The Aces (Alisa Ramirez, Katie Henderson, Cristal Ramirez and McKenna Petty) joined COIN on tour and we had a chat with our favourite female rock band. After performing a brilliant set with songs from their EP and unreleased ones, we spoke to them about their upcoming debut album, Volcanic Love and bad dates!
Photo by: Tyler Griffin
Your debut album When My Heart Felt Volcanic is coming out soon, tell me a bit about the process of making it
Alisa: It was really fun! We started making it - I’d say the oldest song on the record is 3 and a half years old because we started doing writing sessions a really long time ago. It was this journey in discovering our sound because its our debut album. The first album is your life’s work, its your very first baby. So yeah, its been really fun to make and its just been a journey of a lot of experiences
Is there anyone in terms of artists that inspired your sound?
Cristal: I mean there’s a lot of hip-hop references like The Weeknd, and Paramore is a big one, Drake is also a big one
Katie: a lot of 80’s music
Cristal: I think that’s also from our childhoods growing up, we listened to a lot of 80’s music all of us but yeah, I think that you’ll hear a lot of different things
Can you tell me the story behind Lovin is Bible
Cristal: Yeah, Lovin is Bible is actually quite an interesting track off the record, we wanted to play with the idea of religion
Alisa: ‘Cause we’re all raised religious but its kind of interesting, like that song was inspired by the first lyric which is, 'you know I’m not religious but your loving is bible’ That was just something we said one night when we were all hanging out, like ‘oh that would be kind of tight if it were a song'
Cristal: Our friend in LA thought it would also be sick for a song so we took it in the studio and played with it. It switches perspective in the second verse, it opposes it where its like ‘I know you’re not religious but this loving is bible’ The overall message and feel is just us trying to lead our lives over any opinion or belief or any differences between us four or anything. Why our band has stayed together for over 10 years is because we just really love each other and we can see past any differences we have and I think that love should be the religion
Alisa: All you need is love!
You put out Volcanic Love and you said its one of the most special songs on the album, tell me a bit about it
Cristal: It's really special because its the first song we wrote that we felt like for the album was The Aces. We were really trying to find our sound and working with a ton of different producers and it wasn’t until that song that it was a complete breakthrough for us and it really felt like ‘okay, we’re onto something’ and that’s what kicked off the rest of the songs for the album
And the video is inspired by movies, how did that concept come about?
Alicia: Honestly, I’m a big fan of Frank Ocean and his nineties video pays homage to some really cool movies, like some of my favourites like American Beauty and stuff. That got us thinking when we were writing the treatment to kind of do the same thing. We had a lot of directors pitching treatments and we didn’t like any of them and we’re very hands on with what we do so its hard in a situation where we’d have to give a director full creative control cause we all have a vision
McKenna: We chose all of our favourite movies that represented volcanic loves and it was cool to reenact those cause they all have that similar theme throughout which is what the song is about too
You put the video out on Valentine's Day, what’s the worst date you’ve ever been on?
Cristal: Oh, it was like prom in high school and it was really not fun. The guy I went with was a little jock-y and douche-y and when I made it clear that I wasn’t going to kiss him he got offended and I just went home early
Katie: I went on a date with this guy, we were so polar opposite human beings, its crazy but it was whatever and we went to the Lego movie. I had a great time, it was really entertaining but the whole date like you could tell we had nothing in common and it was painful to get through
McKenna: Mine is; I went on this date, we went to get pizza and then he wanted to hang more but I just wanted to get it over with so I took him on this quick hike and at the top he literally pulled out a hammock and I was like ‘wait, where did that come from?’ Like a full on hammock and he set it up and he lays in it and he’s like ‘come on, come sit down!’ I was literally wriggled into this hammock, I was so spooked by him and he was taking polaroid pictures, I was suffocating and I just stood up at one point like ‘I gotta go home!’
Alisa: I’ve actually been pretty lucky, like all the dates I’ve been on have been fun, even if I didn’t like the person I at least had a good time. I feel bad calling it a bad date because he’s such a sweet little angel but this one date I was genuinely forced on. It was the type of thing where I was home on a Monday night in my pyjamas watching TV, not expecting anything and I get a knock on the door. I go open it and its this kid who’s like 3 years younger than me, super sweet but really nerdy and shy kid and our neighbour who’s like an adult, he’s like ‘hey Alisa some of the guys in the neighbourhood from the high school want to do a group date, would you go with him?’ Like on the spot, it was so bananas! I turn around and my mom’s like ‘go go!’ I went to change and went and he couldn’t speak a word to me, I just tried to make it fun for him at that point like you are so shy!
Who are some of your favourite female artists at the moment?
Alisa: SZA, I love SZA!
Cristal: Honestly, always I would say Paramore but I really love Hayley Williams she’s one of my favourites
Katie: Dua Lipa, I like her voice a lot
Alisa: We can’t forget our girl Kehlani!
Cristal: Oh my gosh! I literally just tweeted her, there’s nothing she would do that I wouldn’t be obsessed with, I just love her
Who’s an artist you’d want to work with?
McKenna: Tame Impala
Cristal: Kehlani or Rihanna
Alisa: Like a dream remix would be Tame Impala or if Calvin Harris did something, Bruno Mars
Listen to The Aces HERE