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Biography:
Combine the violin mastery of Nigel Kennedy, the voice of an alien Siouxsie/Bowie hybrid, and the looks of a post-apocalyptic Marie Antoinette, and what do you get? Emilie Autumn. The pink-haired princess of "victoriandustrial" has already morphed her way from classically trained violin prodigy to extreme rock performer with the ability to shred on a fiddle à la Yngwie, and with a cult following to match.
After spending a summer in France recording with Courtney Love at Ms. Love's express command, Emilie was invited to join Love's touring band,"The Chelsea," and was appropriately dubbed the "anarchy violinist" by Love. Next thing you knew, she was performing live on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and on national television with Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins fame, while appearing on the solo debut albums of both Corgan and Love. Emilie quickly gained attention as a solo performer in her own right, and was chosen as one of Interview Magazine's "14 To Be," a pictorial featuring 14 up-and-coming young female stars. Shot by famed fashion photographer Kelly Klein, and wearing a Helmut Lang gown while sprawled on a large wooden tea crate, Emilie was chosen as the magazine's centerfold posing with her signature electric violin. Now, EA is setting her sights on the rest of the world with the release of her new album, "Opheliac" on the Trisol Music Group label, released in Europe on the 1st of September 2006, and worldwide on the 22nd.
Background:
Brought up as a concert violinist since age four, and trained in conservatoires around the world as a performer, composer, conductor, and music historian, EA's bizarre background is the element that makes her music so exceptional. The blending of authentic baroque strings, harpsichord, and factory-derived industrial beats with vocal techniques from soul-searing belts to snarling screams creates an positively dangerous feel, only compounded by EA's dark and uber-literate lyrics.
After walking away from her first major label contract at age 17, EA returned to her classical roots and released her solo violin debut album, "On a Day...," with the label she created and still controls, the aptly titled Traitor Records. Since the creation of her own production company, EA has branched out to create a number of side projects (The Jane Brooks Project, Ravensong, Convent), and is delighted to be collaborating with other artists including Detroit techno legend DJT1000, UK industrial giant, Attrition, fellow Chicagoans, Die Warzau, and many more creative entities ranging from industrial legends to television shows (EA frequently contributes her violin playing to the hit American TV series "Metalocalypse," a cartoon about a ficitional metal band airing weekly on Adult Swim).
With Enchant a proven success in the indie world, Emilie returned from two years of touring and recording with Love to begin production on her second full-length non-classical offering entitled, "Opheliac." Written in the style EA calls "victoriandustrial," her new heavily industrial sound takes "gothic" to a whole new level - sinister, witty, and combining her trademark violin pyrotechnics with growling vocals, virtuosic harpsichord, and electro-industrial beats. A concept album about "women, water, and madness," song titles include, "Gothic Lolita," "Dead Is The New Alive," "The Art Of Suicide," "I Want My Innocence Back", and "Misery Loves Company."
EA's previous releases include the solo violin debut album, "On a Day...," recorded at age 17 and showcasing her mastery of the baroque violin, "By The Sword," her charity single in response to the 9/11 attacks, "Chambermaid," her first goth-rock EP, and of course, "Enchant." Emilie also appears on Courtney Love's 2004 release, "America's Sweetheart" on Virgin Records, and is a featured guest on Billy Corgan's 2005 solo release, "The Future Embrace" on Warner Records.
Other Activities:
When EA is not recording or touring, she designs for "Mistress," her own fashion and fragrance line for her own indie-couture company, WillowTech House. Notorious for her own visionary "punktorian" stage costumes, EA's design skills were put to use when she was asked to design and create all of the costumes for the music video for "Walking Shade," Corgan's first single off his 2005 album, directed by P.R. Brown.
EA is also a prolific writer and illustator, releasing and quickly selling out of her first volume of poetry in 2001. 2005 saw the release of her second poetry edition complete with audio version entitled, "Your Sugar Sits Untouched," offered by WillowTech House Publishing. EA is currently putting the finishing touches on the illustrations for her gothic children's book for adults only, "The Alphabet Book of X-Boyfriends."
Originally from Malibu, California, EA is now a proud Chicagoan, and can most often be found at nightspots such as the Metro, Neo, and DoubleDoor as well as cavorting around the city's downtown in her Victorian bustle skirt, corset, and combat boots, attracting a ridiculous amount of attention.
Genre:*
She takes a lot of influence from the neo-romantic era of composition, occurying mostly in the early 20th century, which involved a lot of use of instruments not used as much in earlier years. The harpsichord was one of these instruments, as it was forgotten as the piano surpassed it after the baroque period. She takes this one step further though, and looks for new sounds that aren't often used in today's mainstream music, which seems to inpart industrial sounds alongside her classically trained harpsichord and violin... and it works, a lot.
*from a reliable source
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