ssaa10dec
Hello! Let’s get started

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
Yay! Been waiting for this

ssaa10dec
How’s your day going?

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
It’s been fair. Should have been a better morning.

ssaa10dec
Well, I hope this interview helps out with that :D

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
Yeah. My hand hurts though….. Stupid cat

ssaa10dec
So tell me a little about yourself. When did you join Genius?

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
Well, I’m a Cherokee Indian. I try to hide that fact. It’s very strange because normally Indians stick to the old ways and things like that. No one ever heard about an Indian singing rock music… Growing up my biggest influence was rock music. My mother and father sing so does London. But one day while looking up the lyrics to a My Chemical Romance song, I stumbled across the link for Genius. After seeing how nice people were on here, I joined.
So I’ve been on here for over two years I believe. Everyone’s so nice

ssaa10dec
That’s so interesting. I think it’s very unfortunate that Native communities have to deal with stereotypes like that. You said growing up your biggest influence was rock music. Can you share any specific artists or songs that come to your memory?
⛧Pixie Lee⸸
But yeah. Native Americans have it tough. I’m one of the fortunate ones…
But I remember seeing Charlie Daniels in concert when I was about 5. That was pretty cool.
A few years later, I heard my first My Chemical Romance song. It was Teenagers.

ssaa10dec
That’s really cool. I feel like MCR has influenced a lot of people in our generation. Let’s talk about your own music. You write a lot of your stuff. What was the first song you wrote that made you feel like ‘yeah, I can do this and I wanna do this more’?

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
Ah, shoot… the first song that made me do that was um, my entire first album, Death After Life. My cousin died from cancer, and that taught me to open my eyes to see everyone dies. I knew I would die, my family would, and everyone I loved would die. So I started writing songs to express my sadness.
The album itself was short, and I had no clue what I was doing.

ssaa10dec
I’m sorry for your loss.

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
It’s okay. We lost him in 2018.. Buried on Halloween. Not the best day ever.

ssaa10dec
So I was reading some of your lyrics and you write from personal experience as well as by creating a fictional narrative. Which method do you personally prefer?

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
And when I write songs, I create this character (or characters) to tell the story.
But everyone that personally knows me, knows all my album characters are just eras of my life and are diversions of my real life.

ssaa10dec
Do you find it comforting to create those character(s) and in a way distance yourself from the lyrics or is it just purely creative?
⛧Pixie Lee⸸
I mean, like in my second album Life Before Death, I created this character named Chloe. Chloe reflects my life choices on my mental health.
But characters like Jack and Amber from Unnatural Lovers are characters that are entirely made up and have no meaning to me.
But to answer the question, my characters are just creative. I get friends to create the names, while I create the mental characters, then just merge them into one.

ssaa10dec
That’s really cool! Let’s talk about your most popular song on Genius, “Stop Saving Me”. It has over 2.2K views. Why do you think that is? How did you feel when you saw the pageview go up like that.

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
Well, the only reason the views are up so high, is because of a rapper. Apparently he gets high views on most of his songs. But there were some issues with his account, and he isn’t allowed back on that account.
But once I saw the views going up, I was like “Damn. If only I could do this without a feature.”
I thought it was gonna hit 3k, but it didn’t.

ssaa10dec
Hopefully, soon it’ll hit 3K. How was the process of making that song for you? Did you always want a feature on it? How did the collaboration happen?

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
I didn’t know when I started creating that album what a “feature” on it meant. So the rapper asked me if I needed a feature, I said I did, we started talking about it more and more until we had the song written.
It was kind of a scary process on it though… I mean, before him, I had never worked with another person.

ssaa10dec
Well, it seems like it worked out for the best. I really like the lyrics to that song, I think it is very heartfelt. You have explored many themes in your lyrics, what is something you want to write about next specifically in your next project The Deed’s Done?

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
Thanks. While most people write their songs from their brain, I use my heart.
But The Deed’s Done is probably gonna be my “Bloody, gory, horror” album. I’ve always wanted an album like that. But I don’t think I’ll be creating characters in this album. If I do, it’ll be just one.
And once that character’s created, it’ll be another era in my life. So that’s fun. Fingers crossed this one does as good as My Rebellion Starts Now.
And if all my solo stuff works out, and if I can get my brother to stop ignoring me, I’ll get Under The Island started up
ssaa10dec
I am excited for you! In your bio here on Genius, you say, “ I just really like inverted pentagrams/crosses.” Why do you find them so fascinating?

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
Thanks!
But inverted things were a big part of my life when I dated a boy by the name of Lunar Stopa. He wore these clothes with inverted crosses on them, and usually let me borrow them when I stayed at his house.
The pentagram part came a few months after Lunar and I broke up. I was playing a video game, and stumbled across a character called “The Summoner”. Their outfit had inverted pentagrams on it, meaning they summoned demons and things from the pits of hell. So that was pretty cool.
Another reason I like inverted crosses is from my favorite guitarist Jinxx from Black Veil Brides. During the era of Set The World On Fire, the band wore lots of leather with different stud designs on it. Jinxx had the inverted cross stud set on it. While he isn’t satanic (if I’m not mistaken, he’s a Christian), it just made him look amazing.

ssaa10dec
that’s really cool! it is interesting how certain symbols/things just become a part of our aesthetic.
So in terms of Genius, what do you wanna do more of on the website? Down the line do you see yourself becoming an editor or a mediator?

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
I mean, the cross and pentagram were better than the diamond/skull emoji I had.
But to answer that, um, I don’t see myself becoming an editor/mediator. Even though they do have more privileges than contributors, um, it just seems like more work. I’ve gotten offers from different editors, but have turned them down with a heavy heart.
I guess I’m not ready for that yet.

ssaa10dec
So to close it off, I guess I have never really dived into emo/punk rock music. Can you share some recommendations for me and the readers who may want to dip their toes into that genre of music?

⛧Pixie Lee⸸
Ohh I’ve done this before! best part!
If people really wanna dive right into punk music, I recommend Black Veil Brides. CC (their drummer) is very hard-hitting, and everyone else just flows with it. If ya don’t want something with a “roar” (as I put it), Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, My Chemical Romance, Palaye Royale, Green Day, and Ashley Purdy are some good ones.