Exclusive Superchick Interview

May 2005

At the Ultimate Event at Alton Towers - held on Saturday, 14th May, 2005 – word-on-the-web was glad to catch up with singer Tricia Brock and drummer Brandon Estelle from popular US band, Superchick. Their fourth and latest album, Beauty From Pain, is a challenging look at pain and suffering in the Christian life. We talked about this and other things just before they played an energetic set on stage, their second ever concert in the UK. We hope you enjoy what they had to say to us!

Your new album is called Beauty From Pain. Obviously, this is a very honest CD and I wondered what sort of reaction have you had to it? Have people been helped by it?

Tricia: Yes, so far. A lot of kids, at first they get it and say, “We like your music. It rocks!” But we’ve had a lot more reactions from older people, young adult age especially. There is one song my sister Melissa wrote about an eating disorder, and we’ve had a lot of girls say, “I felt like that was my song because I’ve struggled with that.” And just for Melissa to be that honest when you would never think that of her. She’s this tiny little thing. But so many girls struggle with that. We met a man the other day. His wife was killed, and he has two kids and it was a car accident, and he said we were her favourite band and our album got them through. I think when we started a lot more kids were talking to us about peer pressure, which is serious. That fear that you go to school every day and you get picked on. But now we’re hearing more like, “I really was struggling with this, and life was hard”, which we kind of hoped and expected because it is a more serious album.

You obviously put a lot of effort into writing this, and it’s not your first album. What do you prefer in creative process – the writing, the recording or the actual performing live?

Brandon: When we write it, my mind goes straight to the live show. When we’re writing, I’m like, “Is this going to sound good live? How are we going to set this up live? So for me, honestly it’s the live performance.

Tricia: I actually enjoy the whole writing and recording process. It’s not all fun, but I kind of do enjoy when I take stock and struggle on my own and we put that into words and at the end there’s a song. I’m like, “Wow. This is honest and I really am proud of it.” So for this album more than any other one, I’m proud of it and hope that God uses it to make someone’s struggle a little bit easier.

I noticed that Melissa said in an interview that in her recent struggles the Bible has really helped her. What part does the Bible play in your music and what you do?

Tricia: That where’s the title Beauty From Pain came from. Through this time of struggle in my life I became more dependent on God. You need him more, so we go to him more. I never felt like God punishes us to make us that dependent, but I feel like he allows things so that we’ll say, “OK, you are in control and you’ll get me through”, and we’re stronger and we’re smarter at the end of it. So through that struggle this year in my life it was really rough. I learned what meditation really was. How to just read the scriptures over and over and have them going through my head and to really depend on that. Like Job said: “I depend on your word more than my daily bread.” I don’t think I ever understood it until that struggle, until that kind of a brokenness where I really was confused and hurt and God healed me and took those scriptures, and every day he would emotionally get me through. It is evidence that when we’re not struggling it’s so easy to not read, because we’re like, “I know so much of the Bible. I’ve read it so much and I grew up in a Christian family.” But we do need it, even on the OK days, and God just used so many scriptures. I would meet people and I would have this verse to give them because I was reading and it was in my mind. I know God will meet us no matter what, but if we seek him with our whole heart that’s when I think he really can meet us.

Have you played in the UK before?

Tricia: Yes, we played Soul Survivor.

You may not be able to answer this after just one experience, but can you tell me the difference that you might have seen between audiences in the US and the UK?

Tricia: It has been a while. I think I remember that the people at Soul Survivor were really, really energetic. Sometimes US crowds are … you have to really work to win them over. I remember at Soul Survivor we went on like last minute. We had to get on really quick. Something weird happened. We didn’t even get to change. But I just remember that they had a lot of energy. The festival kids were just excited and just happy that we were there and they’d never heard us. It’s funny because every place you play there’s just a different feel. A lot of countries we’ve been to, they’re not as energetic. They’re kind of just more quiet, but then at the end they’re like, “I loved you”, and you’re like, “I thought you hated us.” But it’s so fun to play all over. It’s an amazing thing to be able to do what we do and then not just get paid to play but get paid to go on vacation.

When the interview finished, Tricia and Brandon told me how much they’d enjoyed looking round London, especially seeing Big Ben. Afterwards, I enjoyed watching Brandon on stage bashing away on the drums like there was no tomorrow! Let’s hope they come back to the UK sometime soon.

You can check out their latest news at www.superchickonline.com