Your Iconic Image : When Women Rock : Building a Rock n Roll Brand

My name is Sierra Levesque and my business is under my name (Sierra Levesque Music).

Sierra Levesque is a 17-year-old Rock artist from Pembroke, Ontario, Canada and her goal is to help lead the NEW GENERATION of Rock 'N Roll. Sierra is a singer/songwriter, and she also plays guitar, piano, bass, and drums. Sierra has been described as a combination of Ann and Nancy Wilson, with the powerful voice of Ann and the skilled, catchy guitar playing of Nancy.

Sierra has already gained notoriety from large media outlets, as well as from some powerful figures in the Rock music industry including Nancy Wilson (Heart), Ron 'Bumblefoot' Thal (Sons Of Apollo, Asia, ex Guns 'N Roses), DJ Ashba (SIXX A.M, ex Guns 'N Roses), Desmond Child (Songwriter for Bon Jovi, Joan Jett, KISS), and Mark Slaughter (Slaughter) to name a few.

She hopes to use her original music to provide a voice for those who feel like outsiders, and to re-light the flame of Rock 'N Roll in society today.

Social media accounts: https://linktr.ee/sierralevesquemusic

Website:

www.sierralevesquemusic.com

www.marlanasemenza.com

Audio : Ariza Music Productions

Transcription : Vision In Word

Marlana:

Sierra Levesque is a 17-year-old rock artist from Pembroke, Ontario, Canada. And her goal is to help lead the new generation of rock and roll. Sierra is a singer, songwriter who also plays guitar, piano, bass, and drums. Sierra has already gained notoriety from large media outlets, as well as some powerful figures in the rock music industry. She hopes to use her original music to provide a voice for those who feel like outsiders and to relight the flame of rock and roll in society today. Welcome, Sierra.

Sierra:

Thank you very much for having me!

Marlana:

So, we met the beginning of May and I have to say, when you first meet you, you are very easy to fall in love with because you are very, very talented, but you are also just a genuinely nice person, which goes a long way.

Sierra:

Thank you. 

Marlana:

Here's the thing, you could be talented, and you can be a nice person, but those things don't always get you far. So, what are you doing to really grow your brand and your reputation?

Sierra:

Well, I would say the first thing is anytime I perform or anywhere that I go, I always try and thank the establishment and speak to the owners as well. That really helps because some people, you know, just perform in a place and then might leave after something like that. But I always make a point to go up to the owner after whoever booked me and say, thank you and tell them that if they'd ever like to have me back again, I'd love to. So, stuff like that is just creating the connection. And also, just establishing that. I appreciate it. And also, just the fact that when I do schedule my performances, I really emphasize how excited I am and how I would love to perform. It's more of an exciting thing rather than just a business transaction. I kind of make sure that I convey that I'm excited.

Marlana:

Nice! I know that you also have quite the social media following. How does that play into things and how did you grow that?

Sierra:

Well, about a few years ago before COVID happened, my social media was quite limited. I rarely post and a lot of the time I just posted selfies. I didn't post too much to do with music, but then once COVID happened and we were all stuck inside, especially here in Canada, the restrictions were quite tight. I, and my parents, then I thought of a way that I could keep busy. And that was to do some online posts and online virtual performances. So, what I did was in 2020 starting right at the beginning every Sunday night, I would go live on Facebook and Instagram, and I would perform for about an hour, about eight to 10 songs. And each week I would ask people for requests, and it would be a combination of covers and original songs. So that in itself helped gain a following, especially from local people who had seen me perform places out but didn't quite know I had social media.

I also made sure that I got the name Sierra Levesque music on every platform, cuz I hadn't really been using that before. My funny story, my original Instagram name that I had until COVID almost was Sierra Ate Cupcake. So, the decision to change, that was probably a smart one because that's really helped me to keep the brand across all social media platforms the same. And I also built my own website during COVID. I didn't have one before COVID, so I spent a lot of time building that and connecting it to all the platforms. So, I would say it was really a combination of posting a lot doing the virtual concerts and also just telling people anywhere I went hi, I just have an Instagram. Now I have Facebook. Now I have YouTube. Please follow me. So, that really helped.

Marlana:

Did you know what you were doing with social media originally or was it kind of feeling your way?

Sierra:

Well, at first it was really feeling my way because I hadn't had too much experience. Like I said, I was used to posting selfies, not too many things to do with music, but then I was fortunate to take a Berkeley College of Music online course. So, these were 12-week courses. I did a few, but the first one I did was rock history. So that didn't gimme too much insight into social media. But then after that I moved into the music business path. And during those courses I did online music business, online music marketing, and then a new one of music marketing called Modern Music Marketing, Building Your Online Digital Brand. So that was really something that helped there were lessons throughout the 12 weeks that were solely about Instagram or solely about YouTube and a lot of the stuff that I learned there, I've taken with me into my everyday use of it,

Marlana:

And I think that's a really important thing because I know with most artists, no matter what it, whether you're in music or photography or whatever, a lot of us think that, oh, we're just going to do what we do. And we don't really take into account the business aspect of things. And it's really important to know the business aspect of things.

Sierra:

Yes.

Marlana:

And I know you do a lot of your own booking and things like that. So, how has that helped you?

Sierra:

Well, in my music marketing classes and music business classes, we had to put together final projects where we would make up a fictional or non-fictional artist and we had to plan a tour for them. So, it had too also be not too fake. It had to be actually places where we could tour ourselves. So, my tour that I made up was places all around where I live here in Ontario and it wasn't as much the places, but the emphasis on how to approach them, what to do in order to make a good relationship with venues and how to promote yourself to possible venues who are looking for music. So that in the music business part really helped me with, having something good that I can send out to multiple places if I wanna perform. Because like I said before, COVID, if I were to try and book myself in certain places, I most likely wouldn't have got in. Cause I didn't have a social media presence. No one really knew what I was doing. They would just have to be at another performance to see it. But now I just go ahead, and I send my link to my Instagram and website to them. They can look at all my videos, so my past performances and stuff like that. And they can really get a feel of who I am so that they trust it. I'll be good if I perform in their

Marlana:

And just to reemphasize you're 17 and you've got all this down.

Sierra:

Thank you! I've been working for a long time. I started really pursuing music for real at age seven. So, it's been about 10 years now of kind of hustling throughout my local community first and now I'm really starting to build my branches out further, but yeah, it's been a long process of work, learning, a lot of taking advice and learning from people. It's been really useful over the past 10 years to really just learn all that I can.

Marlana:

Do you just take every opportunity, or do you go out and create your own opportunities or is it kind of a little bit of both?

Sierra:

I would say both because a lot of the time I'll still get approached by people for opportunities. So usually, 95% of the time I'll take it because it's a new place I could perform in new people, new audience, anything like that. I'll say, yep! I'd love to do it! But also, if there's a place where I specifically would like to perform or I think it would help me, that's when I try and create the opportunity for myself and market myself. So yeah, kind of a mixture of both. I would say the opportunities that people offer to me are more in where I live kind of around the area since they already know me. But since people in other places don't know me yet, that's when I usually have to try and create the opportunities for myself.

Marlana:

Any place that is your dream to perform?

Sierra:

Well, my dream to perform one day is in England, actually at Wembley stadium. So ,right now, I'm a little bit far away from that, but hopefully one day I'll be able to create that opportunity for myself somehow. So yes, that's like the big, big goal. But in general, I really am just looking forward to hopefully performing a little bit more throughout the U.S. I did that a little bit in Los Angeles, had a few things there and kind of going to a few major cities and trying to set things up in those places are my next goal.

Marlana:

Nice! And you alluded to Los Angeles because we met at first ever women's only rock and roll fantasy camp. What would you like to see happen to the rock industry for women?

Sierra:

Well, I would say I would like to see it be equal because right now there are a lot less women rockers that I've seen and that inspire people than men in certain situations, I'm inspired equally by certain women rockers, certain men, rockers, everything like that. So, I'd definitely like to see a lot more women rockers. That's the main thing. I mean, there are definitely a lot of opportunities for women, especially now I find with this new rock camp, there's a lot of foundations like the She Rocks Foundation that really help women. And so, I would say if those things keep going and just putting an emphasis on letting girls rock, that would be awesome.

Marlana:

Who's been an influence on you?

Sierra:

Well, the main female influences have been Anne and Nancy Wilson from heart. And then I also really like Taylor Musson from the pretty reckless, I really like their music. Also, just the guitar playing of certain people like Lea Ford. I love her guitar playing. I actually have right behind me or this one, you can't see it, but this is a leader Ford guitar there that I really love. She's been an influence as well as Lizzy Hale. She's been a really big influence on all female guitars. So, stuff like that. I mean, they're the main ones. There's a lot of variety in who I've been inspired by, but those are the main people I would say, Nancy are the top and there's a lot more below them too.

Marlana:

And I know that you play multiple instruments. Is guitar you're thing of choice?

Sierra:

I would say yes, if I can't sing and if I can't write songs, I'd probably go to the guitar second after that. And then after that it would be kind of piano's a little bit less to transport. So, guitar's a little bit easier to just take on your back and go to places. So that's why I think. 

Marlana:

Yeah. So how are you bringing a new voice to rock and roll?

Sierra:

Well, I think that my music is definitely different than what has been created before, because I grew up listening to a lot of different people, a lot of different sounds and stuff like that. So, when you listen to the original music that I play at a live show, you may notice that some songs are quite heavy. I have a few songs called New Generation, Get Off My Stage. They're quite heavy and kind of in your face, rock and roll, but then I'll switch gears very quickly to other ones that are quite soft and almost have cues of the other genres in them. I have one called Left, Looking Gray. That's just on acoustic. And that one's very nice, calm, quiet as well as a few others that are just kind of acoustic, but still have that rock and roll feeling to them. All my lyrics really have specific messages.

So usually, I don't decide to make a song. Okay, I'm gonna make this sound like rock and roll. I just do it based on kind of the lyrics in the feel of it. But it all ends up in some way, still sounding a little bit more on the rock alternative side, which is cool. But people have definitely mentioned me before that, you know, they were expecting my music to all sound like one certain sound, you know, they wanted to hear my sound, but really what I say is, you know what my sound is, the fact that I have a variety of sounds, it's kind of like that. So yeah, one day when I start releasing my music, which I hope will be soon later this year, I'm hoping to release my first single. Think people will see a glimpse into the harder side of the stuff that I do. But then as time goes on, I'll kind of he broaden, broadening out my horizons to a few other different hues <laugh>,

Marlana:

I I've talked to people in the past and they say, when you write, it usually comes from a place of experience or things like that. And not to harp on this, but you're 17. So, where do you pull your experience from to be able to write?

Sierra:

Well, a lot of the theme in some of the songs I've written has been experience from feeling a little bit like an outsider, because where I live, especially a lot of the people like country music and stuff like that. So, rock music is definitely not the main thing where I live, which has been a struggle at some points. So, when I go to school and stuff like that, and I'm wearing my rock t-shirts people don't know the bands who are on them. I've had people come up to me where I've been wearing an Abba shirt and they say, who is ABBA? And it's just like, oh goodness! ,so certain times I feel a little bit like an outsider in school or just anywhere around where I live. So, a lot of my songs, like one that I have called Worlds In My Head, it's about wanting to escape to the worlds that are in my mind because I feel like an outsider.

So, I would say my experience of feeling like that has really helped me in my songwriting and also my experience of wanting to help lead the new generation of rock and roll has helped with specifically my song, (New Generation,) it's talking about kind of rock history. I mentioned 1985 at Wembley referring to live aid, stuff like that. So, I would say a mixture of what I've learned about rock music from my courses, as well as personal experience that I've had of feeling a little bit different than other people has been the main things that have helped me so far,

Marlana:

Are you primarily a solo act or do you ever collaborate with others?

Sierra:

Well, primarily I would say solo just due to the fact that, like I said, where I live there aren't too many musicians. There's definitely a good pool of them who are very talented, but there's not too many. So, I have had quite a few shows now where I'll be with a...