Today we’d like to introduce you to Ariel Laporte
Hi Ariel, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My journey with my band Against All Odds began with a drummer and a guitarist searching for a vocalist. Our original drummer was a neighbor of mine that discovered my passion for music. Basically, I was asked to sing anything and as a vocalist a million songs and no songs come to mind in .2 seconds. That was essentially my audition for the band. The last piece of the puzzle was finding a bassist. Thanks to one of my patients, we were able to find one just as quickly as we found me. We have been through a few line-up changes as far as band members go, but I wouldn’t change our story. Being in a band family is tough when everyone has their own life already established. We booked our first gig September of 2021 at Six Springs Tavern, an originals only venue. We were the opening act for touring National Acts. After that, we took off running as fast as we could. At the time we were a young band with great talent and an even better ear for writing music. There were a few stumbles along the way as we lost drummers making it difficult to accomplish recordings and book shows. On my birthday, we finally recorded our first studio single ‘COLD’ at Empire Records and released it early 2023. We have been fortunate enough to be played on Dallas’ very own ‘KNON Reckless Rock Radio’, ‘Manchester Radio’ and featured on several podcasts like ‘Blow Your Brains Out’. Now that our band family is complete with our newest edition, we continue to play shows monthly, released our latest single ‘SAVIOR FROM HELL’, finishing up our album that will be released this year, and planning on mini tours for the upcoming year!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
ABSOLUTELY NOT! Most artist struggle. Keeping a band together is HARD. If you are a musician you know the struggle is VERY real. We have encountered SO many life lessons as a band that I personally never want to go through again, but hey, it makes for great writing material. As stated early, we had a few band member changes due to personal life growth and some who were purley… how do I want to say this without being mean…. difficult to work with! We will leave that subject alone for now! With everyone’s different lifestyles it’s hard to get everyone on the same schedule. We are a four piece band… so that’s four different family lifes, work lifes, personal lifes… that you have to work with. Not to mention I am the only female in our band with a bunch of boys.. sometimes it’s like herding cats, but they are MY CATS and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. Other struggles include but not limited to the chaos of booking shows. We love playing live music but paying to play is, for a lack of a better word, insane at times cause you never know who’s gonna show. We aren’t a National Act, yet, and we try to fill the venues up as much as possible because we know the venue owners have bills to pay and promoters need to eat. You come out paying more of your personal money as a band than making anything… it’s just the name of the game. Sometimes expectations are set, not met, or changed last minute. Sometimes the promoter you get steals, tells you the wrong time, or National Acts change the bill up on you and you show up to the show and have to play immediately without warning so all your fans you sold tickets to don’t see you play because the set time changed. It happens, it sucks, we write songs about it and move on. The struggles will always be there, but we have our music and we have our fans and honestly, that’s all that matters. Putting ourselves out there, creating music that means the world to us, and hopefully to someone else makes us feel connected. As long as someone out there is listening, all the issues that arise along the way, makes it worth it. We have to go through these struggles to grow.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a Dental Hygienist by day and a Rock Star by night! I have a career established but my passion for music never died. I have been in music since I could sing. I am 100% a choir kid which means I never shut up. I sing all day, every day and get music stuck in your head. I am not sorry for it either! If you knew me when I was younger you would know that I wasn’t always brave enough to sing on stage, and if I am being completely honest, I still don’t feel brave, but it’s what I love to do. I feel like my best self when I am singing. I am the lead vocalist and songwriter of a metal/hard rock band called Against All Odds and all I do is write music and sing my heart out. This is going to be so lame, but music is my therapy. Any terrible moment or person in my life gets written into a song. It is what it is. One day I will write a happy song….? I am most proud of our single ‘COLD’. It’s a song close to my heart. We all go through tough moments in our life and I wrote it when I hit bottom. I wrote the melody and lyrics in less than 10 minutes and sent it to my amazing lead guitarist and songwriter, Ben Adams. In equal time he sent the guitar parts back. It was a song that was meant to be. I was shocked when the band chose ‘COLD’ to be our first studio recorded single, just because it’s not a poppy song but it is a beautiful song. Our latest show had me in my feels when everyone was screaming the lyrics on the top of their lungs. That is a moment I will never forget and I will always cherish! What sets us apart from most local artist is that we walk that line between metal and hard rock. With my vocals being melodic and edgy accompanied by Ben’s screams and how the band adds their own twist to the music, you can’t find another band like us out there. We thrive off of creating music and our souls are nourished by performing.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
This is hard because there are so many! Musically speaking, my favorite memory is when my parents introduced me to THEIR music. I am talking about the 70s – 80s era. You name a cassette or record from that era and they most likely had it. I remember getting in trouble frequently for using my bed as my own stage. I’d put on a cassette, grab my hair brush and pretend I was performing in front of a crowd of thousands of people. There was this one memory that I will never forget because I have a scar as a constant reminder. My mom just bought me a compilation CD of Pat Benatar’s greatest hits. I turned up the music as loud as they’d let me, grabbed the closest object to use as a microphone and popped up on my bed. I had my mic in hand and my stage was all set to rock out for my “audience” (a collection of stuffed animals). In mid performance, I threw my mic in the air, it smashed into the glass light fixture above me, and that glass rained all over me. It was spectacular! Of course this made a very loud noise, my parents came running, and blood was gushing down my arm. There was no way I could lie about this one! The proof was the obvious chaos of blood and glass littered around me. Totally ROCK & ROLL!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://againstalloddsmusicllc.my.canva.site/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/against_all_odds_band/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Against.All.Odds.AAO
- Twitter: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5QdcpNoA2LtMDpuQZLi1QA?si=RE2ya0IiRPeOozeARQvnng
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@againstalloddsband
- Yelp: https://music.amazon.com/albums/B0CZDWH7Y2?trackAsin=B0CZDYBQ7H&do=play&ref=dm_sh_G6dCLJCXD3L97wr3RU48xGejv
- Soundcloud: https://aaodallas.bandcamp.com/
- Other: https://linktr.ee/againstalloddsband
Image Credits
Ronnie Blea with rb2photography
Kevin Crawley
Thomas E. Moore
Pheonix Rocks Productions
