A Female Visual Artist Filling With Fast-Colors Her Seven-String-Ibanez Guitar
By Adriana Rubio
Photos & Artworks:
Courtesy of “The Commander In Chief Ltd”
(Artworks are Property of the copyright owner.)
“The Commander In Chief” (The Chief) was born in Norway 22 years ago. She has traveled around the globe and lived in many countries. She talks four languages and has expressed a deep interest in visual arts from when she was a little kid.
The Chief attended school in France and Italy impressing the teachers with her artworks. They definitely wanted her to pursue in visual arts, but The Chief had something else going on into the creative field. She moved to Chicago, attended high-school there and had arts classes every day. Her progress in visual arts reached the top in 2005 causing The Chief a deep feeling for music as a complimentary way of artistic expression. She wanted to write music through what she creatively visualizes. But she needed to learn how to play an instrument first.
“I started learning to play guitar because I wanted to write music. I had all these ideas for songs, but I couldn’t play instruments”
The Chief has an amazing attitude; she is so dedicated and disciplined to reach the goal. She knew right from the start that things were not going to just happen by miracle, you have to work hard.
“I’m very happy with how things are going. I started it out playing in 2005 and I’ve been working really hard in my guitar playing, songwriting and singing. I’m taking singing lessons every day since 2008. I really work hard to get good”.
In 2008, The Chief was signed by Elisabeth Hagen on a full time manager position at “The Commander In Chief Ltd”. Hagen is an Opera singer with Bel Canto technique. She studied in Verona, Italy and is a vocal coach. Aside from the singing abilities, her specialties in the entertainment field are also focused on marketing and artist development.
“We sat down and wrote a plan and a contract for our professional relationship. The Chief is totally dedicated and has a work ethics that shocks everybody. When you are so passionate about it, it is what you do 24/7. And that’s why she is currently getting major press in Metal Hammer and Total Guitar and is an official Ibanez artist, playing the prototype Falchion 7, the only one of its kind in the world. She is also endorsed by Seymour Duncan, Jim Dunlop and Ernie Ball”.
The first song The Chief wrote is titled “Battle for the Mind” and she made an animated video for it in 2008. She then recorded a new version of the song and received an uncountable number of great reviews online in 2010 on her MySpace site. “Battle for the Mind” is about the bombardment of input from commercials on TV.
“I usually write lyrics about modern society, injustice and political stuff that happen. My artworks reflect that. When I start writing a song, I always know what the title will be. Then I write the lyrics and the music gets together. I work on this basically by illustrating lyrics”
In August 2011 The Chief recorded Black Sabbath song “Paranoid”, a classic in heavy metal music history. And on November 17th 2011 The Chief received her first official award nomination for “Paranoid” by Hollywood Music in Media Awards.
“I was thinking about making a cover at that time and was trying a few songs from different bands. But I am a big fan of Tony Iommi and Ozzy Osbourne so I tried Paranoid and played around with it for a while. I then recorded it. It’s my own interpretation of it. I really wanted to put my own touch on it and that’s what I did”.
The release of The Chief version of Paranoid reached the attention of major magazines such as Revolver, Classic Rock, and NME, in addition to hundreds of smaller sites and E-magazines around the world.
The Chief musical likes truly show how serious she is about playing guitar, composing and practicing. It really nurtures her and proves her right.
“I’m very open-minded. My musical culture is pretty large. I listen to all kinds of music. I like good songs and good songwriting. I listen from Jefferson Airplane to The Immortals, Slayer, Misfits, Ramones and Arch Enemy among many, many others plus classical music. And this is why I became obsessed with the technical aspect of it meaning that helps me tremendously while practicing and on my guitar playing technique. Now, I started to listen to more extreme metal music. I’m really getting into extreme metal”.
The Commander In Chief recorded five songs for an EP in December 2011 with metal music producer/engineer Sterling Winfield best known for his work with Pantera, Hatebreed and Hellyeah among others featured metal acts. The release of The Chief EP “Evolution” is expected for February 15th, 2012. Sterling Winfield stated:
”This is NO auto tune, NO pro tools magic, NO copy and paste. She did all guitars and all vocals for 5 songs in 11 days, performing 12 to 15 hours a day”.
The Chief was featured in January 2012 with a full page in Metal Hammer, UK and also in February 2012 in Metal Hammer, Norway edition.
The Chief’s future looks bright and promising. Let’s wait until February 15th to listen to some metal killer 7 string Ibanez guitar.
For further info on The Commander In Chief, feel free to visit her official website at:
