Saint's 7 with Desperate Endeavour

17-year-old Katie Marie has always had the passion of music living and breathing deep inside her. In the summer of 2009, she decided it was time to enter a Desperate Endeavour and make her dreams a reality. Don't let her outer exterior fool you, this petite Fayetteville North Carolinian packs a mighty powerful voice. (They always said good things come in small packages.)

The dictionary definition of “Desperate Endeavour” roughly means a dangerously reckless attempt to achieve a goal. What exactly does Desperate Endeavour mean to you? How does it relate to your music career?

To me, a Desperate Endeavour is not necessarily a dangerous and reckless attempt to achieve something, but more so the journey that you find yourself on to get where you want to be.. And how willing you are to let that journey carry you where it needs to. I think a “Desperate” Endeavour is how far you are willing to push yourself, and how much you will do to reach your destination. As time goes on the more meaningful the name proves to be, especially in terms of the Endeavour I find myself on a daily basis, both with music and personal matters as well.

On your Myspace page, you emphasize the fact that you’re fairly new to music and did not start to consider pursuing your dreams until this past summer. Who or what influenced you to make that jump into pursuing what you loved? What were you doing before Desperate Endeavour?

That’s a good question! My whole life I’ve known I wanted to surround myself with music, whether it was performing or working in the business aspect of the industry, it was what I wanted to be doing. On October 2008, I went to my first concert. After that I fell even more in love with music and realized how much I NEEDED to be doing it. It wasn’t even a want any more. From there Myspace.com kind of took the wheel to be honest. (laugh out loud), I started getting more and more friend requests from all of these great unsigned artists that nobody had ever heard of. This made me realize how much undiscovered talent existed, and how much I wanted to help all of these musicians get where they needed to be. This was when I started Savage Promotions, which is a myspace account where I promote unsigned bands (found on my top friends). Over time I became close friends with more and more artists and bands who initially gave me hope that I could actually do what I wanted, to perform. I kept that dream inside of me until the summer of 2009, when I finally asked my mom if I could start taking guitar lessons. I was fortunate enough to be able to work with Baxter Clement, who immediately threw me into the industry and had me writing songs in less than a week and playing shows in two.

Your Myspace also says you played your first show two weeks into learning how to play the guitar. Many artists always talk about how nervous or excited they felt the first time they got on stage. How did you muster enough confidence in yourself to play a show so quickly and what went through your head/what feelings came into play as you performed for the first time?

Ohhhhh Gosh… (laugh out loud) I will never forget when Baxter told me I was going to be playing my first show. I had JUST started playing guitar and I was soooo new to everything, I was terrified! Haha.. I had never played for anyone, I always refused to sing for anybody and I had terrrrrrible stage fright prior to him telling me this. Luckily I had some pretty great friends who dragged me out to places like our local pool and parties with my guitar and made me sing for people there, to get used to playing for a crowd. Then the more I thought about it the more ridiculous being scared seemed to me, if my goal was to be playing music for people all over the world, then I’d have to just suck it up and have fun with it haha. Which I did, when I first got on stage I think I remember rapping into the microphone to start off my show? (laugh out loud).. I was there to have fun and to make sure other people did too, so walking up on stage was not nerve racking at all for me. After that first show, I could not have been more excited to jumpstart my career!

So you’re currently working on an upcoming EP. How’s that going? Have you picked out a name for it, how many songs do you expect to have on it, and do you have a release date in mind yet?

I know I’m gonna have around 7 or 8 songs on the EP.. But as far as the release date and the name of it go. That’ll just be a surprise to both of us!! Hahaha =)

Have you ever heard of the show Diva Duets? (If you haven’t it’s an annual show put on by VH1 to raise money for Save The Music that has considerably young up and coming female “divas” (this year it was Miley Cyrus, Kelly Clarkson, Adele, etc.) perform collaborations with bigger established artists such as Celine Dion, Sheryl Crow, Stevie Wonder etc. If you were given the opportunity to be able to sing a collaboration with any big name artist who would it be and what song would you choose to sing with them?

This is such a good freakin’ question!! Haha, good job! Umm… I think if there was an epiphany and something happened wrong in the universe to where I was lucky enough to be given that change, my choice would be Ordinary People with John Legend.

What are your ultimate goals for the future of Desperate Endeavour?

I feel like any artist that you ask would give you the same answer: “to have my music heard.” And while that is definitely something I want to achieve, I think I want more than anything to give hope to all people that they can follow their dreams too, and that NOTHING can stop them if they want it bad enough. I want to be able to wake up every morning knowing I get to spend another day playing music. My ultimate goal is to become somebody people can look up to. I want to surprise my listeners, and gain new ones everyday. But more importantly, I guess I just want to be able to spend my life doing the one thing that has never failed me, music.

Any last words you’d like to leave the readers with?

HELP ME OUT!! I can’t do this without any of you reading this right now!! As an artist, I need listeners.. So please put my banner or songs on your page, tell your friends about me, listen to my songs, anything that you can think of helps! And I love you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for giving me this chance! :)

No Inside's Late Nights and Early Mornings cd review

No Inside’s album, Late Nights and Early Mornings, without doubt has a pop-punk/emo sound to it. It starts off with “Open Late,” a song that starts to set the mood for the album. “Hot and Cold” is the next song that includes likable hooks that will get stuck in your head such as “fake it baby, fake it.”

The way “Push Us Back” flows into “Lullaby” is unique. It comes to a close with someone talking as if you’re listening to the news on the radio, and it goes into “Lullaby” just like that the guitar part starting. This song’s a different one. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,” is sung in the song which caught my attention – it’s definitely something I haven’t heard before in this genre of music.

“Drowning” is a well written song with good lyrics that will have you singing along in no time. Following that is “Don’t Tell Amy” which starts off at a slower tempo, but proves to be a really great song. “Let it Fall” is personally my favorite song on the album, and seems to have the most distinctive sound to it.

Listening to “Honesty is the Best Policy” I was curious to hear it live. It sounds like it’d be a great song to play at a show. “Hanging Up the Cape” has a catchy beat to it, and I noticed I was subconsciously nodding my head along to the song the first time I listened to it. Instantly when I heard “*67” I wanted to pick up a guitar and learn how to play the song. It has a great guitar part throughout the whole song, and with lines like “I’m sorry you fell for a rock star,” you’re sure to be setting that as your new Facebook status.

The second to last song “The Forecast Song” was like “Hanging Up the Cape” for me; I nodded my head along to it, and I thought it was appealing. The last song on No Inside’s CD is “Watch It Burn.” Listening to the beginning I was wary about the song, but as I got further into the song I truly enjoyed it.

Late Nights and Early Mornings is a pretty good CD for a local band. It’s not the perfect album, but what actually is? Check No Inside out for yourself, and you’ll see their music is satisfying.

This review was written by Ms. Jenn Carroll of PurelyGangsterRadioNJ//JennyHero

Shooting the breeze with Jeremy of The Bled

PGRNC: First off, how are you doing today man?

Jeremy (The Bled): I’m good, doing good.

PGRNC: So we know you guys are on tour right now, where'd you guys play last?

Jeremy: Monday night we played in Vineland, New Jersey. It was a really fun show. We stayed in Richmond, Virginia last night.

PGRNC: Last month The Bled signed to Rise Records. They're one of the fastest growing labels in the business. How do you feel about being a part of their family?

Jeremy: They actually contacted us when they found out we were divorced from Vagrant Records. They asked us on a date, and we really hit it off. We didn’t kiss on the first date. Things progressed and we moved to kissing, French kissing, and we let them feel us up.

PGRNC: So you didn’t put out?

Jeremy: No we put out, and they didn’t pull out either. We have a record coming out because of it. We're speeding up the 9 month cycle so it’ll be a little premature. We just hope it has all of its limbs intact.

PGRNC: Side question. What’s your tattoo of?

Jeremy: They’re all from Shell Silberstein’s poems. Where The Sidewalk Ends. Shell=Love

PGRNC: The past year has been difficult for you guys as a band. Was there ever a time when you didn’t think The Bled would make it?

Jeremy: Towards the beginning. It cost us a lot of money to tour and we went into debt. We all had to go home and get shitty 9 to 5’s to help pay all of our expenses. We split it up between everyone evenly and worked on paying it off. Our bass player decided to go back to school, and our guitarist moved to Texas, and our drummer went on to play for another band. I started a side project with some of the other members of The Bled. I wasn’t happy with the way the side project was going so that ended pretty quick. We managed to replace the drummer, guitarist, and bassist. It was a real smooth transition because we knew the new guys previously and knew how they played. Once we taught everyone the parts, we got to writing new material. This band has always been five friends. That’s the way music is supposed to be. I don’t think I would have continued the band if I had to choose 3 strangers to replace them.

PGRNC: Were you worried about how your fans would take the new lineup change?

Jeremy: Well I always wrote 90% of the music. We wanted to have a demo before we started promoting the new lineup. We're a band that thrives off of change. The music scene is fickle but at the end of the day you have to fulfill your own happiness.

PGRNC: How does it feel to be back on the road after everything that’s gone on in the past year?

Jeremy: It feels awesome. We actually had a little warm up tour with The Used on the West Coast. It gave the new guys a feel for the band and how being on tour works.

PGRNC: You’ve only been on tour for a few weeks so far, but what’s the craziest experience that you guys had had on this tour?

Jeremy: Nothing too crazy really. Not to us at least. Nothing terrible has happened. We played a festival in Illinois where some kids from another band stole an amp head from We Came As Romans. WCAR found out who stole it and approached the other band. One of the members walked up as they were arguing and one of the big guys in WCAR asked him how old he was. He said "19" and without hesitation, the big guy just smashed him in the face. It’s good to see justice on the road.

PGRNC: We're just going to have an attack badger in our trailer to make sure people don’t steal.

Jeremy: How do you domesticate a badger?

PGRNC: We're not sure just yet. Ok. So what’s the most fun show you guys have played on tour so far?

Jeremy: Well it definitely not Omaha, Nebraska. It was just a bad show in general. The venue requires kids under 18 to get a waiver signed and have it legally notarized to get into the show. There were about 50 kids staring deadpan at us while we played our hearts out. I was sweating and they were just staring. So I sat down on stage and stared right back at them while I was playing. I used the old and jaded card on 'em. I don’t need kids wind milling and shit, but give me a nod or smile or something. Allentown, PA was pretty awesome and so was Fargo, ND. We didn’t expect that one, but it was a good show.

PGRNC: So you guys are releasing your 4th record on Rise near the beginning of next year. 4 albums is an amazing accomplishment for any band. What’s significant about this album to The Bled?

Jeremy: I’m just stoked to be writing for The Bled again. This album is a lot like our first album. I’m personally producing everything on this record. We're writing at home and recording in Tuscan. I’m really proud of all of the new songs. The new guys came in with a fans perspective and brought what they liked about The Bled into the album. We're all on the same page and it makes things so much easier.

PGRNC: Well man that’s all the questions we have for you today. Thanks for the interview; we had a lot of fun. We can’t wait for the show later.

Jeremy: Thanks for interviewing me guys. I had a good time.