that you have four people who are equally
as involved as you are - it’s so much
work, it’s not just a bunch of friends
hanging out. You’ve got to pay your
dues, play every show you get offered, even
if it’s like an annoying little church
festival. You have to climb your way up and
commit to it fully. I feel really lucky to
have met my band.
Q: I’ve been telling him that over and
over again - that he has to find people who
are committed as he is. My God, you guys were
twelve when you get started!
LA: (both laugh) Yeah.
Q: Most people don’t even have any focus
at twelve.
LA: (chuckling) We went to elementary school
together. We’ve always had a good level
of commitment to this, since we were eight
years old. Of course, we started out doing
it once a week for fun, but we progressed
into a more serious band.
Q: You guys sound incredible, even your demos.
LA: (giggling) Thank you.
Q: Who can we credit with the absolutely flawless
recording?
LA: We actually have a couple of different
producers. The producer for “Dearest”
was Aaron Hellman – he records a lot
of local San Francisco bands – and he’s
so fast! We had drum tracks done in thirty
minutes with him; he was, like, pressing buttons
furiously, and it just came out sounding perfect.
We went to L.A. to finish out the EP with
Mudrock; it was a really exciting experience
working with him.
Q: How do you go about attracting people to
your project?
LA: We just look for people who are enthusiastic
about working with us and will put more into
it. We of course look at who they’ve
worked with, and when we saw that Mudrock
had worked with Avenged Sevenfold, we jumped
right on that.
Q: I would be stoked too! So you’re
finding that it’s just a matter of networking
to bring people to you?
LA: It’s a combination of a lot of things.
My mom’s actually been managing us since
we were little, and we also have another manager
named Dan, who does a lot of the networking.
Social networking sites also bring people
to us, and then just playing shows and getting
out there.
Q: You guys probably don’t even remember
what it was like to have to promote without
the help of the internet, but let me tell
you, it was a lot more difficult! You used
to have to sit there and press your own cds
and mail them out, have people sign sheets
at gigs.
LA: (both laugh) I do not remember!
Q: Is it harder to get gigs when you’re
underage?
LA: It’s actually not – there’s
a pretty lively music scene here in the Bay
Area, and they have a lot of All Ages venues.
We do have some that are strictly 21 and over,
but they’ll host the occasional All
Ages show, so it’s really not a problem.
Q: How was your first Warped Tour?
LA: Yeah, that was exciting. It was the perfect
exposure for us, because a lot of the kids
there are into our genre of music and they
seem really psyched. It was an amazing environment,
being with all these bands that we look up
to.
Q: You’ve made some pretty good connections
already – you’re opening for Alesana
in a few days.
LA: I am stoked for that! Also on the tour
are From First To Last, Asking Alexandria,
The Word Alive, Memphis May Fire and Raelin
– a bunch of bands that we love.
Q: That’s a crowd too that’s going
to love what you’re doing; these are
your people.
LA: It’s the right genre, with bands
that we’ve been influenced by, so I
hope it’ll be the right audience for
us.
Q: It’s all about collecting more fans
– how do you keep in touch with everybody?
I know twitter helps.
LA: Twitter’s great, and myspace, of
course. I have my AIM up on our myspace, so
I talk to people all the time.\
Q: You kind of have to say “Well, possible
strange people be damned, we need to network!”
LA: (both laugh) They’re really nice,
though!
Q: You guys have over 16,000 friends on myspace
– you’re getting attention. The
VMA was definitely nice – you don’t
usually see something like that happen for
someone so young.
LA: That was the best thing that’s ever
happened to us. The week that we were aired
on MTV, we had so many kids coming to our
page saying “I love you guys; I feel
like I can be on MTV because of you guys.”
Q: MTV hasn’t paid attention the Hard
Rock genre in a while, so you’re in
a good place right now.
LA: It’s all rap and reality shows now.
Q: (both laugh) So true; it is almost one
hundred percent reality T.V. now; it wasn’t
like this when it got started.
LA: I still remember when it was strictly
music videos.
Q: And good ones!
LA: Yeah, now we’re being played in
between Robin Thicke and Jack Ashton.
Q: A common problem for most female leads,
you’ve stated that the Paramore comparison
annoys you.
LA: (laughing) Oh yeah!
Q: Do you find yourself getting boxed in because
you’re a female?
LA: Completely! They were the first band with
a female singer to break out this decade,
so I guess they sort of paved the way for
us.
Q: But Paramore’s like pop music, that’s
not the same thing at all.
LA: I don’t really see any similarities,
but apparently other people do. It’s
like “Oh, girl singer, Paramore.”
Q: In terms of groundbreakers, I would look
at somebody like Lita Ford before I would
look at Paramore.
LA: Ah, there you go!
Q: That labeling must make it difficult for
you to market yourselves.
LA: There really are no other bands in our
genre with a female singer, so we try to market
ourselves with the band in our own genre,
yet it still leads us right back to Paramore
because of the “girl” thing.
Q: That’s got to be frustrating –
it’s hard enough for us to play in a
mostly man’s world.
LA: It is, yeah.
Q: You’ve accomplished some pretty sweet
goals already – what are you looking
toward next for yourselves?
LA: We’re going to begin recording our
first full-length album in January, hopefully
be released in the spring, and we’re
looking to hop on some tours as well.
Q: Any prospects yet?
LA: It’ll be in the summertime –
possibly Warped Tour again – definitely
around the country, so we can reach everyone.
Q: The whole tour would be spectacular; I
hope you get it!
LA: It would be amazing, yes.
Q: Are people supportive out there or are
they discouraging?
LA: We’ve had more support than discouragement;
it’s been a good experience for us so
far.
Q: Well, keep at it; I love what you’re
doing, and I’m looking forward to catching
you on tour this summer. Thank you for your
time, Layla!
LA: Thank you!
READ UP, LISTEN UP, WATCH A VID:
http://www.myspace.com/picturemebroken
http://www.purevolume.com/picturemebroken
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Picture-Me-Broken/100055495387
http://www.ourstage.com/profile/picturemebroken
http://www.absolutepunk.net/showthread.php?t=1336021
http://twitter.com/PICTUREMEBROKEN
CATCH THEM LIVE:
January 3, 2010 @ 7:00 p.m. - Blakes On Telegraph
Berkeley
March 13, 2010 @ 7:00 p.m. - Senator Theater
W/ Jamie’s Elsewhere Chico, California
