by Kate Le

The Fancy Rebellion:
An Interview with Lizzy from Lizzy and the Triggermen

On a relatively cool California day, I invited Elizabeth (Lizzy) from 10-piece jazz band Lizzy and the Triggermen out to lunch. I have constantly been curious about her since I discovered the band a few years back. With an opportunity to write about whatever I wanted, I took the chance to better get to know an artist that I admire.

“What is your medicine?” Lizzy says.

 I was intrigued when Lizzy told me a story of how her friend helped influence her perspective of that statement, and how it has shaped her as an artist and a human. She explains that this question is to help people understand their own worth. “I love that my friend asks people that question—because it implies something so beautiful about the world: that we are each a custodian of something unique and important that the world needs, which for us artists can be something we easily second-guess or devalue.” As a society that is heavily dependent on the interactions that we make online, our need for social media, can often be a tough burden to bear. We often feel alone in our struggles; and at one time or another, it has all brought us to the vintage community. At least that’s what Lizzy and I believe.

Lizzy’s online presence is an inspiration, but you should really see this woman in person. You know how people tell you to never meet your heroes? Well, they’re wrong. Lizzy is quick witted, a force to be reckoned with, and she looks fabulous in Bob Mackie to boot. As ladies who love fashion, Lizzy and I dive deep into that topic first. She opens up by telling me how she was the only one at her middle school who wore an Edwardian gown to her graduation. This is followed by a funny anecdote about how she, at the age of two, walked around Paris in a diaper and her mother’s heels. As you can clearly see, she is serious about her fashion.

While she felt fabulous about what she wore, it was hard to deal with the awareness of judgement from her peers. So, like so many of us do, she chose to hide away, even though her love for vintage started in her early years. “It took a really long time,” Lizzy states. “It sort of crept back with me showing up to parties just awkwardly overdressed. It escalated from there.” She continues by opening up about how deep her need for self expression through vintage helped her to gain self confidence. “One of my struggles throughout my life has been to express this deep version of myself to the world. It’s been a real challenge to find a way to do that. Because I feel like the deep version of myself is over the top.” It’s nice to know that so many vintage-loving women struggle with the idea that we’re “over the top.” Lizzy agrees that there is a sense of pride and care that we take when we choose our outfits so carefully. “People think fancy means expensive, but most of my vintage gowns I get for cheaper than a pair of jeans at a department store.” The work we put into our hair, our makeup, our selections of vintage finds is often meticulously monitored; sometimes I feel like I deserve a reward for even leaving the house. I love it though, I wouldn’t make different choices for the world and neither would Lizzy. We then continue to talk about how her love for vintage and music have grown symbiotically together.

Time and time again I am reminded that every artist struggles and goes through this painful reawakening of themselves. It’s one thing to be a phoenix, and another to welcome the continuous rebirth. Lizzy’s search to find a genre for herself sprang from the fact that her voice didn’t have a ‘home’ in contemporary music, so after years of not singing, she finally decided to create one with the Triggermen. When asked about her struggles, Lizzy had this to say, “I was warned from the jump not to do a 10-piece band…the modern music industry doesn’t support it. I’m always someone who tries to be fearless when it comes to my artistic visions.” The band is very important to her vision of what Lizzy and the Triggermen was going to be. “I do what I do, but the reality is I’ve surrounded myself with talented people. My greatest accomplishment is surrounding myself with people who are so absurdly talented. It can be hard to cheerlead for yourself, but it’s really easy for me to cheerlead for my band. “

Don’t we all wish we had a leader like her? Someone who is completely unabashed to support their worth 100%, regardless of what others say.

Now if you don’t know the Triggermen, you are missing out. Did you know the band consists of musicians at the top of their game? Or that Lizzy has struck gold and recruited the “best band in LA”? Well, that was at least one band member’s opinion when she let him know that A-list jazz musicians like Dan Barret, Nate Ketner, and Chris Dawson, to name a few, had already signed on to the project. “I’ve been able to come at this band and really think about how much joy it is to play with people who are so talented. It’s exhilarating, it’s nice to have an outlet [for] my singing. There’s a home for it. Now is the moment. I needed to be ready for it, I needed to find these guys. The timing is important, but it took a lot of preparation [too].”

What kind of preparation you may ask? Lizzy is a trained opera singer. Early on, her parents introduced her to the music of the early century as well as songwriters like Rodgers and Hammerstein. From that came her love for the craft. Naturally, Lizzy went on to pursue a career as an opera singer, which led her to realize that she was not able to play the roles that she wanted. “I longed to play those delicious heroines who drop dead after singing some glorious high note. But my voice, sadly, just wasn’t built for those roles – and a lifetime of playing cutesy shepherdesses just didn’t seem nearly as fun.”

Well, what now?

What do you do when you feel like your dreams have disappeared?

You find a legend like Dan Barret, through a mysterious chain of events that are linked to “If You Want the Rainbow You Must Have the Rain.” Lizzy tells me about how she got back into singing because of a friend’s wedding, where she sang that song and it began to rain. It was at this magical moment that Lizzy knew that she had found her home. She was further encouraged when she ran into a man on the subway who had sheet music for the same song. This mysterious gentleman told her to get in touch with a friend of his in California. That man was legendary arranger Dan Barret. It’s touching to hear the way Lizzy talks about Dan. She has so much admiration and respect for this jazz legend. This, coupled with her own powerhouse vocals, makes them a team that is hard to beat. Their music is a marriage of modern content with a big band soul. It soothes old souls in these modern times.

The band’s next show will be at the legendary El Rey theatre on Saturday, September 7th (tickets can be purchased here). To ring in the upcoming show, the band has released snippets of their first music video, “Out of Your League” from their new EP “Good Songs For Bad Times.” I had the honor of hearing this live at their last show at The Troubadour; you can hear the yearning of a modern woman for her own self-worth while your soul sways to the big band. Yes, this old soul quite enjoys Lizzy’s eloquent words and Dan’s toe-tapping arrangement. “Our EP name is because for me this music is very much medicine I need to deal with the current climate. I think this music is coming from a place and time where people [are] dealing with difficult things, and [they] turn it into something beautiful without being naive about it.”

For concertgoers, Lizzy and the Triggermen are the medicine that they need right now. “It’s about creating community, it’s about creating events where people can show up and be themselves without feeling like they’re going to be judged for that. [They are] transported somewhere that’s not reality right now.”

I feel very fortunate to have found a community that encompasses people like Lizzy. People who try to search for their own “medicine” to share with the world to make it a better place for all of us. Before we part, I ask Lizzy about what being a vintage woman means to her. “Being a vintage woman is being rebellious. In today’s world, where what is mainstream and popular is casual and fast fashion, there is something very rebellious about wearing vintage. Ferociously modern. Ferociously rebellious. It’s about declaring your individuality while inviting others to do so as well.”

Well that’s the best medicine I’ve had in years.

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