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Hello my name is Madelin Zero and this is more or less my story. I live in New York City. I moved here seven years ago from Orlando, Florida. Music was a driving force in my life from the beginning and I couldn’t wait to get out of my hometown and move to Manhattan. I was pretty depressed in high school because I felt like I needed to be in a big city… I had an older cousin who was a model. She lived in New York. I was 14 and I used to go stay with her. Everywhere we went, she caused a scene because she was so ridiculously beautiful. She took me everywhere with her and I saw some pretty amazing (and scandalous) things. She partied with insane rockstars and that’s how I ended up singing back-up for Foreigner, Motley Crue and a cool band called Laidlaw. I wasn’t really into metal music. I liked bands like The Sisters of Mercy, Xymox, Ministry, and New Order. I could dance to their grooves and their music had a feeling like their souls were incomplete in some way, longing for something. I related to that feeling.I remember when I first met Nikki Sixx in Los Angeles. He made fun of me…. He was asking Craig from Laidlaw why he brought this little alternative girl to his studio. I had super short hair and was wearing knee socks at the time. I must’ve looked pretty funny to a guy who hung out with porn stars… And then I went into the vocal booth and Nikki heard me sing and he literally ran into the vocal booth going, “Whoa…!!!!†It kind of scared me the way he was running toward me. It was a little bit intimiditating and I did my best to act unimpressed. He told me he hadn’t heard anyone sing like me since his ex-mother-in-law…†He asked me to scream like a gospel singer and I was like, sure… After that, he gave me respect and I still have the personal check he gave me for the session with a skull and cross bones on it. It's like a little souvenir of my first real job as a singer. I also had a signed bass that all of the members of Motley Crue signed for me at their show. It said, “to the girl with the golden voice…†Damn, I was really stupid for hocking it, but I was poor as hell. What do you want, I am an artist and it’s feast or famine here in art-land. That day must of been famine.
I moved to Brooklyn in 1999. My U-haul van rolled into Williamsburg on North 3rd Street on July 4th. My friend WhiteShoes was with me. He was a Swedish Art Director who had a melt down over a girl and had to leave Europe because of his broken and bleeding heart. His parents happened to live in Deland Florida. He came to my show, we hit it off and he offered to drive with me to New York the next week. He was supposed to just help me move and then leave, but he never left. He still lives in Brooklyn somewhere.… He and I went to work immediately putting a band together. It was such a good omen that he was there. I couldn’t have lived without his amazing taste and eye. He completely changed the way I saw and continue to see the world. I think sometimes that he was an angel. The Universe is such a beautiful place and it always sends you who and what you need if you are open to it.
By 2000 I was playing in a lot of clubs around town with my band. Places like Brownies, Arlene Grocery and the Living Room. My band was simply called Madelin Zero. By the way, that’s not my real name. Some people get really freaked out by that. I like that those people identify themselves so I can do everything I can to avoid them. I aim for a Champagne Life baby. Someone has to keep old school glamour alive and it might as well be me and you.
Ok, back to the music…. One night in 2000 I met this quirky producer named Alexander Perls. He wore glasses and sat at the bar looking really out of place in the east village at one of my shows. When my set was done he came up to me and asked me to sing a song he wrote. I am kind of a snob sometimes and I usually don’t sing other people’s music but I really liked his stuff. He had this cool art project in London and was a great songwriter so I made an exception. For a few months I would go to his studio in Chinatown. It was freezing cold and we would have to wait for the Chinese people to stop yelling in the halls in between takes. Among the songs we recorded was “Destroy She Said.†That was the song that changed everything.
In 2002 Ministry of Sound put out a compilation called “This is Tech Pop,†Alexander and I were featured on the compilation as CIRC with up and coming artists like: Fischerspooner, Waldorf, Ladytron and Miss Kittin. I remember so clearly, my friend Rachel Sheedy and I walking into the HMV on 5th Avenue -now a Build-A-Bear (Sigh)- and I saw my own music in a record store. I was touching it like wow… After that, a really awesome boutique label in Berlin (Low Spirit) called and made us an offer to do an album. Before I knew it I was in Berlin filming a video for “Destroy She Said.†Alexander and I really weren’t getting along, which was a buzzkill, but even so, it was a fantastic time. We were emerged in this crazy scene and our videos were all over Mtv. I was out til 4 a.m. every night in Berlin dancing my ass off in clubs. I had male models sending love notes to my hotel room in broken english. It was cute. And I was like, Damn, I never want to leave Germany!!!! And as fate would have it, I didn’t for a couple of years.
In 2003 I got a record deal from an indie label in the United States called Indecent Media. Jurgen, the owner of the label, was living in New York but he was a native German, born in Bavaria. I met with him and he was so cool. I was kind of being a cocky little clown and he thought I was funny. He asked me to do a record on his label. I dug out all my lyric books and headed to Germany, this time to Koln. For two years I wrote Dirty Purple. It was the greatest time in my life. I was in Germany, doing what I loved more than anything in the world. And finally all my lyrics, my life, everything, was being recorded for release. This insane calm energy came over me. At least I could die knowing that I somehow added to the creative energy in the Universe. I love the album Dirty Purple. I hate the album artwork and cover. I was locked in a closet during a hurricane in Florida while it was being designed and it will probably be the last thing that flashes in my head before I die. It may seem petty but I should've left that closet, hurricane or not, and found a way to stop that cover from entering my life…
At about the same time as all this madness was happening, Andre Tanneberger saw me performing live on VIVA in Germany (German VH-1). He told his manager to “find that girl…†So they called me and asked me to write and sing on ATB’s album No Silence. I wrote some song sketches and I took the train from Koln to Bochum and entered the magical world of ATB. His studio was like a spaceship. For the second time in my life (the first time being with Nikki Sixx) my hands were shaking slightly in the vocal booth. Andre kept smiling while I was singing. We did the songs in two takes. He really loved what I was doing and I could tell. He is a true genius. He knows exactly what he wants and he always gets it. We’ve both said that we hope to work together again one day soon.
These days I am back in the States. I write with people from all over the world from my home studio. I love New York. 2007/2008 should be pretty cool because there will be alot of new stuff coming out. Thanks for listening. - Madelin
And a Word to ARTISTS... Please don't post banners about your songs or whatever else. Thank you in advance.
Madelin Zero's Official Site.. width="425" height="350" .. The video for Destroy She Said, shot in Berlin.. width="425" height="350" .. The video for Close Your Eyes, shot in Berlin.. width="425" height="350" .. an animation of Destroy She Said made by a fan
I sang and co-wrote COLLIDES WITH BEAUTY and BLACK NIGHTS with ATB on his album No Silence. We also co-wrote PERFECT DAY TO LOSE together, which was nominated for a grammy in 2005.