Part of Sep 2010 by
Pearl Aday

Interview with Pearl Aday

Pearl Aday (she was named after Janis Joplins “Pearl” album) was born into rock and roll royalty in 1975 to parents Leslie and Michael Lee Aday, who is better known under his mega-star name Meat Loaf.  Pearl Adays music career took off in 1994 when she became a back up singer for Meat Loafs Bat out of Hell II summer tour and then again for his 1996 Born to Rock tour.  In 1997 Pearl again joined her father on stage but this time it was when they performed at the inaugural ball in 1997 for President Bill Clinton.  In 1998 Pearl became a full-time member of Neverland Express, which is the name of Meat Loafs touring band.  Over the next several years she also worked with Motley Crue, Filter, Stella, and Ace Frehley of Kiss.  Pearl Aday is married to Scott Ian, guitarist of Anthrax which is one of the most successful metal bands in the world and considered to be one of the “Big 4” (Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer are the other 3).

Pearls recent album Little Immaculate White Fox is very solid bluesy rock (I give it a no BS 2 thumbs up) –and she has an all star band backing her on the album including her husband.

Recently I had a chance to speak with Pearl and heres what she had to say about being a “rock child” – the name of her first single, incidentally.

A2:  Tell me about how your debut CD Little Immaculate White Fox came about.

Pearl: Wow, that encompasses a lot.  How did it all come about?  I was singing with my dad for 9 years then I finally got to a point where I decided, “Okay, its time for me to try something different and step out on my own and try to do my own thing.”  And Scott (Ian) was friends with Jim Wilson and Marcus Blake from a band called Mother Superior which Im a huge fan of.  He invited them to a birthday party of mine and we struck up a friendship and then decided to start working together and maybe try and write some songs.  It happened naturally and organically that we clicked really well.  So we would get together and they would say, “Hey we got an idea or 2.”  I would go over to their place and they would play me the rif or the skeleton of the song and I would take it home on my little recorder.  After that I would try and plug the words in and after a while of doing that we had a good set list of songs that we went in and recorded.

Pearl Aday

Pearl Aday

A2: Lyrically where were you coming from with the songs you were writing?

Pearl: Each song is different.  Since the music came first, I would take the music home and I would sit down and listen to it and depending on what the mood of the music was that would take me to what kind of story I would tell and what kind of lyrics would come out.

A2:  Where did you come up with the title for the CD?

Pearl: The title for the CD is actually a really cool story.  Its actually a true story.  My mom was pregnant with me.  She was convinced the entire time that I was going to be a boy.  For some reason she was just convinced that I was going to be a boy.  I have the journal that she kept through the whole pregnancy and she always refers to me as a “he” or “him”.  Late in her pregnancy her best friend called her up on the phone and said, “Hey, I just had a dream about your baby.  Its a girl and she has blond hair and blue eyes and in my dream she was laying in a green forest wrapped in white fox fur and her name is Little Immaculate White Fox.  My mom said, “Well thats really beautiful but Im having a boy.”  And then only a couple of hours later my mom went into labor and had me.  A blond haired, blue eyed little girl.  So I just thought it was appropriate to name my first album after the sort of unofficial first name that was given to me.  Now its officially the name that is important to me.

A2:  What was the catalyst that made you want to start your solo career?

Pearl: I think I always wanted to do that.  That is something that I always dreamed of and always, always wanted to do.  But obviously you need to live your life and learn how to do things.  You have to gain experience, go through trial and error, fail and succeed and know how both of those work and how they happen and how they feel.  So I had a lot of really great schooling in the area of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to be.  I grew up watching my dad perform and thats one of the best classrooms you could ever be in if thats what you want to do. My best friend since I was 5 years old is Diana Rosss daughter.  So I got to grow up watching her perform as well, which is sort of the great counter to what my dad does in his genre of music and his style.  She was the flipside to that but at the same time being just as powerful in commanding her audience but in a very feminine and glamorous way.  It was a really broad spectrum I had through my young years up until now because I am still watching them perform.  Then, Rita (Haney), Dimes wife, (referring to Dimebag Darrel (RIP) of Pantera fame.) invited me onstage to sing along with Scott Ian (Anthrax) and Jerry Cantrell (Alice In Chains) a couple times in front of thousands of people doing a Dimebag tribute singing “Wish You Were Here”.  So all of those experiences are so valuable when you are trying to step out on your own and I had to just let it happen until I knew I could do it and do a really good job.

A2:  What is it like opening up for your dad on tour?

Pearl: Its going really great.  We were given the opportunity to step on stage in front of way more people than we could draw right now on our own at the level that we are at.  This past spring we did a headlining across the US in a van hauling all our gear n stuff because thats what you do.  And that was great on its own of course.  We were playing a lot of dives, but a lot of those shows are the best we have ever played.  For this tour we were given the opportunity after being told “No” for months and months and months and out of the blue we got a call about opening for Meat Loaf.  Of course our answer was, “Hell Yeah.”  It gives us the opportunity to play in front of just that many more people.

A2:  Whats up next for you guys?

Pearl: Were working on going over to Europe to do some touring.  Everything is in the works and still in the schedule stages right now because the whole team is trying to put it together logistically and money wise because we dont get a dollar from out record company at all.  Not even a…nothin.  So everything that we do comes from our pockets or we find a way to make it work with whatever gigs want to pay us.  Thats the boring side of the music but as long as we can make it work then we can continue to play and thats the point.

Pearl Aday

Pearl Aday

A2:  How do you balance the tour scheduling between your tours and your husbands?

Pearl: With Scott, Anthrax is his first priority of course.  So when he is available to play with me he does but as soon as Anthrax kicks in he is with them. We started off with a very strong understanding that Anthrax is his priority number 1.  I understand that and I am totally cool with that because I want him to be in Anthrax (laughter).  And his new project The Damned Things because I love both of those bands and I think they are amazing.  So if he has to go off and do his job and do what he does then we will do without him or get some one to fill in but its never a problem for me and for us.  It never throws a wrench into what Im doing.

Pearl will be playing with Heart at the Gibson Amphitheater in Universal City, California on September, 18th and will be announcing another major tour very soon.  See myspace.com/pearl for more information.

Read more by
Write us your thoughts about this post. Play nice.