ZYZXX Fanzine
Interview by Jen Hitchcock
Summer Issue 1996
It all started with an itsy-bitsy little fan letter I wrote to a band I had seen for the first time at Strobe magazine’s first year anniversary show. I had heard their name before and even blindly purchased a seven inch of theirs which I liked, but it wasn’t until seeing them play that night that I was completely taken by the fire and passion of Lava Diva.
Their music perfectly combines dissonance with melody taking many distinct, odd melodic phrases and mixing in just enough hard, edgy rock. All woven together it forms a sound with a strange beautiful feel that walks along the diverse and fragile edges of human states of being.
Bud had I known that putting pen to paper and sending a written token of my affection would be hanging over my head years later as a constant reminder of my geekiness and source for random ribbing from vocalist/guitarist Dawn Fintor, bassist Johnny Sabella, and drummer Greg Bernath I would have wrote it under my pseudonym—Buck Sanders.
All joking aside, Lava Diva is a band whose music as well as the folk who created it, have become and important part of my life. I feel truly blessed to not only be able to listen to their music, but to have the chance to witness the creative process behind it—from spark to flame. Not everyone has the opportunity to get to experience this with their favorite band and I hold this near and ear to my (splittin’) heart.
Although their haunting, dynamic songs tend to touch upon and explore the darker shadows of human nature and life- the energy surrounding Johnny, Greg and Dawn is very much different. They tend to take their fans under their wings and nurture and encourage all around them to be creative and not be afraid to be who you are. Their integrity and unwillingness to alter their vision is an inspiration to all who create.
This is especially evident in the fact that they recently turned down a record deal with independent label Unity Records because of big promises made in the wine and dine process that mysteriously began to fly out the window when the contract hit the table. Ahhh, such is the biz. Karma prevails though, because they are now in the studio recording their first CD, label or no label, thanks to Patrick Lydon a producer, friend and firm believer in the strength of their music.
Nestled in a comfy living room in the Los Feliz hills, I sat with Lava Diva and finally did the interview I have been wanting to do for almost a year. Here we talked a little bit about how it feels to be in the studio, how it feels to play out of town, and how it feels to be Lava Diva…
JEN: First things first, are you ever going to stop humbling me by reminding me that I wrote you a fan letter?
DAWN: I’m not. Never. You know why? If you become a big fancy writer and you’re writing for all the magazines and your head gets really big, I’m going to call you up and go “Remember you wrote us a fan letter?”
JEN: Great. But hey, what makes for a BIG FANCY writer?
DAWN: Big. Fancy. Make lots of money. You hang with Madonna and stuff. You won’t have time for us.
JEN: Madonna will be ninety by then and I won’t want to hang out with her. Have you ever gotten any other fan letters?
GREG: From the Bakersfield guy…
JOHNNY: (Endearingly) Awwwww…. We might have gotten more but we lost our P.O. box with all our mail in it.
JEN: Why did you lose it?
GREG: We forgot to pay for it. None of us went…
JEN: So what if you had other fan letters in there?!!
JOHNNY: If we did then we apologize to all those people that wrote us.
JEN: Regarding your CD—after your experience with Unity, how do you feel about now doing it all on your own?
JOHNNY: A good thing is that obviously we basically can do what ever we want. Whose to say that if we went at Unity that they were going to step in our way or not, but there were all these things…They were making huge promises and then saying that they never said it. So it’s nice that the element is still the three of us and there is not this outside entity that we have to worry about.
DAWN: Already we had run into some art work discrepancies. I can imagine what could have happened when it came down to music.
JEN: Is Pat producing it, or are you producing it together with him?
GREG: We’re producing it together.
DAWN: He’s also a mixer and an engineer—he’s doing everything.
JOHNNY: Not only that but he’s coming up with ideas. He’s taking his time with it. That’s the only thing for me that is the bad thing. I would have liked to have had it done already, and we’ll hopefully get it done before the end of the year.
GREG: That would have been an advantage of going with Unity. We would have been done.
DAWN: I don’t know… I would have liked it to be going faster then it’s going now, but I don’t know if having it done is necessarily an advantage. Anything could go either way. With the way it is now, as we go we can listen back and see that we all really like what we’re doing. In other situations you don’t always know how things are going and you have to wait and see how it comes out in the end. Then it might turn out that it was just a bad experience and you’re done- and you’re stuck with it. Who knows, with Unity we could have turned a corner and had it of been something we never imagined, good or bad. So you can’t compare this with what could have happened.
GREG: We definitely don’t regret not being with Unity at all. I think it is a very positive thing.
JEN: What does Lava Diva give you that no other aspect of your life gives you?
GREG: In one hundred words or less?
JOHNNY: For me, I think being able to create something by yourself is incredible. But then being able to create with other people— I’ll show Dawn something and hear what she adds and be like, “Oh my god, that’s fucking brilliant over what I’m playing.” Then Greg adds something and it all just comes together. I think on both those levels, being able to create individually and personally and then also with other people… I don’t think you get that in many other things. Then when we play live, that’s just another element. We could play in the garage for the rest of our lives and never have an audience and we are still creating and growing together but there is obviously something about playing in front of people that is an important part of being in a band. It creates this new energy when the audience is participating and you get to be a part of that audience and they are being a part of you. That’s just another level. So there is the individual level, the band level and the group level. I know nothing else in my life is like that.
GREG: I always liked playing music but I think I get a lot out of this band in particular because I think we work well together. In previous bands I’ve been in there were personality conflicts or there was always something else that impaired the whole musical process and thinking. Up to this point, we seem to be able to get past that and have been able to create stuff.
JOHNNY: Even more than that is that being creative is very, very, very vulnerable. Even if you’re sitting in your closet painting something. In your closet you don’t have to show anyone, but by putting it on canvas you realize somebody can see it and there is a fear of that. So having to be creative in front of people and with people you’re putting a lot out there in order to go ‘this is a part of me’. In this band, not only does it feel safe to do that, but you’re encouraged to do it. I don’t think that any of the three of us can say this band hasn’t helped us grow in that way. I think that is important, the encouragement and feeling safe about that kind of thing. That is important for all three of us individually as people, not even just in the band.
JEN: Definitely. You bring a lot of people into your circle and encourage people -like me- to actually jam, even if the -like me- are playing one little note. I know you made me feel comfortable enough to overcome my all consuming and overwhelming feeling of dorkiness and just do it. Have all of you always been this way or has Lava Diva brought out this side in you?
DAWN: Johnny, for as long as I’ve known her, has always been encouraging to people around her to take chances or to be themselves. I think that brought out the best in me and Greg too. I know that both Greg and I can be really supportive but we both can be kind of negative too. We have our sides to us-we have a self critical side. As a threesome, we’ve balanced each other out. So people who come into our circle feel safe too because we’re safe with each other.
JEN: So what is it like when you play out of town? How is it different?
JOHNNY: To me home is where it’s at. I love L.A. and I love knowing everybody- experiencing things with your friends all at the same time. It’s like a big party every time we play here. There is something about the familiarity, about looking out and knowing people and being able to joke and feel comfortable. Going out, I don’t get that feeling. It’s more like a business feeling. It’s not as personal in terms of- I know what that person is feeling, I know what that person is getting out of it-when you share something. The thing I do love about it is that we get to meet new people and we get to play different places. I love just going out, regardless if we’re playing anywhere. It’s just kind of fun traveling around.
JEN: What are the reactions you get on the road? Do a lot of people come up to you after shows?
GREG: Mixed reactions…
DAWN: When we played at a 21 and over place I didn’t feel like we got a lot of attention. People were just kind of doing their own thing. But a lot of the kids come up. These 14 year olds will come up and say “I’m in a band,” or “I’m really glad to see girls playing because I want to be in a band.” They’re so adorable and so open minded- they’re not tainted yet. But it could differ from show to show. You can have a night where you feel like you’re really well received and then the next night in the same town or the next town people are just like “ewww” or there’s nobody there It’s kind of a lonely feeling- everyone’s strangers. You kind of introduce yourselves to them for the first time and hope they kind of get it.
JOHNNY: We cleared a place out in Bakersfield. The place was packed, we started playing…it was empty.
DAWN: There’s also that part for me that if we’re playing for a group of people that are seeing it for the first time, as I’m playing I kind of am hearing things for the first time. It’s a fresh way of playing because you know the people have never heard you before. It has a fresh energy about it- in a different way. It doesn’t have that warm cozy energy that it has when you’re playing for your friends, where they all know what parts are coming up, they know just when to stop and when to start again…
JEN: When to bang their heads, when to sway and hold up their lighters…
DAWN: …When to flash the metal sign. So it doesn’t have the same feeling but it has a fresh feeling, like an innocence to it which is pretty cool.
JEN: About The Cut (a film documentary being done on several L.A. bands which includes Lava Diva, Mother Tongue, Dashboard Prophets) how is it to have your band being documented?
GREG: The only thing that makes me leery is the idea of being misrepresented. There is a certain amount of trust that we have to put into another person to represent us the way that we intended to be represented.
DAWN: One of the reasons that I think we felt it was well done is because we know Brian from Mother Tongue and some of the people in the documentary and they came off looking very much like themselves. They looked very comfortable, very honest. They didn’t look like they were being misrepresented. If it didn’t have a good vibe to it we wouldn’t have done it.
JEN: All right, this last one is mostly for Greg, since I know your the chef of the band. If Lava Diva was a dish, what ingredients would it include?
GREG: Artichoke hearts.
JOHNNY: Don’t say fish, either!!!
DAWN: It would have lots of red pepper.
GREG: It would be mackerel.
JOHNNY: Don’t put any of that cabbage in it.
JEN: I forgot to ask you before, what did you guys eat on your trips out of town?
JOHNNY: Well, John (their soundguy and good friend) had sausage. I want that for the record.
DAWN: AND bacon.
JEN: He doesn’t normally eat that?
DAWN: He’s Mr. low fat health nut. Poor John, we gave him so much shit, we didn’t even let him enjoy it… They also had the worst coffee in the world at this place We had like nine cups of coffee piled on the table and me and Greg would take sips and be like ‘Nope, this one’s bad too!”.
GREG: We told the waitress to take them back.
JOHNNY: She was like, “That’s Willie’s coffee” and we were like ‘Well damn, get someone else to make the coffee.’ Then she’s like “No, that’s the name brand!”
GREG: it didn’t even taste like coffee. It had a watery dirt taste.
This is where we all begin talking about food. I choose to shut off the tape recorder because some things just should remain off the record.