Who Are Ya – The Scarletz

In the latest of our Who Are Ya interviews (unsigned acts) we interview Battle of the Girl Bands 2011 finalists the Scarletz.  Found out which girl wants Brad Pitt, what they think of X Factor and which girl is a wannabe farmer (if only on Facebook)

 

Name: Bryony Jobes

Nickname: Yes Bryony (its an “in” joke)

Age: sometimes I feel like a 14 year old girl with lots of angst…I invented Emo lol

From: Worse habit: interrupting people

Best quality: Rock n Rollability (the girls our shaking theirs heads)

Fav food: Noodles Pets: I’m not a massive animal lover! My mum has some nice cats.

Star sign: Aries

Name: Claire Martyne

Nickname: The girls call me Claire with the Red Hair

Age: 23 From: Broxbourne (its in Hertfordshire)

Worse habit: picking

Best quality: my eyes

Fav food: carrot cake

Pets: Long coat Chihuahua called Nacho, two house rabbits Norris and Gloria, two Lizards Denver and Yoshi and some marine fish!

Star sign: Scorpio

Name: Katiya Borlante

Nickname: Lady Katiya

Age: a lady never tells her age

From: Leeds baby

Worse habit: biting my nails

Best quality: ear lobes

Fav food: sushi

Pets: bryony

Star sign: Capricorn

Name: Tahnee

Nickname:Tinkerbell

Age: 22

From: Never Never Land

Worse habit: fluffing on my eyebrows – in public – not a good look!

Best quality: Claire says – My positivity! -I think if you smile at some one, then they will smile at some one else, go on smile and pass it round!

Fav food: My mums Friday night dinner – chicken soup, chopped liver, roast chicken – then my granny’s strawberry pavlova for dessert! Pets: Jasper – Jasper is king! (tea cup yorkie)

Star sign: Virgo

Questions

Scarletz… why the name and why does it suit you?

Claire: We are called The Scarletz because we are influenced by bands such as Madness and The Specials, we love Ska music.

Bryony: and it sounds good

Tahnee: and our lushes red lip stick of course!

What is the first track on your iPod?

Bryony: Ace Of Base, I think its one of the bad ones though.

Kat: Ace of Base “Angel Eyes”

Claire: I actually don’t have an ipod at the moment, can you believe that! No travel music for me.

Tahnee: Aswad – “Shine like a Star” – and us Scarletz have a lovely cover of it!

How did you meet and form as a band?

Claire: Katiya and I met around 6 years ago at a showcase and started writing together then we found the other 2 wandering the streets of London….

Tahnee: They coaxed me from captain hook

What are the pressures of being in the music industry?

Tahnee: I guess the biggest pressure is that nothing is ever, ever certain or guaranteed, everything we do is a big gamble – hopefully we will roll some sixes soon and our hard work will pay off

Claire: for me the biggest pressure is the fight we have to keep ourselves unique and stay true to what we believe in as a band. As we are 4 girls we come under the “girl band” title and people have a certain stereotype for how a girl band should be, what they should dress like and what songs they should sing. People just can’t get their head around us and we are always being told to dress sexier and change our style of music but it’s just not us.

Every band has different personalities; can you describe what each one of you is like?

Tahnee : Bryony is a shy, mysterious Easter bunny, with brains for Britain.

Bryony: Claire is a firey, sexy, red head with a naughty sense of humor

Katiya: Tahnee is bubbly, energetic a tad squeaky but we love her for it

Claire: Katiya is the funniest person I know she has us all in stitches, talented, a fighter but is also very caring and is always there for you.

What do you want from a celebrity life?

Claire: I don’t think our goal is really to have a celebrity.

Kat: Respect for having a genuine talent and of course my castle on the hill.

Tahnee – Brad Pitt????

Bryony: An indoor swimming pool would be nice…

Claire: any kind of house that would have the room for a swimming pool would be mighty fine!

What/Who are your main musical influences?

Claire: As a band we are influenced Madness, The Specials, All Saints

Where do you see yourself in 5 years time?

Tahnee: on a world tour – Scarletzing the universe

Have you ever been tempted to go on X Factor, Individually or as a band?

Tahnee: I really think x factor is great platform for talented people that don’t know how to use there talent, but we are for strong headed song writers – and I reckon we would give Simon Cowell a big fat headache.

Bryony: Agreed.

Claire: Girls your going home….

If you couldn’t be in the band, what job do you think you would be doing?

Kat: I would probably be some sort of criminal physiologist or a detective

Tahnee: acting somewhere – westend, hollywood, my bedroom ?

Claire: I’d be an artist, I’m not to bad with the old paint brush!

Bryony: I be a female Perez Hilton writing a celebrity blog.

What is different about The Scarletz from other groups out there at the moment?

Claire: we write our own music

Tahnee : we are pioneers of quirky pop

How much time did you have to put in to succeed? What sacrifices did you have to make?

Tahnee: apparently to succeed in this business you have to sacrifices your soul, so I guess we are screwed! but really it is a lotta lotta hard work and you have to sacrifice a lot of your time with loved ones – I missed my brothers 21st !

Bryony: I was dumped!

Claire: also we are doing all this ourselves, theirs so much work you have to put in behind the scenes that people don’t realize so you are sacrificing so much time. Even when we are not together we are still doing something Scarletz relating. It’s a 24/7 job but we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t love it!!

What celebs do you have on your mobile?

Kat: Saul and Will from Chase & Status, Matt from Pigeon Detectives, Hunter from the Gladiators, Professor Green, and wait for it Ben Adams from A1

Claire: what about Mikey Graham?

Tahnee - Andrew stone from Starman.!! ahhhhhh !!

Bryony: Chesney Hawkes.

Do you write your own songs (lyrics and music)?

Claire: we write our own lyrics and melodies then normally we find a producer to make some music for them. Sometimes producers send us music and loops and we will write a song over them and other times we will start a song from fresh with a producer and write the whole thing together…co-write.

Bryony: We’ve all been writing songs since we were knee-high to grasshoppers!

Who is the most addicted to Facebook and Twitter?

Kat: twitter by far, as soon as you tweet some you get so many tweets back then you have to reply and it never ends

Claire: Katiya had to take some time out of twitter it was taking over her life lol! I got addicted to Farmville on facebook eeek!

If I send a message to Scarletz on Twitter, who will I be speaking too?

Claire: we all go on The Scarletz twitter. Our fans have learnt to tell who’s tweeting…its a bit freaky I’d send a tweet and then I get messages saying ‘hi Claire’ how do they know?

How supportive have your family and friends been?

Claire: I think most people find it hard to get there head around us putting so much work into the band but getting paid very little. I think my mum would like me to be in a job that’s stable and give her loads of grandchildren ha ha! My sister Louise and her husband Aidan are brilliant though they are part of the team!!!

Bryony: I’m very lucky- my family are very supportive.

If you could perform a collaboration with anybody, who would it be and why?

Kat: as a band I would like to do a co-lab with Plan B and if I had a chance to I would defo collaborate with Britters (Britney Spears)

Claire: I think a collab with Madness would be amazing!!!

Who are you working with at the moment?

Kat: The Thunderkatz and Chesney Hawkes

You were a very popular choice in our Battle of the Girls article, what does the support mean to you?

Kat: it means the world to us if we didn’t have the support we couldn’t continue we love all our fans and hope they stay with us for the long haul

How did you manage to build up such a loyal base?

Kat: mainly talking to everyone on twitter and facebook and at gigs there is nothing better then having that real connection with your followers

Claire: We also did a 3 month school tour, which was allot of fun and got us loads of new fans. One school mobbed us lol!

What message would you like to give to your fans?

Kat: keep supporting us and we will support you back by being the best girl band in town, I mean the world x

Tahnee: however happy we make you I guarantee your support makes us ten times happier! Couldn’t do it without you x

Claire: MWAH xxx