May. 29, 2007 - Issue #606: Cultural Capital?

Rock Star: Tara Slone

‘I don’t have any regrets,” says singer Tara Slone over the phone from her Toronto home, recalling her experience on the reality television show Rock Star: INXS, where 15 singers vied for the spot of vocalist in INXS.

“I mean, was it difficult sometimes? Absolutely. I’d be lying if I said it was the most joyous experience of my life. It’s a lot of pressure and anybody who’s ever been on a show like that will tell you that, but I made a lot of friends—[fellow contestant] Suzie McNeil’s my roommate currently—and it was definitely an informative life experience. More than anything, I learned about myself and my constitution.”

While participants on the glorified talent show that is American Idol seem to have trouble shaking the shadow of that show, Slone hasn’t found the title of Rock Star alumni to come with the same problem. That could be in part because, unlike the majority of the Idol contestants—who generally make or break themselves on their ability to sing cover songs—Slone and the other Rock Star singers also had to prove themselves as writers.

Then, there’s also the fact that Slone wasn’t exactly wet behind the ears when she stepped onto the Rock Star stage; she was already a working musician, having recorded and toured behind a couple of albums with her old band Joydrop at the end of the ‘90s and the beginning of the current decade.

After Joydrop broke up, Slone set out to record her own album, writing songs with Jordan Zadorozny, formerly of Blinker the Star. But then, as is so often the case, new opportunities arose and her plans changed.

“A lot of it was done before and I was sort of getting set to put it out and then Rock Star came up and I had to weigh my options,” she says, admitting that the opportunity piqued her interest enough that she put her own album on hold while she joined up with the show. “I think I had about six songs done by that point, so yeah, it definitely took a little longer than I would have liked to come out, but I would have always wondered what that Rock Star experience was like if I hadn’t done it.” With the reality television experience now behind her, Slone is back on her own track with her solo debut, Just Look Pretty and Sing. She says that the album’s title is inspired by her experiences as a woman in the music industry, where she has been faced with the prospect of straddling the line between being a marketable “babe” and being a musician in a way that men don’t usually have to deal with.

“It’s harder than being a guy,” Slone notes. “There’s a lot more pressure to look good, but at the same time you want to be taken seriously as a musician.”
When it comes down to it, though, Slone is happy with the way that things turned out, having made an album that she is proud off, rather than joining a band that might have ultimately stifled her own identity in favour of that of the band.

“This is me,” she says of the full-on rock sound of Just Look Pretty and Sing. “It was never my life’s dream to be the singer of INXS, and, in fact, when [Rock Star’s] second season came along [where the band was made up of rockers Tommy Lee, Gilby Clarke and Jason Newsted], I kind of thought to myself, ‘jeez, that would have been a more appropriate fit for me.’” V

 

Thu, May 31 (12 pm)
Tara Slone
Chapters Strathcona (10504 - 82 Avenue), Free (all ages)

New comments for this entry have been turned off and any existing ones are hidden. We apologize for any inconvenience.