{"id":23380,"date":"2022-07-20T05:30:34","date_gmt":"2022-07-20T09:30:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23380"},"modified":"2022-07-13T15:47:58","modified_gmt":"2022-07-13T19:47:58","slug":"liliac-cmon-get-metal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/20\/liliac-cmon-get-metal\/","title":{"rendered":"Liliac: C’mon Get Metal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Family band Liliac breathes youthful life into classic-style heavy metal<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a long and often proud tradition of family bands: The Jackson 5, The Osmonds and the Cowsills are among the most well-known among those. Now there\u2019s a new \u2013 and decidedly more modern \u2013 addition to that musical heritage: Liliac. Launched in Santa Monica and now based in Georgia, the group features five siblings, all of whom play instruments and contribute to songwriting.<\/p>\n

Like the aforementioned family acts, Liliac was put together by the band members\u2019 father. Romanian-born Florin Cristea once had musical aspirations of his own, but he has since channeled those energies into musical careers for his five offspring. Liliac lead singer and middle-child Melody Cristea (age 20) says the idea for Liliac came first; musical lessons for her and her siblings \u2013 guitarist Samuel, 22; drummer Abigail, 21; bassist Ethan, 15; keyboardist Justin, 14 \u2013 came later.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Early on, Melody says, \u201cit was just me, Abby and Sam busking on the [3rd<\/sup> Street] Promenade in Santa Monica.\u201d But once her two younger brothers entered their double-digit years, they wanted to get involved as well. \u201cMy dad was like, \u2018Okay, might as well make a band with all of you guys,\u2019\u201d Melody recalls. Her father chose instruments for each of them. \u201cThen we started taking lessons to learn the basics and move forward,\u201d Melody says.<\/p>\n

Florian Cristea\u2019s own background is in the music of the Romanian Pentecostal Church, and in traditional Romanian folk. But once the family settled in California, he and his family developed a greater interest in hard rock. Melody mentions Queen, Aerosmith, Journey, Scorpions, Metallica and Megadeth as favorites, and notes that her greatest musical inspiration is the late Ronnie James Dio (of Black Sabbath, Rainbow and his own eponymous band).<\/p>\n

These days, Melody is the band\u2019s lead singer and primary focal point. But like her siblings, she\u2019s an accomplished instrumentalist as well. She plays the flute, and in Liliac\u2019s earliest days she was the group\u2019s bassist. \u201cEthan used to be the rhythm guitarist,\u201d Melody explains. \u201cBut later on in life, I decided I just wanted to be the front person and focus more on my voice.\u201d So Melody taught her young brother how to play bass, while she moved out front to the mic.<\/p>\n

Cynics might wonder if Liliac is merely a bunch of rich, privileged kids acting out their hobbies onstage. But that doesn\u2019t seem to be the case: before relocating to Douglasville, a small city 30 minutes west of Atlanta, the family lived in a three-bedroom apartment. \u201cThe boys shared one room, the girls shared another, and my parents had their own room,\u201d Melody says. The family\u2019s new single-family house gives everyone their own personal space, and it even has a basement. \u201cWe\u2019re going to put a [rehearsal] studio in there,\u201d Melody says.<\/p>\n

The group started out playing covers, with a focus on \u201870s and \u201880s hard rock. But the hard-working family band soon moved into writing its own material in a style inspired by their musical forebears. Released in 2020, Queen of Hearts<\/i> features 13 original songs, all composed by the group. There\u2019s a powerful, anthemic character to the songs, one that\u2019s in line with the style of the band\u2019s heroes. \u201cI do the melody lines and write lyrics,\u201d Melody says. \u201cSometimes I ask for help from my siblings, and they do help.\u201d Each musician writes his or her own parts.<\/p>\n

In addition to rehearsing, touring, writing and recording, the members of Liliac spend a lot of time on social media. \u201cIt’s very important to be active online,\u201d Melody emphasizes, \u201cso that people know that you are an active band that wants to connect with the people. You can share all your [music video clips], and they can keep watching and share.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if the band encounters groupies along the way, Melody says yes, but hastens to add that \u201cthey help us unpack, set up the stage, load up and stuff like that.\u201d Though the band members\u2019 tender years \u2013 not to mention dad Florian\u2019s watchful eye \u2013 all but ensure that Liliac won\u2019t be engaging in heavy metal \u201cRiot House\u201d styled debauchery, Liliac does encounter eyebrow-raising situations on tour. \u201cThis one fan was kind of weird,\u201d Melody recalls. \u201cHe gave me a flip phone and said, \u2018Can you hold on to this phone and keep in contact with me?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Liliac\u2019s lead singer politely but firmly turned down the fan\u2019s overture. But with a good-natured chuckle, she jokes about how she might have responded instead: \u201cCould you at least upgrade to an iPhone 12?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Family band Liliac breathes youthful life into classic-style heavy metal There\u2019s a long and often proud tradition of family bands: The Jackson 5, The Osmonds and the Cowsills are among […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,46,62],"tags":[4887],"class_list":["post-23380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-metal","category-rawk","tag-liliac","cat-41-id","cat-46-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23380"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23382,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23380\/revisions\/23382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}