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After watching her perform at
a New Jersey club over five years ago while visiting a friend in New York,
guitarist Ian Hatton (Bonham) pursued vocalist Katrina Chester until the
band LUXX was formed. According to Chester, singing in that bar that night
changed her life… "He just didn't stop bothering me for two
months, he ended up staying in New York. I guess once he heard me sing he just
knew there was something he wanted to get involved with. He tells it a different
way, you know, but I'm not going to talk about myself like that."
Though she was totally spooked out by Hatton at
first, she did get together with him and once than began writing, they recruited
a guy named Tony Fennell to play bass and later added Dave Silver on drums once
they began performing live.
"I quit my job like a week later, and we
wrote the whole first record in like three months…we got signed to a label
nine months after we formed. So, it was too soon. We weren't ready."
After getting out of their bad deal, the band
has released their second album, Hydroponic, on their own (by choice), writing,
producing, engineering, and mixing everything themselves. In addition, they have
been touring nationally without label support, making only enough money to eat,
put gas in their van, and stay in hotel. But, it seems that their dedication has
paid off.
Chester said, "Finally, things are pretty
amazing for us. If I was going to give any advice to a band I would do exactly
what we did." She explained that you don't want a label right away. If you
can get an agent to believe in you, and get a couple of thousand dollars for a
van and a tech, etc., hit the road. But she stressed that you have to be
business smart to succeed.
Chester first learned about the music business
at a very young age from her father, who had made her very "hard" and
"dedicated." She explained that with her father being a drummer and a
teacher, she was introduced to music, the business, and musicians at a very
young age. "My dad, he taught me everything I know really," said
Chester.
She actually began singing at the age of five,
doing commercials for companies like Kay Bee toys and Lenders Bagels. Being a
big Linda Ronstadt fan as a kid, and getting into Billie Holiday at age six,
Chester learned to sing the blues when she was only seven or eight years old,
and then, started her first rock band and began playing out in clubs at age
thirteen. But after her father died, things took a turn for the worse and
started to go wrong for her. "It messed me up and that turn of events in my
life stopped me from joining rock-n-roll bands."
At that time, Chester started working with
producers that wrote songs for her and wanted to turn her into a pop artist like
Mariah Carey or Britney Spears, and from the time she was seventeen to the time
she was twenty one, she hit countless dead ends with many producers. She says
that "it was horrible" and that she "hated every minute of
it," and she thanks God that no labels every heard the material, because
then there wouldn't be LUXX.
Now, with LUXX, it seems that success is on the
horizon. A recent change of events has led the band to reconsider their choice
of not being on a label. "We really felt we needed to build up more of our
own balls and be able to get out there and do it ourselves first before we could
offer something to a label."
About a month ago, they began talks with Paul
Geary Management, and they have just signed former Extreme drummer and current
manager of Godsmack, Paul Geary, to a management deal. Since the beginning,
Chester has been managing the band, but she says now, she is "ready to give
up the reins."
Already, with Geary behind them, they have
three record labels after them, and are planning to cut their tour short to
return home and figure things out. And Chester says, for the first time, she is
just going to be the singer.
"I'm not going to be the manager and I'm
going to sit back and let Paul tell me what to do." But she plans to keep
control of her Street Team, which she developed after watching everybody else do
it wrong.
This elite group of people is dedicated to
promoting LUXX near their hometowns, and prospects for the team must actually be
accepted before joining. Chester says that the team is like a club and if the
members don't work, they get kicked off. They all work very hard, and the
dedicated team captains even go to radio and retail for LUXX, just like record
company reps would. But they are well rewarded. After working to promote three
shows, team members get a laminate that gets them backstage access and free
admission to the show, and those who promote a single show still attend free.
Chester takes the team very seriously and won't
let anyone take it over. She says that she considers them to be like a family
and knows each one by their first and last names. "They mean the world to
me, these people take the time out of their day to help me with my career, and
all they want is just to be a part of it and all I want is for them to be a part
of it." In fact, she has plans to close off admission to the team soon,
leaving only the dedicated people who believed in LUXX from the start as
members.
To learn more about LUXX, read on for the concert
review of their May 10 performance with Quiet Riot. Also, visit their Web
site at www.luxx.com, listen to their music at
www.mp3.com/luxx, or buy their latest
album Hydroponic at www.cdbaby.com/luxx. |
