 from Flames of Durga. What didn't make me pick up the guitar? I mean music is my medicine and guitar is my vehicle for my songwriting and that release that I don't get anywhere else but with my guitar and my music. So Flames of Durga pulls from so many different genres, anything from heavy rock, metal, punk, grunge, some blues and I have so many inspirations from guitarists anywhere from Jimi Hendrix, Jimi Page, Zack Wilde, I love Black Sabbath, the Bleach album, Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, that album really honestly changed my life. It also was an obsession of mine when I was forming Flames of Durga so I know some of that came through when I really started to focus on electric guitar from my acoustic roots. In terms of my influences and inspirations I always have to give it up for the badass women, the pioneers, that really helped pave the way for younger ladies like myself. Donita Sparks, Susie Gardner of L7, Joan Jett, Lita Ford, they're some of my heroes for sure. Flames of Durga was this inevitable brainchild formed by me and my twin sister Cecilia and originally the catalyst that made us finally start a band was a crazy car accident that we went through and we lived through it and we were beat up man and it really showed us our mortality and how fleeting life is and how passionate we were about the need to share our music with the world so that was the big initial push that we needed but we grew up writing songs together throughout our childhood and playing different instruments but I have to say the guitar is definitely my favorite and yeah playing in a band with my sibling is might seem unique and different to other people but it's so natural for me and it's it's just I don't have to think about it we just sync up with each other you know there's this definitely they talk about telepathic twin stuff that definitely happens I mean that happens you know in bands with people you play with already right but it's just such a natural expression creatively for us to play music together and perform and get wild and crazy on stage together the bond we have is definitely you can see it I guess in our performance James six oh six combo is such a bitching amp it sounds huge it gives me that awesome feedback and sustain that I love so much I love cranking up the gain personally and it's amazing how lightweight it is I can actually carry the amp in one hand and my guitar in the other so that's a first and it doesn't take up much room in the van I love it it's great for the road it worked awesome on our last tour and it was the longest tour yet that I've ever been on that whole month it had my back and really had a lot of fun with it yes so I actually get a lot of my tone from this amp I don't have a crazy pedal setup I look for a lot of gain that dirty crunchy sound I love that dirty rock and roll sound that's that's a lot of what I look for in this band especially being a three piece and being the only guitarist in the band I like to have that wide spectrum of that full well rounded rhythm licks and also that nice crunchy soloing loud sustaining tone that I like as well so I definitely get all of that with the st. James 6L6 oh man growing up in LA has definitely been not boring that's for sure and full of such a cultural melting pot and I've been really lucky to just be exposed to so many amazing musicians from all over the world that come here but growing up you know well before I was ever in a band or serious about starting a band I was going to shows and I was getting so much of that like teenage angst out before I was rocking out on stage I was rocking out with my sister in the crowd I'm going to punk shows metal shows hardcore shows and it was it was the best it gave us life it gave us that sense of release and that connection to the performers on stage yeah as teenagers in LA I remember my sis and I and our friends we were always going to Hollywood and the sunset strip we grew up in Silver Lake so it's pretty close by just a quick little bus right away at the time and we went to venues like the key club on the sunset strip we saw so many epic shows there and just had the time of our lives I remember there was a specific show and it was on our birthday too and I remember thinking man this is the funnest night this has been the funnest night of my life yet and that was such an awesome feeling so anyways the the key club on the sunset strip was super fun the knitting factory in Hollywood also local venues that I miss like the satellite and Silver Lake we grew up you know only like five minutes away from that place so really sad to see cool places like that not make it through the COVID times but it is great to see the ones that have been able to pull through the Redwood bar I really like in downtown the Echo is always a great staple of the LA music scene you know one of the things that I didn't see a lot in LA growing up in the music scene was very many females getting on stage especially with an instrument and especially in the rock scene and the heavier genres in general so now I'm finally starting to see more and more fellow women or women identified getting up there on stage and really owning their power and joining the boys so I'm really excited to see more women getting up on stage and rocking out and honing their craft and supporting each other along the way too yeah when using the St. James 606 I am obsessed with the gain the with channel two I like it dirty you know I like that crunchy dirty rock and when I want that boost I just use the voice to and I don't even necessarily need a fuzz pedal when I use this amp because I get so much of that awesome dirty crunchy tone that I love so much and it also works great with my SG here I don't really use the clean channel don't need it in Flames of Durga you know it's dirty it's loud I've got a loud drummer thumping away my sis on bass ripping it so I have fun with that gain and channel two yeah so Flames of Durga has our first full-length album coming out a self-titled album we've got an exclusive vinyl release coming out later this summer and then shortly after that we're gonna do a digital release we have the opportunity to record our first full-length album at Rancho de la Luna in Joshua Tree and wow what an honor let me tell you that place it has so much history so many incredible records have been made there I was just humbled and honored to get the opportunity to record even to just record a song but we recorded 10 songs there to work with Dave Ketching too he is just such a legendary musician you know he's been in projects like Queens of the Stone Age Eagles of Death battle he's in Mojave Lords earthlings and he's just such an amazing guitar player and wizard and and also just a really cool dude really awesome human being and so easygoing and fun we had a fucking blast there recording guitars with him was so epic I was just in a kid in a candy store it was a playground for me I brought my babies of course but he also let me play any of his guitars that I wanted all kinds of beautiful vintage guitars it was honestly a dream come true I'm so excited to to put out this album Flames of Durga has so much to say and we're finally gonna be able to let the world hear it pretty soon so Flames of Durga's self-titled album comes out late summer this year we're super excited we've got a couple videos that we released from singles off the album and then we have another single coming out and we'll have a new video for that one it's called Alpha Woman so we've got a lot of touring coming up and super excited that we're gonna be hitting the UK for the first time ever this September we've got a week over there so I cannot wait to get over there and feel their energy and rock out and show them what we're all about and yeah we're super excited to do more touring in general we want to go everywhere thanks for watching you guys you can find Flames of Durga online everywhere at Flames of Durga