LISTEN NOW: Biters, "Low Lives In Hi Definition"

This rocks! Check out the Biters' "Low Lives In Hi Definition," a new track from their upcoming debut album Electric Blood, which will be released on July 10th via Earache Records.

Seven Questions In Heaven With The Ruminaters

Today we're spending Seven Questions In Heaven with The Ruminaters' drummer Teddy!

Describe your music for our readers who may not be familiar with you.
We recently were told in a review that we sound like "London Calling era Clash fused with The Strokes." That works for us.

Who are your musical influences and idols?
John, Paul, George and Ringo. Julian Casablancas, David Gilmour. As far as influences go, we have been listening to a bunch of really cool stuff lately like Gap Dream, Mac Demarco, Mr Elevator & The Brain Hotel.

What was the first album, cassette, or CD you bought with your own money?
Honestly couldn’t tell you with any certainty but probably Jack Johnson's Brushfire Fairytales. Or Jamiroquai?



What was the strangest gig you've ever played?
Once we played a show in an old fashioned hotel in Potts Point Sydney that was based on Hotel Chelsea in New York. We played in the lobby on top of a massive rotating record player and we all got our own engraved hip flask. We spent the night roaming the hotel which was lined wall to wall in weird and wonderful things.

What's the first thing you look for when you hit a new town?
Surf, pool table, and Buck Hunter.

What is your current favorite guilty pleasure?
Musically? I’m now listening to Jamiroquai because you reminded me.

Final question: You're the opening act of a music festival. You can get any five artists, living or dead, to perform on the bill with you. Who do you choose?
Beatles, Strokes, Pink Floyd, Neil Young, and The Kinks.

More Ruminaters: Tumblr | Facebook | Bandcamp | Soundcloud

Song Of The Day: Poema, "Go Away"

From 2015, here's Poema with "Go Away."

Enjoy!

Seven Questions In Heaven With God Damn

Today we're spending Seven Questions In Heaven with Ash from God Damn!

Describe your music for our readers who may not be familiar with you.
NME once described us as a mix between The Pixies, Melvins and Bleach- era Nirvana. I'm quite happy with that.

Who are your musical influences and idols?
There's a whole lot of influences, I need to try and not just talk about drummers, though. Musically I guess anyone from John Lennon, to Kurt Cobain, to Billy Joel, they all wrote amazing music in their own unique style. They all influenced my music taste today. Drums-wise, I would say John Bonham, Dave Grohl and Travis Barker, I could list a page full of people, but I'm not going to bore you.

What was the first album, cassette, or CD you bought with your own money?
Unashamedly, The Marshall Mathers LP. I loved it, I still have it around somewhere. I remember having to send my granddad Bob in to buy it for me as I was under age, obviously I didn't tell him about the "explicit content." Can you imagine how funny it would be to see an old man buying an Eminem album?



What was the strangest gig you've ever played?
We have played our fair share of house parties in our time, and we love them. We haven't played one for a while but the last one we did ended with people crowd surfing in the living room.

What's the first thing you look for when you hit a new town?
Probably a rest room after a long journey, only joking. I have an obsession with finding sports stadiums, especially soccer.

If they named an ice cream flavor after you, what would be the name and why?
Black Country Tub Thumper. The area we are from in the UK is known as the Black Country due to its industrial past, and tub thumper is another name for a drummer. 

Final question: You're the opening act of a music festival. You can get any five artists, living or dead, to perform on the bill with you. Which five do you choose and what song do you all perform as the final jam?
I'm going to choose 5 bands who I would want on the bill. The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queens Of The Stone Age, Nirvana and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Final jam, that's a hard one, I would say "Moby Dick," just so I could see the Bonzo drum solo.

More God Damn: Official | Facebook | Twitter

Ted Allen: The Culture Brats Interview

On April 30th, you have the chance to make a huge difference with your mouth. Dining Out For Life, a yearly fundraiser benefiting people with HIV and AIDS, will once again receive proceeds from restaurants in sixty US cities. Earlier this month, we spoke with Dining Out For Life spokesman Ted Allen about the event, what drew him to it and keeps him there, Chopped, fast food, and lots more!

Tell us about Dining Out For Life.
Dining Out For Life is a unique fundraiser, or at least it was. I think other people have borrowed the model. Dining Out For Life across the country in sixty different cities, 3,000+ restaurants, raises in a single day four million bucks, perhaps a little north of that, to fight HIV and AIDS right in your own community. All of the money raised in each city stays in that city, helping your neighbors, helping people with HIV and AIDS, helping prevent other people from being infected. I like to think of it as a simple thing with very little overhead. I also like it because it's good for the area restaurants who seem to always be the first place we turn when we're trying to raise money for a good cause. Chefs and restauranteurs are wonderful people, I love being around them, I work with them all the time. Generosity and community involvement is in their DNA, it's just part of what chefs and restauranteurs do. I just think it's a win for everybody.

You've been involved with Dining Out For Life for seven years now. What first attracted you to the event and keeps you coming back?
Its simplicity, the fact that it's so effective. I always say the real heroes in this fight and in similar fights are the volunteers and the activists and the researchers and the people who devote their whole careers to fighting this plague. Not everybody can do that. Other people have chosen to become Marines and police offers and school teachers and postal carriers. But everybody needs to eat and as long as you can afford to go to a restaurant, this is a way for you to participate in a really meaningful fundraiser without having to devote your entire life to it. The numbers speak for themselves. If you can raise more than four million dollars in a single day in a simple way like this, why wouldn't you?

Let's talk about your Food Network shows. Which is your favorite to do?
I'm thrilled to be able to do any of them. You know Chopped is clearly the mothership for me. We do somewhere around fifty episodes a year. We just finished, I want to say, Episode 325. It's great. That's a lot. Even though we've been doing it for years, it just doesn't get boring. It's different every time. Different people, different ingredients, different approaches. The food's not always great, but when it is, it's just such an achievement for these chefs. It's hard. Chopped is really hard.

I also really love All-Star Academy, the newer show that we're doing. I watched it last night, the episode from this past Sunday with Robert Irvine. So much talent, so much expertise from our mentors and the home cooks did a great job. I meet a lot of people who feel like they have a Food Network show in them. They're not all correct, of course. I think that's one of the things about the network that's just so appealing to so many people. It is a very fun place to work.

Which is the most stressful show to do?
Most of the time, shooting Chopped is not stressful for me at all. But the times when it does get stressful--for example, we just finished another teen tournament, a five-part tournament with teenagers ranging from fourteen to eighteen. Teenagers are not as coordinated as trained, professional chefs. Many of them are quite small, especially the fourteen year olds. It's hard for them to handle knives. It makes me nervous about people cutting themselves. That's stressful.

We've been doing a lot of themed episodes the last couple years because viewers really love them and we bring in people from the military, the people who serve lunch to your children at school, firefighters. Those can require more work for me because I have to memorize a lot more and explain to the audience what we're doing. But the real stress and the real stars of these shows every time are the competitors. They're the ones who are under stress. My stress is really minuscule by comparison.

What would viewers be surprised to learn about Chopped?
A lot of people are surprised to learn that we can only shoot one episode a day. It's a twelve-hour day to make one episode, longer really for some people. The winner and second-place person, they're still sitting there in the chair being interviewed I go home. I think people would be surprised at how complicated it is to do a cooking show. We have three rounds in every episode of Chopped. The kitchen has to be cleaned after every one, cleaned and completely reset. That alone takes time. I think people would be surprised at how hard it really is. I think we all sit there and yell at the television when we watch a show like Chopped or All-Star Academy or when we watch a basketball game with Duke. It's one thing to sit there and say, "Why would you cook the egg that way? That's obviously wrong." It's quite another thing to have to do it yourself and most of our competitors say that. "I knew this was hard. I didn't know how hard." It's really hard.

Your Best. Ever. barbecue episode... how come you didn't step foot in any North Carolina restaurants?
Well, I have to say first of all, I don't pick the restaurants that go into Best. Ever. and I also have to say that I've been cooking Elizabeth Karmel's North Carolina Pulled Pork recipe for at least ten years and I love it and that's the kind of barbecue I eat more often than any other kind. So hats off to North Carolina! I'm just the host of that show. I just come in and throw to the segments in different states. Those choices are made either by producers or the individuals themselves. Here's the thing: I got in trouble recently for criticizing a particular fast food hamburger that I won't name now. I realized when people were complaining that we all have our regional preferences and our particular favorites of everything. I came up with what I feel is the perfect response to that, "The great thing about America is that we all get to pick our own favorite hamburger." Our own favorite barbecue. So no insult intended, certainly.

Are there any plans for a restaurant?
Absolutely not! No way. No! The restaurant business is extraordinarily difficult. We often ask chefs, "Why did you become a chef?" One chef had a really good answer which was, "It's the only thing that I know how to do." I love to cook, I do it all the time. But I'm not a trained chef and I've never worked the line in a serious restaurant. I would just as soon enjoy cooking as a pleasure as opposed to banging it out every night. You just have to be like eighteen hours a day. It's difficult. It's difficult to make money. If you make a 10% profit margin, you're hitting it out of the park. I would rather create something like a book or a TV show and get paid to do that and then it's finished. It's out there. You can copy it. You can rerun it. When you're selling pizza, you're only as good as your last pizza. I have nothing but respect for people who can do it. It's a tough business.

We've got a few questions from our readers. I don't even know if you can answer the first one based on what you said earlier, but do you ever do fast food?
Sure. I mean, I don't like American fast food very much when you talk about the chains. It's just not very good food. It's not. It's frozen, ground up, corporate, the cheapest possible product that's designed to make lots of money for big corporations. That doesn't mean that I'm a food snob at all. I love hamburgers. Love 'em. I make them all the time. I love a great french fry. I have a local restaurant in my neighborhood, a few blocks away, that makes a gorgeous hamburger. They buy really high-quality meat. They grind it themselves so it's got a beautiful texture. They season it with salt. They put it on a good bun. They serve it with good condiments. I love that! I only eat fast food when I have no other choice. The bad thing is there are still a lot of places in the United States where that's the only choice. On the highway, in most airports. And a lot of people eat fast food because it's been made so cheap that it's all they can afford. That's something I'd love to see change.

What's your go-to comfort food?
I have lots of them. I love to make pulled pork. And when I make it, I do it over charcoal, slow and low for as many hours as possible. Six, eight. Go-to comfort food? I love all of it! I love meat loaf. I didn't used to, but I have a really great recipe for it now. Pizza, fried chicken, mashed potatoes. I like green beans the way my grandma cooked them, with a ham hock and a piece of onion until they're really soft and pale. It's not the way that fancy chefs cook them.

Do you think you could do as good of a job as some of the competitors with those wacky Chopped baskets?
I don't think I can do a better job than many of them, I'll tell you that. I'm not a professional chef. One of the skills you need as a pro is speed. Ironically, I'm a very slow cook. I tend to have music playing. I tend to have a glass of wine in my hand. I'm cooking for fun. I've had parties where I've had professionals like Marc Murphy and Amanda Freitag push me out of my own kitchen because I was frustrating them so much with my lackadaisical approach. When you go to Marc Murphy's house, which I often do, and he's cooking dinner, he only has one speed which is Fast. It's just the way he operates. He gets everything prepped, he goes out and throws the baseball with his son, he comes back, he bangs out dinner for twenty-five people without even thinking about it and it's delicious. That comes from a lot of practice. People ask all the time when am I going to compete on Chopped. My answer is generally, "How's never? Is never good for you?"

Final question: where's the best cupcake you've ever had?
You know what? I don't really care very much about cupcakes. I can tell you one really good one. The creator of Chopped, her partner, I don't think she owns it anymore, she started a cupcake business in New York City called Butter Lane. I loved her cupcakes because they're normal sized. They're the size we make at home, not the crazy giant ones. They're made with organic ingredients and French buttercream and they're really, really delicious and real. Everything in them is honest and real. But I'm not a big sweets person. Honestly, I'd rather eat cheese.

Seven Questions In Heaven With Alexa Melo

Today we're spending Seven Questions In Heaven with Alexa Melo!

Describe your music for our readers who may not be familiar with you.
That's always tough. I can describe my music as rock or indie but everybody seems to get a different idea as to what that means these days. I guess I can safely say rock/indie with a lot of experimenting. I listen to so many genres it's hard to decipher what influences what.

Who are your musical influences and idols?
Thom Yorke and Radiohead, Pink Floyd, Bjork, Jack White, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Ani Difranco, Modest Mouse, Jeff Buckley, Prince, Queen, Neil Young and the list goes on and on.

What was the first album, cassette, or CD you bought with your own money?
Elephunk by The Black Eyed Peas. I know! It's not really fitting considering all the influences I stated above, BUT that album is a pop-tastic masterpiece that satisfied my 9 year-old music taste.



What was the strangest gig you've ever played?
JUST LAST WEEKEND! It was terrible. I had a gig in Joshua Tree at a music festival where I was promised an audience of 150 people. Even though the show was four hours away and in the middle of nowhere, I figured it'd be a good opportunity to play our first music festival and get in front of a new audience outside of LA. Long story short, just about everything went wrong. There were maybe only 20 people at the stage, my guitar stopped working mid set, I lost my voice, some of my band mates were tripping out, and the sound was terrible! After the show my drummer bashed his bald head into a Joshua tree and had a chunk of wood stuck in his head for days. The rental car got stuck in the desert sand and had to get towed out and in the process of doing that, the bumper got dented! After all that shit, we ended up having a really great time which may be the strangest part of all.

What is your current favorite guilty pleasure?
Musically? Man, I don't know. I'm currently listening to 3 Bjork albums a day which I'm almost embarrassed by how psychotic that is! Besides music? I plead the 5th.

If they named an ice cream flavor after you, what would be the name and why?
If they named anything after me, it'd be named Alexa Melo. I'm stumped on any catchy, clever ice cream puns.

Final question: You're the opening act of a music festival. You can get any five artists, living or dead, to perform on the bill with you. Which five do you choose and what song do you all perform as the final jam?
Radiohead, Bjork, Bowie, Pink Floyd, and the Beatles and we would all sing "Bohemian Rhapsody" because Queen was unavailable to join us.

More Alexa Melo: Official | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Seven Questions In Heaven With Chick Quest

Today we're spending Seven Questions In Heaven with Magenta Chick Quest!

Describe your music for our readers who may not be familiar with you.
Quirky danceable post-punk with chord progressions and a trumpet from '60s spaghetti western films.

Who are your musical influences and idols?
Magdalena: Jeff Buckley, Pulp, Suede, Franz Ferdinand, Arctic Monkeys, Echo & The Bunnymen, Best Coast, Mac DeMarco, Madonna, Kanye West and Shostakovich.

Ryan: Talking Heads, The Doors, Flaming Lips, Massive Attack, Radiohead, Violent Femmes, The Clash, Man Man, and a myriad of Athens GA bands like Elf Power, Now It’s Overhead, Count Kellam, Maserati, B-52's, REM, Pylon, etc etc etc.

Iris: Any band that can be associated with magenta.

What was the first album, cassette, or CD you bought with your own money?
Magdalena: Beatles Greatest Hits.

Ryan: Technotronic's Pump Up The Jam cassette circa 1990 from Tape World in the mall. At the age of 9, my very own mother nearly vetoed my purchase based on the "risque" woman on the cover.

Iris: Queen's Greatest Hits II (the blue one, not the magenta one, sadly) on CD some time in the middle of the 90ies. I still have it - you can tell that it was one of the first CDs I ever bought because it has a magenta sticker with my name and address and a picture of a cat on it. ;)



What was the strangest gig you've ever played?
Magdalena: A scout's festival. We were there way too early because we were told a wrong soundcheck time so we joined the highland games and even won second price.

Ryan: The so-called Turducken House in Greenville, North Carolina. Perhaps the dirtiest place I have ever stepped foot into, and certainly the dirtiest place I have ever slept. They had house shows for bands all the time (there weren't many other places to play there), so there were like 6 bands playing all night. The gas station around the corner had an ATM that would give only 20 dollar bills back, even if you requested only 10 dollars in the options, so naturally a line of kids from the house started to form and continually withdraw 10 dollars at a time until this machine was robbed of what had to be thousands of dollars. The machine was right next to the door, so it was clearly visible to the clerk, but he never seemed to catch on to the suspicious overdose of kids who suddenly had to withdraw lots of cash at 2 in the morning.

Iris: The Magenta Theatre, Hopatcong, New Jersey.

What's the first thing you look for when you hit a new town?
Magdalena: Local museums.

Ryan: What the chances of finding a proper Mexican restaurant in Europe are. So far, pretty slim :(

Iris: My grandmother's ashes.

What is your current favorite guilty pleasure?
Magdalena: Magenta.

Ryan: Covering Iris's drum set in mayonnaise.

Iris: Austria finally got access to Netflix a few months ago and I've been watching a lot of documentaries on all kinds of weird topics on there.

If they named an ice cream flavor after you, what would be the name and why?
Magdalena: Snowdrop: pistachios with rose water and white chocolate. Mhhhh. It’s just a dream come true.

Ryan: Magenta: The Ice Cream Flavor.

Iris: Lord of Meringues because ice cream mixed with meringues is one of the best things ever and I like a good play on words.

Final question: You're the opening act at the Magenta Music Festival. You can get any five artists, living or dead, to perform on the bill with you. Which five do you choose and what song do you all perform as the final jam?
T. Rex, Eddie Cochran, The Minutemen, Richie Powell, and Falco and they all play "Airbag" by Radiohead.

More Chick Quest: Official | Facebook | Twitter | Bandcamp | Soundcloud | YouTube

Seven Questions In Heaven With bitter's kiss

Today we're spending Seven Questions In Heaven with Chloe Baker from bitter's kiss!

Describe your music for our readers who may not be familiar with you.
Stripped down indie pop, with the music intended to accompany a melodic diary of my personal thoughts and feelings. I mostly try to keep things simple in order to convey meaning in the words.

Who are your musical influences and idols?
My tastes are all over the map. Right now I am listening to Regina Spektor, but in my house we go from Grateful Dead to Springsteen to The Smiths to Rihanna, Paul McCartney and Kanye West.

What was the first album, cassette, or CD you bought with your own money?
Dixie Chicks' Taking The Long Way.



What was the strangest gig you've ever played?
Preparing to sing "Friend Of The Devil" at an open mic night that turned out to be at a friend's church.

What is your current favorite guilty pleasure?
Late night ice cream.

If they named an ice cream flavor after you, what would be the name and why?
Hmm, Chaotic Chocolate something. I think it would have to be something blended for sure, as I have a hard time settling on one flavor.

Final question: You're the opening act of a music festival. You can get any five artists, living or dead, to perform on the bill with you. Which five do you choose and what song do you all perform as the final jam?
Aretha Franklin, John Lennon, Sarah McLachlan, Beyonce (just because) and Sprinsteen and we do "House Of The Rising Sun.

More bitter's kiss: Official | Facebook | Twitter

The Damnwells' Alex Dezen: The Culture Brats Interview

Last week, The Damnwells released The Damnwells, their kickass fifth album and first featuring the band's original lineup since 2006. Back in February, we had a chance to speak with singer Alex Dezen about the new album, reality television, the record industry, and more.

Your upcoming album is your first featuring the band's original lineup since 2006. What made you all decide to get back together and record an album now?
We had been talking about it for a while and I think that it was always just a matter of time before we got back into the studio again. Timing was also really important. Steve had two kids, Ted just had his first child, Dave had just moved into a new house upstate with his wife. So we were just waiting for the right time. The Damnwells have historically waited a long time between records sadly. It had been a couple years since we made a record so it just seemed like now or never.

Was the recording of the album awkward in any way since it had been so long?
No, not at all. It was like a homecoming. We all got to hang out again. I think when you've been in the business for a number of years you either start to really truly hate each other or really become like a brotherhood. We were always very much like brothers. It felt right. It felt really nice to be hanging out with them again and running over the same jokes again and reviving some old pictures to embarrass each other.



What's your favorite track off The Damnwells?
I try not to listen to it too much because I know I'm going to have to be listening to it forever. But in the process of making it, I think "Wreck You" was such a fun song to record because it was the first time that Dave and I really got to do the Angus and Malcolm rhythm guitar part together which we hadn't done in years. That was really fun to do. I love things that are minimal like that where you just don't need much, just a couple chords and a simple beat. That's one song I love to play for people. Their reaction's usually like, "Whoa. This is different."

The unhappy kid on the album's cover, is he any relation to any of you?
He's a very good friend of mine's son. We couldn't subject our own children to something so horrible.

Let's talk about "Kill Me." I assume you're not a fan of reality TV?
It's not that I'm a fan or not a fan, it's just that--sure, if I'm sitting in a hotel room and The Housewives Of Orange County Atlanta came on and there was going to be a fistfight on television, I would definitely watch it. It's like culturally rubbernecking. You can't look away it's so completely ridiculous. I'm not a fan of bullshit. Mostly I just think, as the song reflects, it's like, "Really? Just kill me. What is this this? Why are you concerned about Kim Kardashian's outfit?"

So there wasn't a particular show or event that prompted you to write that?
No. I remember being in a hotel room, being really hungover, and being by myself. I think we had just played a show somewhere. Just flipping around in bed, in a comatose hungover state, and I just had this melody. "Kill me. Kill me now." Originally, I thought it might be cool to make it a ballad but when we went into the studio, our producer was like, "Nah. We have to turn this around." I think I probably came across some show or something but I can't really remember if it was a particular incident. But I do remember being in that hotel, being hungover, and seeing some reality show for a second and contemplated either jumping out the window or writing a song about it.


You've had a record deal, given an album away for free, and done PledgeMusic several times. Does it sometimes feel like it's difficult getting your music to your fans?
It used to feel like it was difficult getting my music to fans, but now it's the opposite because of Pledge and things like that. When The Damnwells were on Epic, just trying to get the record out, it was like, "OK. Let's put it out this date. No, not this date. Let's put it out this date. Okay, that date but let's put it out through this other label. Let's rerecord this song. Let's not put it out yet." Mostly it's a nightmare because record labels, for the most part, have absolutely no understanding whatsoever of what to do with a band. They know what to do with a sixteen-year-old kid. They know how to make a pop star but they don't know what to do with a bunch of independently minded somewhat cognizant adults who play their own instruments. So now that we deliver our music through Pledge or give it away for free, there's no middle man. It's super easy. We've worked with several indie labels and the way it works for us is we make the record, we go knock on a few doors, and we're like, "Here's the record. Does anyone want to put it out?" So far we've been really lucky that a couple of these really cool indie labels that put the blinders on and say, "Ok. Ok. Go for it. We'll put it out."

You've written songs for lots of other artists. Has there ever been one that you wish you would've kept for yourself?
I think if there ever was, I just did. "Lost," the first single, we were writing it as an exercise. Steve said we could pitch it to someone. Maybe there was a country artist that could take it and make it more country. But t was never the intention that that song would be for me. As soon as I played it for my manager, he was like, "This is amazing. This has to be on The Damnwells' record."

Final question: You're in charge of a music festival. You can get any five artists, living or dead, to perform on the bill with you. Which five do you choose and what song do you all perform as the final jam?
Definitely Van Halen. Not Van Hagar, gotta be the original four. And I want it to be in 1984, right around the Diver Down era just because it would be so amazing to see. My mother got to see Janis Joplin when she was in her prime and said it was a life-changing experience, so definitely her. Another concert my mother was at was the Simon & Garfunkel Central Park concert in like '84. I would love that version to come play the festival. We've toured a bunch with Cheap Trick over the past ten years and they're just so good so I would love to have them play. They're like the quintessential American rock 'n' roll band. And then probably... I'd have to put Tom Petty on the bill.

What song do you all perform as the final jam?
We'd have to do something like "All Things Must Pass" by George Harrison. It would be amazing to see Alex Van Halen playing drums on that song.

More Damnwells: Official | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

Seven Questions In Heaven With Beth Spangler

Today we're spending Seven Questions In Heaven with Beth Spangler!

Describe your music for our readers who may not be familiar with you.
I love writing and performing music that moves people both emotionally and physically. I am a dancer, so while I love a good power ballad, I also dig a good, catchy beat that I can move to (You will find a combination of both on my new EP Audio Selfie). Four words I would use to describe my music would be soulful, relatable, fun, and inspirational.

I'm sort of genre-less in a sense, because my music reflects many different sides of me as both a person and an artist. For example, Audio Selfie includes some blues, soul, pop, urban, R&B, and EDM I don't like putting boundaries on my artistry for the sake of fitting into a certain demographic. It's a feeling, an experience, and what I feel is what comes out. :-)

Who are your musical influences and idols?
I grew up living and breathing Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. They are definitely my greatest musical influences. Other very influential artists throughout my life would include Ray Charles, Etta James, Michael Jackson, Brian McKnight, and Christina Aguilera.

What was the first album, cassette, or CD you bought with your own money?
The Sign by Ace of Base. I bought it secondhand from a yard sale. I was a frugal child. Lol



What was the strangest gig you've ever played?
Hmmm... I guess the strangest to date would have to be my performing a two hour set on a farm trailer in someone's backyard. People were literally riding up on horses. Oh, and this kid was riding a dog around at one point. I felt bad for the dog. Lol. I'm from the South, what do you expect?!?

What is your current favorite guilty pleasure?
Macaroni & Cheese. I will never get enough of it in this lifetime!

If they named an ice cream flavor after you, what would be the name and why?
Chocolate Chip Rock-Fo-Dough. Because I like to rock, but I especially like to rock-fo-dough :-)

Music is my platform for making a difference in the world. I think it is important for people to support the artistry by buying music so that more good music can be made.

Final question: You're the opening act of a music festival. You can get any five artists, living or dead, to perform on the bill with you. Which five do you choose and what song do you all perform as the final jam?
I'd have to do my final jam with Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Jessie J, and Ray Charles and we'd close the show with "Black Or White" by Michael Jackson.

More Beth Spangler: Official | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube