ARTIST INTERVIEW: "Roxana Line"

Interviewed / Written by Jesse Smith

In a music industry full of fake persona’s and unoriginal material that seems to be regurgitated, finding truly unique and authentic artists is like finding a pearl on the beach. We are rapidly approaching the spooky season and if you need something new for your fall vibes, you have to listen to Roxana Line and her new song “Marry Me”. Her blend of emo, punk and disney musicals creates something completely different, even from the bands who try and cover the disney songs. With the release of her newest single, we got a chance to ask her a few questions! 

Hey Roxana! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer some questions! First off, You’re a very unique artist, what made you mix emo music and opera?!

Hey Jesse, first of all, thank you so much for talking to me! And you are too kind!

Like many of us, I grew up watching classical Disney animated musicals such as Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, etc. I was impressed by the music, the vocals and how the characters went from dialog to singing and then back again without interrupting the flow of the story. I also grew up listening to Queen and ABBA. In fact, ABBA was my first music crush when I was just 5 years old. When I entered my teenage years I discovered Green Day, My Chemical Romance, Panic! At the Disco and other amazing bands. I was blown away by Green Day’s “American Idiot” - it was a real punk-rock-opera with story, characters and progressive structure of tracks such as Jesus of Suburbia and Homecoming. Then I was totally amazed by MCR’s complexity and lore behind their songs, and P!ATD’s visual aesthetics. Amongst the grayness of the small town I grew up in, this music was a breath of fresh air. So, all these things mixed and simmered in my brain for some time, and then the catalyst, I think, was the “Sweeney Todd” movie by Tim Burton starring Johnny Depp. Being a dark gothic musical with complex characters, it was like a revelation to me, a missing puzzle piece, or let’s say, a missing ingredient in that boiling potion pot of ideas, genres and aesthetics that I wanted to somehow combine in my music. So, just a few months after seeing it for the first time, I took all of my previous songwriting / arrangement experience and actually started writing my own rock-musical with an emo twist. 

While thinking of these stories that you write about, where do you get inspiration from? 

I love this question. A short answer would be that I get inspiration mostly from my life and the world around me, but it’s not that simple. In reality, I can get inspiration from an event in my life, create a character who experiences something similar to what I feel, and then put this story, let’s say, in the 19th century setting incorporating a series of actual historic events into it. Plus, I might also add some magical elements to it making it almost an alternative reality with fantasy elements. Basically, it’s pretty similar to what comic book writers / graphic novelists often do. I also get a lot of inspiration from my nightmares, and, boy, do I have an endless supply of those… I often see very vivid dreams that feel like they are taken out of a context of a “movie” with me mostly being a silent and invisible observer looking at the characters from under my own cloak of invisibility. When I wake up, I usually try to write down all the details that I can remember, including certain feelings, locations that I saw, and also names that could match those characters’ personalities, then I usually start putting these stories together. 

Since this is a solo project, do you compose all of your music yourself? Or do you have a team that helps you write these very theatrical pieces? 

A: Despite the current trend in the world of music to collaborate on anything and everything, I’m a strong believer that most of the original, truly authentic ideas are usually born from the hearts and minds of individual human beings. If I’m not mistaken, either Benny Andersson or Bjorn Ulvaeus from ABBA at some point said that finding a perfect songwriting partner can be even more difficult than finding true love - it has to be a perfect match, a like-minded person with a set of necessary skills who would understand the idea and complement it without trying to take a bite of it or change it only for the sake of getting a credit. Artistic value must always prevail. This is incredibly rare, like fairy tales in real life. Me being me, I didn’t want to sit in a lonely tower and wait for a mysterious stranger who might or might not appear. I wanted music more than anything in my life, so I decided to learn on my own, by ear, by trial and error, with little to no financial support from my family and with the highly limited resources that I had back then. If I hadn’t taken everything in my own hands, I could have just buried my dreams before they had a chance to take their first breath.

So, I had to learn how to write and produce my songs, do orchestral arrangements, I also had to learn a foreign language to write lyrics, so that more people in the world could hear these stories (English is not my native language). For the past two years I’ve also been exploring film scoring (composing music to motion picture) and participating in several scoring competitions. I think it’s a great thing to always learn something new. Having a wide range of skills gives you independence to create what you actually want without limiting yourself or having to rely on other people. Independence helps you keep your dreams safe.

Being so different, have you received a lot of hate? How do you stay true to yourself when people come at you for being so out of the box? 

When I was a teenager I used to receive a lot of hate from my peers. It was especially painful to realize that some of your “friends” and relatives were actually the first in line to see you fail. So, I built walls inside to guard me from the outside world, leaving only small doors for those who would genuinely want to get to know me. (This is how walls and doors later became symbolic in so many of my songs.) It was lonely inside those walls, so I created a world of my own and inhabited it with fairy creatures, ghosts, vampires, various spirits, golems and others. I’ve been writing stories, drawing maps of my world and composing music set in it. 

Another huge drawback of actually “being out of the box” is that the more “unique” music you make, the more difficult it is to get it into playlists. I’ve reached out to dozens and dozens of playlist curators, most of whom replied to me with compliments about my music but still refused to add it to their playlists because it was “too different” - most people need something simpler that is easier to fit into a genre and categorize accordingly. It’s such a weird thing, if you think about it, to expect nothing unexpected from something that’s supposed to be new. It was a very depressing experience at first, but then, of course, I wrote a song about it and it’s a new theatrical emo track that I’ll have out in the near future. I just can’t change who I am. 

But what makes me really happy is that a couple of years ago my Instagram page began forming a small community of people who are actually interested in this nerdy geeky stuff that I create, they’ve been following my journey, music and art, and I’m very-very grateful to my followers, many of whom I now call friends, for all of the support they show. In the end, having people around the world meet my characters and creations is what matters to me the most.

Your new song “Marry Me” kicks so much ass! (i’ve had an exclusive sneak peak,) It’s a little harder than your previous songs in my opinion, what made you go that direction?

“Marry Me” is actually one of my old songs that I wrote back in the day around the same time when I wrote “Among The Dead” (my previous single). At that time I played in a sympho-metal band who basically used me to write metal songs for them while I always wanted to write and play emo and punk music, which unfortunately wasn’t popular in my hometown. So “Marry Me” became my rebellious punk-ish statement of not willing to continue that nonsense and from that point on writing only the music that I wanted, the way I wanted. Perhaps some of the frustration and anger that came from that situation translated into the heavier sound of this song, though it’s far from the heaviest thing I’ve ever written :)

“Marry Me” is a Chapter 3 of an ongoing collection, can you tell the lore of what the story is and the other 2 songs that are chapters 1 and 2?

“Marry Me” as well as my two previous singles - “That’s The Way You’re Giving Up” and “Among The Dead” - are all part of my original horror musical / concept album “60% WonderWorlds, 40% Tragedies” that I am continuing to release one song (chapter) at a time. 

The first chapter “That’s The Way You’re Giving Up” opens its curtains to the 1837 Victorian England with a murder mystery where the main character, actress Mary Van Dorn, gets poisoned on stage during a theatrical performance and then comes back as a vengeful spirit to haunt her killer. 

The second chapter “Among The Dead” is basically a duet of two ghosts, Sir and Lady Berghorst, the late mortuary owners. 

Many years ago Sir Berghorst went missing in the swamps. Reportedly, overtaken by her grief, Lady Berghorst was unable to come to terms with her loss. Townsfolk say that she carried on with their family business as if nothing happened, but “she wasn’t all there,” as some put it. Her confused mind led her to believe that her husband was returning soon. Later, her body was found in a chair in her room with walls covered in mirrors and a blown candle on the floor. Some say they still sometimes see the silhouettes of the late owners in the windows of the old mortuary. In the end, perhaps, Lady Berghorst was right and her husband did come back for her.

The third chapter “Marry Me” is a story of Mara Lazarescu, the only daughter of an impoverished aristocratic family who arranged for her to marry a son of a wealthy baron against her will. She cried and asked her family to let her go free of this obligation, but it was never going to happen. Mara miraculously escaped only to re-appear several months later for a lavish wedding ceremony that half of the town was invited to. It didn’t take long, however, for the guests to realize that what they all gathered for was not a wedding, but rather a funeral…

“Marry Me’ is a song about fighting for being accepted for who you truly are. It’s also about losing a part of yourself while going through various psychological traumas - this is why most of my characters are undead - they fight for themselves but there can’t be a truly happy ending when they lose a huge part of themselves in the process. 

Ok, now for some fun questions! If you could be any Disney character, who would you be and why? 

I often get compared to Rapunzel because of my super long hair (it’s knee long now). She is, in fact, my “soul-princess” and we have much more in common than just the hair length. It’s pretty crazy to the point that in the 2017 2D animated series Rapunzel has a body guard / best friend named Cassandra, and I have a husky named Cassandra who is my best friend and she is several years older than the series, so it’s a total coincidence. 

But if I were to dig a bit deeper, I think there is also a lot in common between myself and the live action version of Maleficent. 

Basically, I am just a weird mix of crows and butterflies :) 

Would you ever want to make your work into an actual live action play? If so, who would you want to be in your cast? (Doesn’t have to be realistic, just real people) 

A live action or an animated play would be incredible! For the past two years I’ve been actually working on a new rock musical which I’m planning to turn into an animated feature. I’ve also produced and wrote story-driven scripts for several music videos of mine, and I have several ideas for short films to make in the near future. I really want to try myself as a screenwriter, so I think this would be my next step. Let’s see how it goes, and then onto the full-length musical! 

As for the cast, honestly, I’ve never imagined any A-list actors in my projects. I usually work and intend to continue working with up and coming talent who are less known, like myself. I think it’s important to support talented people who work hard trying to make their way to their dreams. Having a big star join your project is really cool and can open many doors for you, but I think it’s even cooler to work really hard to create a project that can open its own doors, as well as hold said doors for an army of amazingly talented people who might not have had that opportunity before. 

What is one thing you couldn’t go a day without? 

I love my personal collection of folk tales from different parts of the world, books on mythology, history and linguistics. My collection contains rare old volumes dating back to 1896 and also some limited editions. I also like my scented candles and different antiques that I have, such as a typewriter from 1938 and my one of a kind custom made Ouija desk that brought up a lot of polemics in the comments on my page not so long ago - people were concerned that the Ouija board inlaid in my desk might actually be possessed… So rude… I need my Ouija board, how else am I supposed to find new friends? Plus, my house is already haunted… by me :) 

Jokes aside, all these things take a special place in my heart, but I would go without them if needed. It wouldn’t be easy but totally possible. Who I can’t live a day without are my husky and a small handful of people who make this life so much worth it.

Last question… The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, Coraline… only one can stay, the other two were never made… which one do you pick to stay? 

I like The Nightmare Before Christmas for the songs that became Halloween anthems. I like Corpse Bride for the iconic characters and witty dark humor. I like Coraline for…well, absolutely everything! - Especially for the symbolism in the details. Plus, being a fan of Neil Gaiman’s work, I would be absolutely delighted to see more of his children’s books on the big screen… so Coraline!

Thank you so much for your time! Is there anything you want to plug?

Thank you so much! It was my pleasure talking to you, Jesse.

My song “Marry Me” and a music video full of humor, horror, demonic possession and at least 3 fresh graves are out on September 23rd, 2022. Please check them out!

“Marry Me” is one of her heavier and faster tracks thus far and to be honest, it was the perfect time to release it. Going into the Halloween season, I personally needed something to fit the vibe and this is a sick bridge between bands like Ice Nine Kills in the heavy horror theatrical department and the Tim Burton movies that I keep replaying over and over until November 1st. Staying true to her style with her stand out vocal performance, she successfully brought a heavier element to her music without it sounding forced or corny. One day, I would love to see a complete work of her’s that would be more than just the music. I was already impressed with Roxana Line, but now I’m 100% sure that she is being slept on and everyone needs to take the leap of faith and add something new and unique to your playlist. I can promise, you won’t be disappointed adding “Marry Me” to your Halloween party’s playlist this year.