When is a bass player not a bass player? In the case of Alice ABomb it’s when she’s Snow White or the eldritch horror known as The Dredge from Dead By Daylight, or one of many other characters in the world of cosplay. Gary Trueman chatted to Alice about her continuing musical influences, the joys of the cosplay universe and also where its limitations are.
First up let’s talk about music. You’re known for playing in punk, pop punk and rock bands but what got you into music in the first place?
“I was brought up on Queen and The Beatles and stuff like that and then when I got a bit older and got to have my own choice of music I actually really got into Eminem. I adored him. Then I got into McFly and the 5,6,7,8s, and then My Chemical Romance. It all went a bit weird after that.”
And what about later influences, who influences what you’re doing now?
“Writing now I find 21 Pilots a big influence. My Chemical Romance who I’ve already mentioned. Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of Girl In Red, I love her vibe much.”
You play bass guitar predominantly although you also play guitar. So what drew you to that instrument?
“I actually started out on guitar. They offered guitar lessons at my school when I was five or six and I pretty much came home and said I want to learn that. So I was learning guitar and then when I was older and was looking for a band I found one looking for a bassist, and thought how hard can it be? Naively I assumed it would be pretty much the same instrument and so somehow managed to blag my way into a band. So then I had to learn how to play bass and discovered that it’s an entirely different instrument. I do prefer playing bass. There’s something about it that just clicked. I find it a lot more fun to play, a lot more freeing.”
There’s more groove isn’t there?
“Yeah, there’s less pressure on it. If you’re a lead guitarist and you’re doing a solo and you mess up, everyone notices. Whereas if you mess up the bass line you can blame the drummer. if in doubt blame the drummer!”
Over a period of time you’ve played for quite a lot of bands. Is there a single reason for you moving on or different reasons for each band?
“The reasons are different for each band. I do believe bands have shelf lives and so do musicians from the point of view of where you are in your life and if it fits. Sometimes it gets to the point where the band just doesn’t fit, so you could either keep dragging it out making it a horrible experience, or you can move on. There are older bands today still going and they should have retired years ago. So you either risk becoming that or you do something fresh and new.”
Are there any bands you have played for that you’d like to give a shout out to?
“Oooh, Loz Campbell, Lady Rage, both are awesome. My current band, Bitchin Hour, we are glitter infused angry rock.”
The music scene has changed a lot from when you started playing. It’s a lot easier to write and record now but it’s a lot harder to actually make a living from it.
“Music has become a very interesting landscape where you’re not getting into it now for fame and fortune you’re getting into it because you love it. So you’ve got people doing it for the right reasons, but they go into it expecting to have to have a side job. These day labels want you to go viral before they’ll give you a chance and you can’t force something to go viral, or predict what will go viral. Trying to chase that is chasing the unobtainable.”
We also need to talk about your other passion which is cosplay. How did you get into that?
“One of my best friends from when I was about ten is really into Anime and Pokemon, and video games and stuff like that. One day when we were about 14 she said I’ve about this thing called Comicon where people go and dress up as characters and it sounds like fun. So we talked about it for a couple of years and then when we were 16 we said lets go for it. So we looked at characters we wanted to dress as, and it’s just gone very wrong from there haha! It became an obsession.”
There seems to be two distinct cosplay types. Those of animated characters and those of, if you like, real life characters. Are there any distinctions within the cosplay community in how those are played? Can you take more or less liberties with one or the other?
“If you’re cosplaying an animated character one of the very first lessons I learned is that you’re never going to look like an animated character because of proportions and physics generally. This affects how a cosplay works, how it moves.”
You can’t really be a Transformer?
“Exactly, you can definitely get the outfit right but…. I’ve seen people that have had cosplays with moving parts which are absolutely insane, but there are obviously limits. For example my Dredge cosplay is actually made of smoke, and he’s got these dolls that kind of flop out of him. When I was creating that cosplay I was going more for the vibe of it by having floaty material to give the effect of smoke. So you do have to work with reality. If it’s an actual person you’re playing it’s a bit easier, because they’re already had to make it work somehow.”
Talk us through a Comicon convention. And you do get specific conventions too don’t you? Star Trek and Star Wars conventions for example. What happens? Are prizes given out for the best outfits?
“Yes there are generally some competitions. The standards vary. You get different categories with people entering it for fun and you can have professional cosplayers who have put a lot of money in and get paid to appear at conventions, which is incredible.”
Presumably you also get professional cosplay out manufacturers too do you?
“You do yes. You get people who will specifically tailor a cosplay for you and make it by hand. A friend of mine loves cosplaying as Disney princesses and he works with seamstresses who will tailor an outfit to suit his proportions. Disney princesses have impossibly thin waists, and are generally quite large chested, and he’s flat chested with no waist. He gets the dresses tailored to his body and to make him look good.”
What is your favourite character to play?
“I would say Belle from Beauty And The Beast is probably my favourite character to play just because of the reaction I get. It’s fun being a Disney Princess and lovely interacting with kids. To them you are a princess.”
Have you got any funny convention memories where maybe someone slips out of character?
“You do see some incredible moments. I’ve seen people who do some mash up cosplays. In an early group I was in we tried to mash up Sailor Moon and Death Note. They are two completely polar opposite Anime. It was an interesting look.”
Have you ever mixed both worlds by cosplaying a famous musician?
“I have done some musician cosplays. I cosplayed as Lindsey Way from Mindless Self Indulgence because her outfit was already similar to a lot of clothes I already own. I’ve also cosplayed as Danny Sexbang from Ninja Sex Party. He wears a lycra jumpsuit and a cape.”
Presumably you tend to make your own costumes? What sort of material do you go for, comfort or image, does that restrict you in any way?
“I do make my own. I work with an insane variation of fabrics and materials. For example with Snow White I made that out of upholstery fabric which is really stiff, and that affects my movement when wearing it. It looks beautiful but I can’t lift my arms up in it. When I was making Dredge and I was working out how to do it, there’s a mixture of wire mesh in that costume to give it shape, and there’s a lot of hot glue that was used too. There’s a lot of hot glue in a lot of my cosplays.”
Do you get uber nerds at cosplay events telling you what you’ve got wrong?
“Generally everyone at a Con is lovely and are excited to see their favourite characters in real life. But you will still get someone who will try to suck the fun out of it. A friend of mine was cosplaying as Emilie Autumn. She had an old violin she had got as a child which was a cheap one she was never going to use again, it was broken and couldn’t be fixed, so she painted it white to use as a prop. This one girl stopped her and was like what have you done to that violin! She gave her absolute hell for it. It was like – just go away!”
What are your aspirations both musically and cosplay wise?
“Musically, world domination of course, with Bitchin Hour we are working on our second album at the moment. We’ve also got a charity raffle we’re running at the moment to take place in April where we will donate the proceeds to domestic violence charities. We are very vocal about the need to stop domestic violence and sexual assault. We are also doing a thing called Safety Is Bitchin which is a movement we started where we’ve teamed up with Drink Safe UK. We offer venues a discount code for drinks covers they can give out for free at gigs to stop drink spiking. So that’s music, in terms of cosplay I want to go bigger and more insane. The next cosplay I want to do is Lucifer from Has Been Hotel. He has wings, so I’m going to have to figure out how I’m going to make six angelic wings.”
You’re pretty well recognised and have a good online following, so have you got anything you’d like to say to those people?
“Yes, Hello! Be excellent to each other and party on dudes!”
Alice Abomb (Alice Makes Stuff Go Boom) – Facebook
Interview and photos by Gary Trueman