Soluna News

Latin sensations Soluna--America Olivo, Aurora Rodriguez, Jessica Castellanos, and T. Lopez--aren't your typical pop princesses. Sure, they dance, wear flashy outfits, and are pretty easy on the eyes, but they also write their own songs, freely admit they're musical theater geeks, and place more importance on a good sound system than on good stylists or makeup artists. Most importantly, with fabulous four-part harmonies like theirs, you will never, ever catch them lip-synching!

When executive editor Dave DiMartino recently met with America and Aurora at LAUNCH's headquarters in Santa Monica, California, he seemed to find their candor and originality refreshing, and understandably so: Few of today's baby divas would admit to wearing thick-rimmed glasses and "bad curly '80s hair" before being made over by their record label, and even fewer could claim to have studied at prestigious academies like Julliard and Cal Arts, as these talented young girls did. Here's what these girls had to say about their unique niche in the mainstream pop world:

LAUNCH: Think back to the first time you sang in front of a live audience. What was that like?

AURORA: The first time I sang in front of people I remember really clear, because my father forced me onstage--to sing "La Bamba." And it was the most embarrassing thing I have ever done. I wore a white dress with a little rainbow sash around me and my sister was in the background playing air guitar and singing background, and it was almost traumatizing. But then when I came offstage, I realized that I loved to sing, and I had so much fun looking back on it.

AMERICA: Actually, I started performing in a community theater in a city called Hidden Hills out here, outside of L.A. My mom was involved and I was just about 4, and I was playing a turtle or something. I just remember the feeling; I love being in costume, I love the feeling of being in a group of people. That's why I'm in a group now. I love being in a theater group--something where you just get to do the same show, get to know the people, get to play with it, get into costume, get dressed up. There's just this nostalgic smell to the stage or something...it's just nostalgic for me.

LAUNCH: Who were you emulating as a child?

AURORA: When I was young, I so looked up to Whitney Houston--I would lip-synch to her. And of course, Mariah Carey. I always liked jazz, like Ella Fitzgerald, and I was always into musical theatre, so I would put on my Les Miz or Cats, something fun, and I would act it out there in the living room.

AMERICA: I didn't have a tape-cassette player for a while. I just had those little records. I had Barbra [Streisand] and I had Harry Belafonte, and I just listened to them over and over again. And I love that Barbra got to be in movies and she got dress up and do everything; she got to do Broadway-style singing. That's sort of what inspired me as a kid, like musical theater and musicals.

LAUNCH: So you grew up listening to "Day-O" and things like that?

AMERICA: Yeah, and I'd go to, like, all his concerts every year. I'd find him somewhere. I think I was the only one under 80 that knew all the words and knew all the words and sat in the front row. It's terrible. But yes, I love him.

LAUNCH: America, I know you went to Julliard. But you're so young...did you ever work before this?

AMERICA: Actually, Aurora and I both graduated from high school early. I graduated at 16, and then she and I met at a school called Cal Arts in Valencia [California], where we sort of got a start on learning music at a college level. And I was able to go to a lot of schools and graduate early, and in '98, right after I graduated, I came back out here. I called Aurora, and we were taking musical theater auditions, 'cause that was sort of both of our geeky backgrounds that we don't talk about too often. But we were going on auditions and everything, and somebody that knew Jessica called her up one day and we all met up in a house somewhere and...I don't know, I'm totally going off on a tangent.

LAUNCH: Did you then do some crummy jobs?

AMERICA: Oh, that's what you're trying to get at. I've definitely done some crummy jobs: I've scooped ice cream, done data entry, and I worked Subway. My parents actually ran Subway when I was up in Tahoe, so I had to get up at 6 a.m. when no one else was working and work at Subway. And everyone and everything smelled like cold cuts for about a year. It was terrible. But no, fortunately I never had to struggle; I was very lucky to meet the girls right after college, and when you're in college you kind of live off of those loans, which I'm still paying off. I met the girls, and it's been pretty cool But I've had some embarrassing uniforms!

LAUNCH: Aurora, before Soluna happened, what were you doing?

AURORA: I was actually going to school. I actually met America when we were in school, when we were 16 years old, and then she went off to Julliard and I went to a couple of different schools. I went to UCLA and I was looking for job at UCLA, still studying music, music theory, stuff like that. And as I was looking for a job there--that's how I met Jessica. That's kind of how our group came together. So I was kind of looking for a job, and I found the greatest job I ever had.

LAUNCH: Tell me about the first time you performed as Soluna.

AMERICA: Well, it's interesting, because Jessica, Aurora, and I knew each other before we knew T., so we were experimenting with other names and doing weird jobs where we sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" at the L.A. Coliseum. We had our little outfits we put together and we had these little arrangements and they put us up on the big screen to sing and they had the big explosions at the climax to the song, and then right after the song was done, we nailed that last note and there was just this silence over the crowd. It was our first big audience, and then this one guy came out and said, "Take it off!" And they all started going, "Take it off, take it off!" That's when we realized we were at the Super Motocross, so which I guess is why there was that sort of vibe. But then we met T. and she sort of whipped us into shape. We became Soluna when T. joined the group, and the first performance as Soluna was after we actually went in to record the album right away. We were in the studio for quite sometime just doing the album.

AURORA: The first time that we all four performed together, it was kind of magical. Actually, the first time we sang together was just sitting in a room; we sang "Killing Me Softly," the Roberta Flack song, and we all kind of broke out in our own harmony, which is what we really love to do. And it was like this sound that happened, like this different other voice that happened besides our four voices that kind of came out, and we were like, "We love this, we want to do this!" And so the first time we actually got onstage and performed together, we totally threw stuff together really fast; we were keeping our fingers crossed that we were going to remember our little dance steps, that everything was going to come out right. And it was so beautiful. We were doing "All Out Of Love," an Air Supply cover, and we had section that goes into Spanish. and as soon as we got into Spanish all the people stood up and started clapping. I thought something had happened--I didn't know what had happened, but it was such a good feeling and I really felt like right from the beginning that this was right, that we had found the right combination, and it was exciting.

LAUNCH: How would you like Soluna to be described?

AURORA: That's a good question. I think that I would love for us to be referred to as a vocal group. Because all we're singers first, and all of us are real musicians and we really take the music seriously. We dance and we put on the great costumes and put on a great show, and that's really important, but at the heart of everything our music is the most important thing. So I would want us to be known as a vocal group.

AMERICA: I know that we would like to be known for our harmonies first. We love to sing a cappella more than anything. That's something that we feel sets us apart from other groups and other bands out there. So we would like to follow En Vogue's footsteps in being a harmony-based group. And on top of that, adding what is the new standard for groups, which is to put on the performance--the dancing, the songwriting, and all of the other thing the groups are doing. So I think we'd like to be known as a multi-faceted group that has spices of different things--not to be confused with the Spice Girls--but that we all have Latin heritage and that we write songs and we have musical backgrounds and we do harmonies and we dance too. I think we would just not to be categorized in the category of a dancing group that sings over tracks. We don't want to be that.

LAUNCH: I'm glad you said that. Is that something you think you're going to have to fight against--the pre-conceived notions?

AMERICA: We'd be flattered if people think we got signed on our looks--that's kind of cool! But we actually, I think it's important for us to sing a cappella for everyone we meet, because we do want them to know that we're not going to be just singing over tracks and we're not concerned if our hair isn't in place that day or whose lipstick is smearing. We sing a cappella usually at the beginning of the show. We have a recording of Jessica when she was about 4 years old singing in church. It's at the beginning of our album. It's an actual recording--you can hear the little organ in the background trying to follow her, but she's pacing. It's really cute, and we start out the show with that and then the lights come up and we're all grown up now, and we start on this Spanish hymn, a church prayer, and we go into harmony from there. But I think it's as you said: It does come naturally for people to think that we're going to be lip-synching or just trying to do this on image alone. We watch how *NSYNC has really surpassed that boy-band stereotype. We use them as an example a lot, because they were put together and they were the typical formula group--and they admit that--but they were able to just keep going and they reinvented themselves and they surpassed that. And we don't have to excuse ourselves for something like that. We just feel that hopefully if people get to know our music and know that we write and know that we are musical, that hopefully they will see past the preconceived notions.

LAUNCH:How does it make you feel when people think you're just a bunch of pretty faces?

AURORA: When we went in to get our record deal, which was almost three years ago--when we met with DreamWorks--we went in and sang a cappella and played a demo for them. We weren't in makeup from head to toe, we weren't all dressed up. I mean, we tried to look good or whatever, but it wasn't really or focus, and it's never really been our focus. It's fun to have the makeup people and have the hair and the styling and stuff like that, but it's not really a priority for us. The most important thing for us is that we sound good. If we had a performance and it was a choice of having a good sound system or having hair and makeup and wardrobe there, I would rather perform in my sweats and my glasses and sound good, because we're musicians first.

LAUNCH: Finally doing your first album is a big deal for you guys. With that being said, what was the major point that you wanted to prove?

AURORA: When we got together to make the album, I think the main focus that was had was to make great songs and to express ourselves as writers. We wrote or co-wrote almost half of the album. But at the same time, we just wanted great songs, so we worked with producers, we had other songwriters bring songs that we knew we wanted to have. I think the most important thing that we wanted to show was the type of music that we loved and the type of music that we would love to sing and the type of music that we would love to perform. And so great songs was the priority for the album. Some songs that show a little bit of harmony, some songs that show a little bit of Latin flavor. We had similar upbringings and we have similar tastes in music, and so we would all four have to agree on a song, and when we'd come together and write we would all bring our different opinions and ideas together, and it made a really nice mix. The album is actually very positive. A lot of the songs are about love, about hope, and that's just our personalities--we're positive people and we just want to make people happy, and we hope that the songs that we make will give people good memories. They'll learn them and sing them and remember them for their own reasons.

LAUNCH: You are so into music, especially because you studied it--what is the album that changed you life?

AMERICA: Well, from different places in my life I have different things that inspired me. It was musicals, like Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, when I was a kid. It was triggered by Cats; I wanted to be a cat and sing the big ballad at the end of the play. That's why I got into music, I think. But I went on to study other things, and I loved Whitney Houston. I loved her when I was a teenager. I love Judy Garland--I used to sing "Over The Rainbow" growing up, it was just one of my songs. But then it turned into opera when I went to go study at Julliard, and Maria Callas was my new idol, so I could listen to her singing for days.

LAUNCH:It's funny how you making excuses for liking stuff. You don't have to make excuses.

AMERICA: Well, I've been a geek for so long, I'm trying to be "cool" now. And Aurora and I laugh at each other, we both used to have thick-rimmed glasses. You say that it would be hard for us to prove ourselves because of our image--well, we did not walk into DreamWorks like that. We walked in with thick-rimmed glasses! I had, like, bad curly '80s hair, I was still dressed in my suit from Julliard like I dressed like an opera singer every day, and I still had my bun on top of my head. We just looked weird. So we're just trying to get a little hip and we definitely have a little dichotomy to our personalities.

LAUNCH: I think that's cool. I think it's great, actually. I guess one thing I want to ask you both is: You have some songs on your album that you wrote in Spanish. Will a Soluna show with a totally Latin audience be different that one with a mixed audience?

AURORA: That's a really good question, because in the Latin market there is a different style and there's a totally different feeling to the music than there is in the American market. But as time is going on, they're really meshing together in a really nice way. On both ends, the Latin market is a lot more open to American artists and they know the American artists. So I think the cultures are meshing together, and that's kind of what we do. We are aware of the difference, and when we're performing for a Spanish crowd obviously we're going to speak Spanish and we're going to perform songs that we think are more apt for that crowd, but at the same time what we're doing is kind of a mix of both which we think that both crowds can relate to. So I don't think we need to adjust all that much. We can just be ourselves, and we've had a great response in both the English market and the Spanish market.

AMERICA: I think that what we represent is this amalgamation of two different cultures--that it's acceptable. Out here, our teenage public and adults are welcoming all sounds of multicultural music. So I think, strangely enough, one of the Spanish songs on our album, "Luna Mia," which is us and Ozomatli, is a song that is one of the favorites among English-speakers. We find it more popular among English-speakers than Spanish-speakers. And people that speak Spanish tend to like more of our English songs. We do recognize that there is this crossover, people wanting to open up to this different sounds. In Europe, it never mattered that things are in other languages, so I think that people here are starting to open up to other things. So our shows are always bilingual, and we do every know and then add another Spanish song if it's a Spanish audience. Every now and then we'll change it up if it's a bilingual audience, but for the most part it's a bilingual show, whatever song fits in the show and we feel like singing is how it goes.

AURORA: See, my dad was born in Puerto Rico, my mom was born in New York, and I was born in Brooklyn too. I was raised out here in the United States. We were all raised in the United States but we all have Latin heritage, and I think the cool thing about that is that here in the United States, there's a whole new generation of Latin people who have been raised on rock 'n' roll, raised on American pop music, but who still have their roots, still have their Latin heritage that they draw back on and appreciate. So I think we kind of represent a new culture here in the United States.

LAUNCH: It's kind of neat to have the best of both worlds.

AMERICA: Yeah, yeah, it's great. Also, everybody in the English audiences seems to understand what we're saying. Even though we're singing in Spanish, 'cause I think it's such a passionate language that it comes across in anything you sing. Having studied singing other languages in opera as well--in German and French and everything--passionate music just translates through, no matter what language you're speaking.

LAUNCH: I didn't realize you had three years of trying to put this record together--what's going to be the indicator that you finally "made it"?

AURORA: I think the best feeling that we ever get is watching other people sing our songs back to us. Having little kids call us up--friends that have the album and their kids call up and they sing us all of the lyrics. We have three songs in Spanish, and we have kids that don't speak a word of Spanish sing the songs right back in Spanish to us, with their little phonetic interpretations of it, and that's just the greatest feeling. The we were walking by and somebody that we knew had seen our video and he started doing our dance moves to the music video. And I just felt like Britney Spears for a minute--like, "Yeah, they knew our moves!" That's the coolest feeling, to watch other people enjoy what we made.

AMERICA: There's always new goals, and there isn't a day that passes that I don't feel like I'm doing what I want to do. And every day that we still get to do this, and be in this group and perform as a group, is achieving a goal. So we've just been so happy to do this for as long as we have. If it ended tomorrow, God forbid, we'd be happy just having had the experience. And we don't like to put too much pressure on what would happen, because it is a fickle business. As long as we enjoy every day and enjoy what we're doing, we win--we've reached our goal. And our goal is to do this for as long as we possibly can and to pay our rent doing it and have a good time. Whatever else comes is just a bonus.

AURORA: Every step we've gone through has been an accomplishment. We got together, and that was great. We got our record deal, and that was great. Every performance we have, if it's a success, then we've accomplished something. It's hard to look way into the future, into like money or Grammys or all those kinds of things. I think the greatest thing for me personally would be to just walk into a grocery store at 2 in the morning in my pajamas and hear someone singing our song. Something really random like that. I think if that ever happened, I'd think, "That's it, we made it, we can retire!" You know, just to know that something that you did has become part of the mass culture and it's bringing other people some kind happiness or fun or whatever, I think that's the ultimate success.