Pearl Aday is possibly more famous for being Meat Loaf’s daughter than being a solo artist.  On the back of an EP and with a debut album due to be released in January, this will surely change.  Managing to catch up with her before the show in Birmingham I found out how things have been going so far.   

On your current tour you are mixing big outdoor and arena shows supporting Meat Loaf and more intimate headline shows in clubs.  Are you having to change your approach a lot between the shows? 

Pearl Aday:  Yeah it’s totally different.  You know opening arenas and sheds for Meat Loaf and then on off nights coming and headlining little clubs like this, it’s a completely different environment.  But we’re all familiar with both so it’s easier for us to switch on for this day, switch on for this day, you can’t complain. 

Do you find that you are accepted by Meat Loaf’s crowd or do you find that you have to work that bit harder? 

PA:  It’s funny that you say that actually, somebody was asking me about that, because we were out here in March opening for Velvet Revolver and, you know, I’m a new act, nobody knows who I am anyway.  But you would guess in general that it would be harder to open for Velvet Revolver, but it’s actually harder to open for Meat Loaf.  Meat Loaf has very specific and loyal fans that only want to see Meat Loaf, they are accepting me, I’ve got a good reception so far, but yeah it feels like harder work opening for Meat Loaf.  It feels a little bit like you’ve got to prove yourself more, it’s not a free ride, and I don’t expect it to be and I don’t think that it is, but you can definitely feel the difference, it’s more of a push/pull than it was, you know what I mean? 

As you mentioned you supported Velvet Revolver earlier in the year, are you starting to build up a fan base over here in the UK? 

PA:  I hope so, I get a lot of people writing to me on Myspace and stuff like that, saying ‘it was brilliant when I saw you with Velvet Revolver, when are you coming back, can you come and play in our town, and our little club, we’ve got a great place called blah, blah, blah’.  So it’s slowly building, but that’s the idea, you’ve got to start from somewhere. 

So your album is coming out soon? 

PA:  Yes, I think January is the word now.  Give us more time to work on the build up towards it, do it right, not rush it.  You don’t want to rush it and have it fall flat. 

How long have you been working on the album? 

PA:  We just got into this record deal in March actually, they came to see us at our last show with Velvet Revolver in Brighton and they were thrilled and that’s when it all sort of got the go ahead, so the momentum began there.  We’re all working really hard to set it in motion. 

As mentioned you are just starting out, so for those that are not familiar with your music how would you describe your sound? 

PA:  It’s rock n’ roll, think AC/DC, Black Crowes, Rolling Stones, it’s rock n’ roll, there’s a little blues weaving in and out through some of the songs.  Some of the songs are harder, there’s a couple of slower ones, but that’s the way it works in my ear.  But yeah, rock n’ roll with a bluesy edge sometimes here and there, but it’s just straight up rock n’ roll with guitar, drums, bass, real instruments, real singing, real voice, no tracks.  What you see is what you get. 

On your album you also have guest musicians, Jerry Cantrell and Ted Nugent, and you also duet with someone on a song? 

PA:  There’s one song on the full album that will be coming out, that I sing with Jim Wilson, who is one of the guys I wrote all the songs with.  Jim Wilson and Marcus Blake of Mother Superior, they’ve got a following out here in the UK and Europe, Spain and France, they were the Henry Rollins band for about six years actually as well.  But their band, Mother Superior, I am a huge dorky fan girl of, and I love them to death and to be able to get to know them years ago when I did and then get together and start writing is just brilliant to me.  So they come to me with ideas for melodies and songs and we’d go and record it, they play it in their living room, we sit down, and then they send me home with like a bare bones recording of a melody idea and I just plug the words in, so that’s how it’s been working out.   

You’ve mentioned elsewhere that your lyrics are very personal, and I notice there is a song called Rock Child on the album, is this about what you have gone through? 

PA:  Autobiographical, yeah.  Pretty much, people ask me that all the time.  There’s a line in it ‘I’ve been sleeping in a guitar case’, which is true.  I grew up in recording studios as a baby, and a guitar case is actually a good size container for a little child, my mother would put blankets and pillows in it and I would fall asleep in an open guitar case, so yeah it’s just applying real life and phrasing it so it sings. 

When you started doing backing vocals for Meat Loaf in 1994, was it a big change to your life, were you then like with him 24 hours a day? 

PA:  I wasn’t really with him 24 hours a day, because often times when you’re on the road, especially when you’re on the road with Meat Loaf, it’s big arenas, often posh hotels, everyone gets their own hotel room.  You have the big bus that you travel on, you don’t have to be with anybody 24 hours a day if you don’t want to, and when you’re not on stage everybody’s doing their own thing.  So we did travel together, but it wasn’t like I was sitting next to him in the van driving six hours a day. 

It wasn’t a bad place to hone your craft, did you learn a lot from doing all that to then bring into your own band? 

PA:  Oh yeah, I learned loads from my dad actually.  My whole life, just watching him perform and the way he handles the stage and the way he commands an audience, he always told me being on stage is a privilege and it’s not a right.  Doesn’t matter if five people come to see you or 50,000, you always give everyone the same two billion thousand percent, to give everybody everything that you’ve got, and that’s what he lives by.  I respect that, and I try to do that as well. 

Has he always been supportive of you moving into singing, he didn’t try to discourage you at all? 

PA:  Never tried to discourage me. 

Always encouraged you. 

PA:  Yeah, didn’t push it, but it is always what I wanted to do, so you know ‘great, good job’, that kind of thing. 

You have also done other things as well, you’ve toured with Motley Cruë and you sung on Sixx:AM. 

PA:  I didn’t sing on the recording, I performed with them live.  Once they were finished with the recording Nikki called me to do the press conference to announce Sixx:AM, and I also did one live show with them in Salt Lake City, we opened for Korn.  But that’s often a misconception, people think that I was on the album, but I wasn’t, I’m not on the recording.  People just assume, but no.  I wish I was, I like it. 

Having already toured all over the world as a backing singer, are you now looking forward to doing it all again with your own band? 

PA:  Yeah I think having travelled as much as I have is an advantage to hopefully the travels I’ll be getting to do, coming in the future with my own band.  It helps, you know what to expect in that aspect, of course it will be different this time because I won’t be in the back with a tambourine and doing oohs and aahs, and I’m not belittling that, that’s a tough job that has it’s moments as well.  But fronting a band is something completely different, so that in a sense is the adventure part for me, it’s challenging but it’s what I want to do so there’s no whining. 

You have Scott Ian on guitar, are there hoards of Anthrax fans at each gig? 

PA:  Not hoards, you know, there’s a few, but there’s not hoards. 

So there’s not anyone wanting to hear Caught In A Mosh or anything? 

PA:  No, I mean I think we’ve played a few gigs when they scream out ‘I’m The Man’ in between songs, and it’s like ‘OK I get it’ and he’s like ‘yeah, probably not tonight guys’.  But it’s cool if that brings more people then that’s terrific, maybe they’ll come and hear us and think this is something else that I like too. 

Lastly is there anything else you wanted to say or add? 

PA:  Just check out our Myspace (www.myspace.com/pearl) because all the rest of the shows that we have are up there, and if you want to check out what we sound like then there are songs up there as well you can sample, and rock on.

Darren Brushneen