Artist Spotlight: Meet The Rapid Onset
What inspired you to write the lyrics/music for "All I Want Is You?"
"All I Want Is You" is a little bit different from the typical love/heartbreak song in that it is about a newly opened polyamorous relationship. Sometimes, even when everyone involved is aware and consenting, not everyone is in the same stage of readiness for it. The excitement that two new partners have for each other can often overshadow the existing relationship, while the established partner can be struggling with feelings of loss of time and attention, or other insecurity. It's a deeply queer song in that I wrote it in the context of three women navigating these changes in their relationship, in addition to the non-monogamy aspect, but I also feel that it is an extremely relatable cry of the heart whether you are queer or not. When you just want your person, that security, and sense of belonging, regardless of whatever else is happening, that's "All I Want Is You."
Can you talk about the recording and production process for this song?
I had one bad studio experience when I was a teenager in my first band. The engineer took no time to set up microphones with us, took way too many smoke breaks, and didn't talk to us much or pay any attention at all, really. We were nobody, so maybe that's normal, but it bothered me so much that I resolved to learn how to produce and engineer my own recordings. For the songs on my upcoming album, "Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!" I have not had a permanent or even consistent studio space to work in, so my whole setup is portable. Typically, I love to mic up a guitar cabinet and a drumset and record mostly live performances, but that wasn't possible this time. Instead, I built a small, easily portable pedal board around the BOSS IR-2 amp & cabinet simulator. It's so compact and sounds so good, especially with the York Audio impulse responses I loaded onto it. Most of my tones are made using the BRIT model on the clean channel, though I also used a 5150 and Orange IR in some places. Even though it's just me writing and playing the songs, I record them as if there were two guitar players in the band, each with their own preferred set up. One is more clean and shimmery with a chorus effect, the other dirtier and more aggressive. I use my ToneCity Golden Plexi II pedal a lot for the snarly, crunchy Guns N' Roses style tones, and you can hear the Behringer Super Fuzz in those big chords in the outro jam. It's a cheap pedal, but so grimy and thick in the low frequencies. I layer guitars with that wherever I want some beautiful filth to fatten up the sound. I used my main guitar, a modded Squier Strat. That guitar always inspires me to play.
For my vocals, I love AKG condenser microphones. I used a P220 on "All I Want Is You," and layered each vocal twice. One thing that's really important to me is performance and human feel. I don't want gridded, quantized, pitch-tuned perfection. I want breath and noise and bleed and little precarious moments that feel unplanned, and the feel of people playing together, as much as I can get that by myself. I try to play full takes of songs as much as possible, as if I were doing it in a live performance. I love harmony and rhythmic density, so every instrument is playing something slightly different. I like songs that sound big, a little unhinged, and with a lot of individual personality from each instrument and player.
How does "All I Want Is You" fit into your overall artistic vision and what can listeners expect from you in the future?
In starting the "Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!" album, I set myself the goal to come into my own as a singer and performer. I wanted to discover for myself what I'm capable of, and how I could channel my influences into something particular to me. I asked myself, "What if David Lee Roth and Karen O had a child, and that child was trans and loved Glenn Hughes?" I love the idea of the voice as an instrument, an important part of the band. Harmony is really important to me, vocally and instrumentally. On my 2022 album, "RIOTSONGS," I was being deliberately political in my lyrics and in my vocal delivery. 2022 saw the first real escalation of the backlash to the trans rights movement that had gained so much momentum in 2015; the so-called Transgender Tipping Point. As Republicans introduced seemingly endless anti-trans bills, and Democrats did little to stand in their way, I deliberately rejected the idea that I had to sound palatably feminine or "passing" in any way to protest the Christo-fascist cult that pervades U.S. government and culture. It was a rejection of the idea that a woman has to sound the way she looks, or look the way she sounds. For the songs on "Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!" I wanted to be able to utilize everything my voice can do from low to high, whisper to scream, girly to gritty, sexy to seething. All of it is me and it is not my problem if it makes you uncomfortable.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got started in music?
When I was 11 or so, my Mom showed me her vinyl collection from when she was a teenager. There was a ton of The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, Jimi Hendrix, some Van Halen, Elton John, Carole King...all of it mesmerized me, and I was hooked. I already had an acoustic guitar at that point, but as soon as I bought my first Van Halen record, I knew that was what I needed to do. It was my mom's record collection, and then exploring all the music that inspired or was inspired by that music that gave me the foundations of melody, songcraft, the importance of arrangement, and in particular performance. Later, I went on to find my own music of course. I got really deep into thrash metal, new wave and post-punk, grunge, anything guitar based. I would love for my music to be a reminder that the electric guitar is a formidable tool of rebellion, defiance, autonomy, and power. It's a weapon. I find that so many artists now seem afraid to go over the top, to be bombastic or unironic. I want energy, dynamics, attitude. If nothing else, I hope that when I sing and play, you can at least tell that I am extremely excited to be there!
How do you continuously grow and evolve as an artist?
I grow as an artist by listening to my instincts, trusting my influences, and especially by decluttering the creative process. I could chase a lot of gear, or the latest trends, or ideas about fame or celebrity or whatever else, but at the end of the day, I need good songs. That's it. I would never say that I am a particularly good guitar player or singer, though sone might think so, but that's because the thing I have worked on and cultivated the most is my songwriting. If someone listens to "All I Want Is You" and they are only indifferent, then I have really missed the mark. You can load up Instagram or YouTube and immediately find 10 guitar players that will impress you, but when you hear a Rapid Onset song, I want you to be affected. I want you to feel the frenetic buzz of being in a rock band. To that end, I make an effort to always be an artist before I'm an influencer, a musician before I'm a marketer, a writer before I'm a technician. I think the best thing I've done for myself as an artist is to chase authenticity above all else, and to protect my vision.
