Photo by Joe Lamport
From left to right, Michele Lopez, 17, Ashanti Watson, 16, Mayte Lopez, 16, and Kady Williams, 17, make up the rock band Eternal Flame.

Girls rise to a challenge with rock band

By Joe Lamport
Managing Editor

Eternal Flame's breakout moment came at a talent show in May at Bronx Academy High School. The rock group, made up of four high school girls, two from Highbridge, played "Highway to Hell," a song by ACDC that was popular almost three decades ago. It was well received again at the show.

"We were so scared," recalled Kady Williams, the lead guitarist for the group. "We all had red and black on. I was wearing a tie."

"We went on first," said Michele Lopez, the bassist. But "after that, we were like, 'OK, let's keep the band together.'"

Now, they are practicing for their first public gig, expected in a couple of months.

The group came together somewhat by chance. Except for a mutual interest in rock music, Kady and Mayte Lopez, the band's drummer, only knew each other from student council at the high school.

Kady said she and Mayte, better known as Raven, got virtually nothing done on student council. But their mutual interest in rock and roll music was the group's starting point. When some boys dissed the idea of girls playing rock music, the girls responded.

"We got pissed off that there were boy bands at school and they said girls can't play instruments, like we can't be a band," Kady recalled.

Michele and Ashanti Watson barely knew each other either. But they, too, had an interest in playing music. Ashanti, Kady's sister, has written a "book of songs" in her free time at home. Michele has wide musical interests but particular love for groups, like ACDC, Black Sabbath, Mudvayne and others, that are not usually considered by most youth in the Bronx, which is, after all, the birth place of hip hop.

"That's a stereotype," Michele said of the idea that urban youth are not rock music fans. "Just because we're from the ghetto doesn't mean we can't play this music."

But it is not always an easy music to love, the girls said. They get harassed by other youths for dressing in uniformly black clothing and wearing metal studs - the typical rock look these days. It does not help, either, that rock is the music often blamed for violent incidents at high schools, like shootings. Michele said she had been jumped twice, apparently for the way she dresses.

"They'll be like 'devil worshiper'," she said of other kids who taunt the rockers. "We've had things thrown at us. We're a minority in the Bronx and a lot of people are close-minded."

But the incidents have hardly deterred the young women.

"It's comments like that that make you want to get up and get out of here and do something with your life," Michele said.

The music itself is a release, the rockers said.

"It's a high," Michele said about playing rock and roll.

A recent jam session proved her point. Michele laid a solid bass line while Kady seamlessly picked a line above it. Raven hit beats. Ashanti sat out, writing lyrics in a little notebook.

The girls said two teachers at the high school encouraged them and loaned them school instruments. The girls have the instruments for the summer and are practicing often, usually in the basement room of Raven's boyfriend, where they were jamming recently.

"I think we all have a commitment, a drive," Raven said between songs. "And I love these girls so much."

Their parents are tolerant if not accepting of the girls' love for rock music and ambitions to be a rock band.

"What I've heard is OK," said Bobby Watson, Ashanti's and Kady's father. "Every generation has its music. I don't see rock music, I see music. It's just a way for them to express themselves."

"My mom doesn't like the music," admitted Michele. "She thinks it's a phase, but that if it makes me happy I should do it."

The girls' music would fit in the heavy metal genre. They have written two original songs, which they plan to play at their first gig. Ashanti's lyrics for one song express confusion and despair at human relationships.

In "Bleeding Tears," she sings, "Rise up again/ And sink into the surface, Please let me in/ I'm bound to feel deserted, What's come to this?/ Gave in, there's no eternal bliss, And I'm left/ Or just expected to be pissed."

The girls are hoping Eternal Flame one day will have a following beyond their circle of friends. But they said they have back-up plans if their ambitions fall through: generally, going to college to study art or journalism or teaching. Meanwhile, they are developing their skills - and going through the ups and downs of being a band.

They argue about what to play, band members being too bossy, who's in charge and different points of view, they said.

"We yell at each other," Kady admitted. "But when we're pissed, we're like, 'We gotta play, we gotta play.'"

"We argue and we get mad" about the music, Michele said. "But we work it out. We all do it together."