A Brokeheart Pro

antiMUSIC: It says on your bio sheet that some of the songs have been included on soundtracks. Can you tell us which ones they're on?

A Brokeheart Pro: Hmm, let's see…I'm very bad at this. It's mostly b horror films.

antiMUSIC: Oh cool.

A Brokeheart Pro: Laughs…so it's a lot of boobs and blood, which I think is cool. They love me. They come and they ask, and so…there's one: Dixon Highway is one. One is called Wolf People, another's called, I think it's Shoot and Play, or Click and Play, and there's another one that a woman did in Canada. She just finished it. 

antiMUSIC: That's really interesting. I'll be on the lookout for those then.

A Brokeheart Pro: I'm sure they'll come out straight on the Internet. (laughs)

antiMUSIC: You've had deals with major labels (A&M), huge indie labels (Sympathy…) and now you've got your own label.

A Brokeheart Pro: Yeah, I'm quickly working my way down the ladder. (laughs)

antiMUSIC: (laughs) Well it all depends on your outlook. What are your impressions of each situation and what is the ideal set-up? Obviously you have more control now but you can't just make a call and get thousands of units of your record into say Wal-Mart. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

A Brokeheart Pro: That's a tough one. Well, coming up there was only the major label system. I didn't know, there really wasn't any indies coming up at that time so… the way it happened was I got picked up as a songwriter first. I mean it was incredibly lucky with Peer/Southern, a very prestigious publishing house. I couldn't believe they wanted to give me money to write songs all day. That was my job for two years. That's what I did. And everyday I would get critiqued by some of the best of the best, you know. And you know, my goal was to try to write a song a day. And I just really honed my skills, kinda like the old Brill Building stuff. You know, you learn your craft. You come in with a talent, obviously. The second song I ever wrote in my life was "Girl Noise" and it ended up on a major label so obviously something's there. But if you really care about the craft, you really want to learn it inside and out, and they gave me money. I couldn't believe it (laughs). I was just like "Wow, yeah, sure." And so I did that. And they tried to sell my songs to people and nobody wanted them, because they said they were too inside and too personal; too dirty; too this; too that. And they said, let's just try and get her a record deal and they got me one, and it was very quick. There was a bidding war and I was very popular, very fast within the industry. You know, that whole courting thing and I was scared to death, honestly. I had nobody. My family didn't like that I was doing music so it wasn't like a victory to them. I had nobody around me that knew what the hell I was doing and I was married as a teenager at 17, and I divorced him at 19 I believe, to really go out in the world and do all this. So you know, all those friends that I had grown up with didn't want anything to do with me. I was scared to death. I was like: "Now what?" I felt really exposed. And all these people are coming at you. I had no experience with managers or lawyers, and I tried to do my best to learn it as I went but I failed constantly because I had no social graces. I'm a social retard. And I just say whatever. I just say it. And they would look at me like: 'You can't say that". And I would think: "Why?" An industry guy took me aside one time and said Jeannette you can't talk like that. When they would ask my opinion I would give it. And I'd go: "Well then why did you ask?" Well everybody just wants you to say Great. And I thought, well that's your business, not mine. So I had a problem with it. My impressions were that I failed miserably at the corporate levels. I'm apparently not very good at it. I'm very DIY. I was born that way. I do everything myself so obviously, and I'm working class. I believe that you should earn what you get and I believe everyone around you should care the same amount. You know, I get so frustrated that people just don't care about quality anymore. When I worked fast food I made sure I was the fastest. I was polite. I was accurate. You know, I cared. You know, no matter what kind of s***ty job I had---I work at a hardware store now---I want to be the best at it. I want to give the best service. And I just don't…I won't say they were bad, I will say I was bad at them.

antiMUSIC: it probably worked out for the best. If you'd gone the major label route you'd…

A Brokeheart Pro: I'd be rich. I would have nice clothes. 

antiMUSIC: You wouldn't be able to tell who was your friend and who wasn't.

A Brokeheart Pro: That's true. But still, I'd be RICH. I wouldn't have to work in the hardware store and cook lunch for my dad everyday as he berates me, I mean it's just like ah…I don't know. I'm at that point where I just go: you're an idiot.

antiMUSIC: Before we go back get into your other musical incarnations, let's go back a bit further. How old were you when music first made the big impression on you and music did you first get into?

A Brokeheart Pro: Okay. I probably, as far back as I can remember, I was four or five and I had the Nutcracker Suite and the da-da-da-dum-dum….. and the strings swirl up underneath (noise) that moved me. That killed me. I just thought that was the greatest thing that music physically moved you. I couldn't believe it. And I got the record and put it on and listened to it over and over. I remember in kindergarten, our teacher brought in a little 45 of the U.S. air force fight songs and it was that sound that killed me too. (laughs) It was things like that which moves you physically. It used to take me to that place that I felt I should be. And I used to listen to the radio constantly and rewrite songs. I'd say to my mom: "You know if they sang this like this" in the back of our Volkswagen. I'd be sitting there listening,--- "it would sound better." And she would just look at me like: "What's wrong with you?" And I'm the only person I ever met in the business, and I think I've met a gazillion, and everybody twice, that started off as songwriter just out of the gate. I didn't start off as a guitarist or a pianist or a singer, I barely consider myself a singer. I didn't know that my voice was a tool until this record. It's the first time I ever used it as a tool. When I actually started to write songs, you know I didn't have any lessons or anything. I'd grab an instrument and just play it and you know, badly, but I would just grab it and get what I need out of it. And no one in my family is musical so they were just looking at me like, okay, whatever. When are you going to get a job? Because my dad's Greek and my mom's French and they're very…especially Greeks; You're 14. Why don't you have a job? (laughs)

antiMUSIC: Were you into school bands and that kind of thing?

A Brokeheart Pro: I was. I took flute, and I was moved to first chair in the first week. And I hated it because I wanted to play "Billy Don't Be A Hero" and I got in trouble and that was it for me. I was like, okay I'm done. So the flute went back to the rental store. I was more interested in…I used to take, I remember being in sixth grade and I had two Panasonic, regular two-tracks, those little cassette players. I would sing a part and then I'd bounce it over and you know, play it and then sing another part live and I might like hit a pencil. I always did it in the bathroom cause there was echo in there, and everything always sounds better with an echo, right? And so I had these whole songs, with a bunch of parts, you know. It would bounce so much that by the time you actually listen to it, it sounded like this: grrrrowl. But to me it sounded like a masterpiece. You could kinda hear what I was trying to do. I let my best friend Debbie Davis hear it and she'd go, "Yeah, that's great". And I'd go, "Listen this is really…" and she'd go, (sarcastic voice) "Yeah, that's great." So I think my talent is kinda, it's more like a weird little thing. It's not traditional, I guess. 

antiMUSIC: What was your childhood like in terms of how it affected you musically later on?

A Brokeheart Pro: Well, my childhood, I was, I think I was just like the weird kid. I was in the public school system but they had special programs for kids like me, whatever that means. So I was constantly being pulled out of class and singled out for whatever reason, you know, I don't know what it's like in Canada. But down here we have something called NGM and that's what I was in. but it's within the public school system so it's eight kids out of the entire school that go to these classes. And you know, they send you to college classes while you're in fourth grade and it makes you kinda weird.

antiMUSIC: It makes you kinda stand out then.

A Brokeheart Pro: Yeah, you're shunned a lot. And you know, I had like maybe one or two really good friends growing up and we were tomboys and that was always good. It's hard, especially for girls. Especially around here, there weren't any girls to talk about music with. Especially the creation of it. They didn't do that. We called them jacket holders later on in the punk scene. They were the ones, They went with their boyfriends and held their jackets. They weren't interested in the creation. And you can't expect them to be. It's kinda, you know, boys or girls period. At least guys would find at least four or five guys in their school they could get a band with. And they didn't really want the girls to play with them. So that was hard. It was lonely. You know, either you don't do it all or you start doing it on your own and I kinda did that. But all my teachers were guys. You know the guy who taught me to use my four track. You know there was always someone around, so you know, I can't put the guys down. Cause they really were there to help me.

antiMUSIC: How did Pink Mischief come about and do you remember what the experience of recording your first professional record was like?

A Brokeheart Pro: Yeah, I do. (laughs). Yeah, it was great. Well, we had 135 of my songs to pick from. We narrowed it down to 33 and then we narrowed it down to 12 and I think what, 11 ended up on the record. I had already written every single part. Everything was done. The demos were done and what we did was we took the 8 tracks and bounced them down here to the 24 track, 2 inch tape and then added and then also took out some of the things that I played and had other people play because they thought they needed professionals or whatever. And I thought, well, ok, you know. I didn't know anything about it. I loved the process because it was done in 30 days, and we had a schedule and everyone was professional and I learned a lot about recording. I learned a lot about, how you just really have to keep your head up no matter what because you've got a lot of jealously comes with it, and lot of people can be really mean to you. You just got to get up everyday and give it the best you can. It ended up being their record more than mine. It was more their drama than the record. But I still, I mean, to this day when I listen to it, I don't think of that stuff. I just love that album.

antiMUSIC: Whose idea was it for the answering machine messages? Did you really have to convince the people to let you do it or were they only too happy to do it?

A Brokeheart Pro: That was me and I really fought for it. And those are my real answering messages. That's Frank Dileo and Matt Wineger and Steven Rosen my publisher. There was a guy I was seeing at the time. There was my sister. These were real things that were left on my machine and I fought for that. And they were like: "Nobody's going to want that." And everybody copied it after I did it. I mean, rappers copied and stuff, and ahhh. (laughs) and I had to fight for that. They brought me into the big cheese's office to tell me: "You know, we really shouldn't do this." And I was: "Are we really going to spend an hour talking about this? This is good stuff." It was like the 40 hours they spent trying to get a snare sound. And I was like: "Who gives a damn?" It's the dumbest thing I ever heard of. (laughs)

antiMUSIC: What a trailblazer…like you said, everybody does that now. When I first heard that, it was one of the things that stood out on the record. I have never heard anything like that before and it was just so different and cool.

A Brokeheart Pro: Oh, that's cool. Thanks. And I don't know, you know what, I think the trailblazing, or any of that where it comes from, is one: too stupid to know any different. The working class ethic is just like, you know, I create this. I earned this. I'm going get it. You know, this is what I want. And that's where most of my stuff comes from. I really believe I'm most qualified to know what's best for my music. It's very hard…being an artist is hard, being a woman is hard. I've never been a man, I really don't know how hard it is, but I have a feeling the attitude is completely different. And you don't realize it's hard at the time, you're just doing what you think is right. You know, I've had to fight every step of the way. You know, I've been fighting for so long now that even now, when I do stuff, I'm still fighting.

antiMUSIC: It's just second nature to you.

A Brokeheart Pro: I don't want it to be. But I also don't want it to be something that I can't look back and be proud of. Everything I've done, I'm proud of at least. That takes a lot out of you, just to get it to that point. You know, I wish I could have done things and not cared as much. I think my life would have been a lot easier. But I think it's just a personality trait. I'm sick of fighting myself too. Just forget it, let it go.

antiMUSIC: Those things you consider a drawback or whatever, are the ones that have made you stand out though.

A Brokeheart Pro: Do I stand out? (laughs) It's funny, because the people who do like me, they really like me. And I'm very lucky that I've reached them because I've had to work very hard to reach the people, you know, the hardest thing is getting your stuff out there.

antiMUSIC: That's the crazy thing. I could never understand after the record came out…I could never find anything. It's amazing I missed the whole Chubbies thing..

A Brokeheart Pro: I kept changing my name, that's why you couldn't find me. I got rid of Katt because I was married to Dennis Katt as a teenager. That was my name. It wasn't a fake name. Then I got a divorce and I went back to Kantzalis, which is my name. But then it was the Chubbies…and I always hid behind something because frankly after the whole label thing I was really embarrassed because I had failed so miserably and came home with six dollars in my pocket. None of my musician friends would talk to me. The other ones were really mean to me and I just thought, "Ah God", you know. I just wanted to hide behind something.

antiMUSIC: But that's the crazy thing. I don't get why they would act like that. All you have to do is listen to the record to know somebody screwed up somewhere in promotion or somewhere and nobody got to hear it because if you did, you'd know right away it's excellent.

A Brokeheart Pro: You know who screwed up? It was me. I screwed up. You know who was there at the same time as me was Sheryl Crow. But she did everything right. When the record label president came in to power there, it was right when both of our records were to be released. And I got called into the office, and he kinda did a weird thing and he freaked me out, and I don't know what the hell happened but I got mad. I lost my temper. And of course he's not going to promote me. And then Sheryl Crow came in and said, "I don't like the record I just made. Will you help me with my next record? This was the idea I have." And she involved him and he gave her every bit of A&M promotion money. It was so smart what she did. But she was a grown up too then and she had been in the business already for about what, like six, seven years as a back-up for Michael Jackson. She'd already seen the worst of the worst and the best of the best. You know, I gotta hand it to her. We were sitting in the office and I had come in and watched her record a few things and she had come in on my sessions and we were both sitting in the office like we were two girls in trouble. And she said, "What you think this is about?" And I said, "I don't know. What you think it's about?" She says; "I think it's about our records". And I said; "Oh s***". Because mine was just about to drop on like the 10th and they just dropped the ball and I knew it. And what really pissed them off was one of the songs, "Girl Noise", started getting played on its own. And this really made him mad. I heard later it made him mad. He was like: "I don't want to promote that record." I'm on the Sheryl Crow thing. And hey, God bless her. Getting rich off of shampoo commercials (laughs). Damnit. And of course I'm driving to the hardware store the other day. I'm late, you know. I look like hell, I'm rushing in my horrible little crappy car. And then I turn on the radio and there's a Sheryl Crow song. And I go "Curse you" (laughs)

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