Who is Christa Belle?

CB - Christa Belle is a 34 year old woman who is still trying to figure out how to be the best version of herself that she can be. Enough third person. It's a bit icky! Anyway, I am just me. I don't long to be like anyone else as I did in my past. I've learned that it's ok to be domestic and like it, be girly and not be ashamed and love non-idealistic things and make people think. I guess in general I'm just a person who likes to express herself in every way possible :) Visually, lyrically, musically and anything else I can muster.


How would your mother describe your character?

CB - I think my Mother would say I was outspoken, bold and open-minded and weird in a good way. I've learned a lot about life from her, and her from me. She teaches me that we are always learning and trying to improve on ourselves.


At what age did music start to play a role in your life, did you grew up in a musical family?

CB - I can remember being a lover of music, any music, from early childhood. My Mother even wrote in my baby book that I responded to music very early on. I think she even said I clapped and bounced to music often. When I was 7 or older, I think I started to sing along to Olivia Newton-John all the time. And I mean ALL the time! So, I always remember that I loved to sing. There are a few musicians in my family background. The musicians I remember were my Great Uncle (Marty Yontz), Great Aunt (Ruby Kitchen), Aunt (Joy Sutherland) and my Second Cousin (Dale Dixon). All of them were primarily Country singers and Mountain/Gospel influences. Ruby, Dale and Marty all had records made, so you can look them up for yourself :) I definitely hear similarities between myself and my Aunt Joy. She's a Soprano and she's a beautiful singer! My Oldest Sister, Angela, also sings and will be involved in the new HL album. Having that in the background certainly didn't hurt my singing. I have never had singing lessons or any musical training besides Hungry Lucy. War-N made me sing for him and I liked it. So did he!

There! I didn't know if I could do it, but I did. These 5 discs are in my ears weekly, if not daily. Of course there are many more I could list. I always have rotating favourites!

It seems you have learned some lessons in your past that makes you the person you are today, what lessons did you learn?

CB - How long have you got? He he. No, really. I have learned so much from life in general. But, with the making of the album 'To Kill A King' I learned that the only person  I needed to love was myself. WIthout that, I was nothing. I had such bad self-esteem and thought I always had to change who I was to suit someone else. It took me years to realize, and many relationships, that this wasn't the case. The thing that made it worse was that I could feel it happening and I didn't do anything about it.

The best lesson I have learned is that our voices matter.  Our voice is our power! How is anyone to know anything about you if you don't speak up? I stayed silent for way too long and did some things I wish I hadn't done. But, for all of that, I am who I am now. I am happy with who I am now, but I always have room for improvement. Don't we all?

Writing songs in a flow often means you are not totally aware of what you are writing, are you sometimes surprised when you read it all back?

CB - Oh hell yes! I know this may sound weird, and a little vain, so I apologize in advance if it comes out that way. Sometimes if one of our songs comes up on my iPod or something, I'll listen to it. The song "A Girl Alone" came up recently and I let it play. I found myself getting all teary and remembering the day I wrote the song. I don't know what made me write it the way that I did, but I love how that song turned out. I almost don't feel responsible for the song because it just flew right out of me in one piece. I feel that way about quite a few of our songs. I sit back and read the lyrics and think "Who wrote this again?"  and I get a little taken aback. It's nice to know I can listen as a listener and not just as the writer. I think time away from the songs really makes them come alive again. Brilliant!


Writing lyrics is one things, how do you make them alive and breathing, especially on stage?

CB - I am still challenged with stage presence and performing in general. I don't think I'm a good performer yet. I've had a few good shows where I felt like I was in the moment. Those are few and far between. When it's been good, I just try to go back to how I felt when I wrote the lyrics. I have cried on stage with "Alfred" a few times. Also with a more recent song "A Girl Alone". It doesn't always happen the way you want on stage and it's a disappointment for me as a singer. When I record, I can set a mood and really dig deep to get into the space I need for a particular song. I'll often go back and record lyrics three or four times, different sessions, before I am happy with them. I have cried quite a few times recording as well. It's nice to know I am still human.

CB - If I hadn't chosen the path of songwriter, I would still write poems and stories. Writing, in general, seems to release some sort of pressure from old wounds. I have gotten A LOT of painful things out on paper, and in music. If I hadn't gotten it out, I think I would still be traumatized. Not that everything has disappeared from my past. Not at all. But, the songs help me release the bad energy and put it somewhere else. Not to mention the people that have written to say that our songs have helped them. It gives me great happiness to know that my troubles, and singing about them, has helped someone. I like that I can let people know that they are never truly alone in their strife. There's always someone who can relate and help them through.

What things do you think you can improve on in your live performances?

CB - Um, everything! I am not a good visual performer. I can sing fine and hit the notes and such and I enjoy it very much. But, I just don't feel I've ever really put on a good "show". Maybe because I don't like feeling that I have to be someone else on stage? I dunno. But, I wish I could portray myself in a way that was real and visually lovely as well. I haven't gotten there yet. War-N has gotten much more comfortable and does a great job! Also, I'd love to play more piano live. We've been working on that for a while now. For those people that have been to one of our shows, they most likely saw video behind us... or beside us in some cases. We did that to give our shows more visual impact. What we found with that was that people wound up liking the video more than the music! They missed it if we didn't do it. So, we don't know where we want to go next with the live shows and what people really want to see from us. I'd love to something very different and unexpected. I'd also love some great quality lights. Lighting can make or break a night time show. We haven't been around many good lighting rigs as of yet. That would be so much fun! So, a lot to think about and a lot to prepare for. We're not done performing. Just having a dry spell at the moment whilst writing this ever-evolving 4th album!

How were the responses on the album and how do you look back on it now? Are there things you would have done differently?

CB - The response to ´To Kill A King” was great. We still get people that have Apparitions as their favorite. That's great, too! I generally don't have regrets, but I didn't end up being 100% happy with my performance on the song "Fool" on the album. But, it's done and there's no need to go back. It represented what we wanted and I am happy with it.


After that you released the Ep “Before we stand . We crawl” why just an ep instead of a new album, why record new versions of older songs?

CB - We mainly released an EP because we didn't have a full album worth of music ready. We had three really strong, new songs and we had recorded a few low-key versions of old favorites. It was just something we wanted to try on a small scale, with the minimal music style, and we didn't feel a whole album's worth of that was what we wanted to release. An EP is a great way to test the waters when trying something quirky or different from the "norm" that people expect. I enjoyed making that EP immensely.