Girl in a Coma Interview

Hey everyone, back again with a new interview I conducted with lead vocalist for Girl in a Coma, Nina Diaz.



From Left to Right: Jenn Alva (Bass, back-up vocals), Nina Diaz (Lead Vocals, Guitar), Phanie Diaz (Drums)


Coming from San Antonio Texas, the band recently released their Sophomore Album, Trio B.C, fondly named for their Grandfathers Tejano band sisters Phanie and Nina grew up listening to. Two months after Trio hit stores and after a long spree of touring the East and West Coast, I caught up with Nina after the band played a show in Austin.



Girl in a Coma Interview with Nina Diaz, conducted on July 30th, 2009

Nina: Hi, may I speak with Laurel? This is Nina from Girl in a Coma.

Laurel: Hey, Nina this is Laurel. Thanks so much for doing this interview. How’s it been going? Did you guys just get off stage?

Nina: Actually we finished earlier. We played this morning in Austin at this “Girls Rock” camp thing. It was really cool.

Laurel: So with playing in Austin today, do you think the crowd response has been better when you play shows in Texas being that’s where you’re from or does it all feel pretty much the same live?

Nina: Um…shows, especially in San Antonio are beyond what I could ever hope for. And it’s grown so much since our first show 9 years ago. Our last show here was at this bar and grill…it was packed and it was just really cool. The shows around Texas are good response as well and each time we go out, there’s always a couple more people out.

Laurel: You’ve been on road pretty much non-stop since the end of May and your tour-dates on your website go til’ the end of September. Looking back on how things have been going, do you have any good stories to tell about you know, your sister and your friend…was there anything at a specific venue that seems to stand out?

Nina: Touring with Ms. Dehringer was a lot of fun because. That was this this tour. And they’re based out of Los Angeles. And they’re amazing to tour with. Usually with touring bands sometimes we don’t instantly click with them but with these guys we got like, an instant connection. And they’re really great people. Great, great music. All of the shows of this tour were a lot of fun and no…bad energy. Everything was good.

Laurel: And Trio B.C. has been out two months now, right?

Nina: Yeah.




Nina, performing on stage @ Jack's Patio

Laurel: Have people been singing the songs lyric for lyric yet? How has the crowd response been with it?


Nina: Yeah a couple of people singing along, especially to “El Monte” which is pretty cool. We actually just made a video for “El Monte”; for “Static Mind” as well.

Laurel: Yeah I saw that. It’s all still photos used to look like video footage. That was pretty interesting. Did you guys come up with that concept or was it the Director that thought of that. How’d that idea come about?


Nina: You know, we thought of it together. Jimmy. Jim Mendiola. He’s always wanted to do a video like that with a bunch of pictures and we wanted to do a video…like, just a random video kind of like uh…Smashing Pumpkins’ “Today”, you know, just having fun. And we just kind of collided on that…


Group photo of Girl in a Coma


Laurel: Itunes Review said that, “Trio B.C. displays a focus and consistency that far more experienced bands might envy.” What do you think of that? Are you guys fans of reading your own publicity or do you try and ignore it for the most part?

Nina: I’m not really very around the internet much to read up on it. But my sister, the drummer, she’s always checking up on it. And ya know, whatever kind of response we’re like, happy to know that we’re being talked about. Whether it’s good or bad, ya know, that kind of compliments us and it’s good to know.

Laurel: Yeah totally. I actually saw you guys last year on my 23rd birthday when you opened for Tegan and Sara. And you’re the second all girl band I’ve interviewed. I was thinking back to all of the shows I’ve gone to. I’ve probably been to about 80 or so in the past 2 years. I go to a lot of concerts in Philly. I was just realizing though, predominantly, the groups I’ve seen are just all…male artists pretty much. Tegan and Sara’s show was maybe the first concert I’d been to where there wasn’t a guy on stage for two straight bands. Do you that’s become a subject that isn’t talked about too much with the music industry? Do people think it’s more progressive than it really is as far as gender goes?

Nina: Um...I think it is talked about to an extent. Ya know, especially if you are in a girl band they always ask you, “How does it feel to be in a girl band in a male-dominated business?” And I’ve seen a lot of progression from it being all guys. Even back in the Doo-Wop days ya know there were the Supremes, and then like Abba, and then there’s Joan Jett with the Runaways. You know every generation there’s a new flight of girl bands and hopefully it can just all someday just be known as “music” and not be categorized by this or this; it’s just everyone playing music.

Laurel: Yeah, I like that.


Jenn Alva on Bass


Nina: I’ve noticed a lot though. Especially playing that rock camp today in Austin. It was very enlightening, you know, amazing to see these young girls playing their instruments at like, 10 years old. It’s really cool.

Laurel:So you signed to Blackheart Records in 2006 and you guys got an instantaneous offer from Joan Jett on live TV after she saw your set. If you had to describe her as a person I’m just kind of wondering what she’s like…offstage. How would that description go exactly?

Nina: She’s…I said this earlier today cuz they asked us too, the girls camp we played for today in Austin…. She’s exactly how she looks, she’s just cool. And confident. And she’s a really smooth person. And she’s always down to give great advice. She’s very low-maintenance. She’s just like, a really cool person and a really great musician and I wouldn’t ask for any better…as a boss. *laughs*

Laurel: Yeah, I mean, did you pick up anything from her when you recorded “Joanie in the City”? Did you notice anything when she was in the studio with you?

Nina: Yeah. When it comes to her doing her things she does them and she does them on point and she’s very professional. That’s something I hope to do, just to be very professional and learning all my craft the way that she did.

Laurel: And I read that you joined the band when you were 12 years old when Phanie and Jenn were sort of, in limbo with finding a vocalist. Was there a certain moment when they said, you know, “Be in our band!” Like, the moment where you joined “officially”. Do you remember what that was like when it happened?

Nina: Yeah…Cuz they were trying out all different sorts of vocalists and I was sort of, listening in the corner thinking, “I could do better than that.” And meanwhile I was working on my own stuff and I wanted to show them to just get their opinion of it. I wasn’t really trying out I just wanted to know what they thought of it. And they were about to leave and I called them out…on the porch of my Moms house.

“Hey before you guys go, you wanna hear this song and tell me what you think?”

And they were like, “Alright yeah, hurry up.” *laughs*

And so I played it for them and they said you know, “That’s good, who wrote that?” *laughs* And then it was just funny a little and them going, “You want to be in the band with us?”



Phanie Diaz on Drums at an in store at Best Buy

Laurel: And have you always sort of, written your own lyrics? When did that start? When I was 12 I was not writing my own lyrics, that’s for sure.

Nina: *laughs* Yeah I wrote my own stuff. Of course to play guitar I learned you know by playing Misfit songs or other songs. But with lyrics…I’ve always been a writer. In Elementary school even; writing class was my favorite class. I just really had something to say I guess inside my mind and writing just helped me let it out.

Laurel: How’d that go with school and everything when you were that age and doing shows with them? How did that work out exactly?

Nina: A lot of tired first periods…

Laurel: *laughs*

Nina: *laughs* After a show ya know, I’d get home around 2 and then I’d wake up at like, 6. First periods were all sleep. I got by pretty well though. Of course I was a dreamer and I’d always be thinking “Man I wanna get out of here. I wanna go tour…”

When I was 16 during the summer I was on tour and then Junior year I dropped out before Christmas vacation because I had the opportunity to go to London to record a demo with Boz Boorer, which is the Musical Director for Morrissey. At that point I thought, “Alright, now it’s getting a little bit serious and the only thing that’s holding us back is me being in school still and I really want to do this.”

So I dropped out and got my GED and kept going from there.


Nina on stage

Laurel: That’s crazy. I mean, what do you tell your friends in a scenario like that?
“I’m going to London to record for Morrissey’s Music Director…”

Nina: Yeah! I mean, we told my best friends…Chris and Carly, “Ya know I’m not gonna be able to graduate this year and I’m gonna go do this.”

Everybody really understood. Everyone was very understanding.

Laurel: And you guys have done a few covers. You did “Van Cerca” by Los Spitfires, that’s on Trio, and then I saw a Youtube video of “Ring of Fire”, which was pretty awesome. Are there any other covers in the works? Any favorite bands you’d like to do one by?

Nina: Yeah, we’re always…there’s always something new we want to play. Every couple months we want to do a cover. So there’s always ….something like, Elvis. Jenn has always been the one, “Let’s do an Elvis song!” Eventually I want to do that just so we can do that and have fun with it. It’d be cool to do um…a bunch of new bands and where I want to do it our way. But yeah with covers, I’m always down for a good cover.

Laurel: And who have you been listening to now? Who are the top 5 on your Itunes lately?

Nina: Definitely number one has been Jeff Buckley.

Laurel: Oh, I love Jeff Buckley.

Nina: Yeah! I got that new Grace World Tour DVD/CD split thing that just came out. Yeah it’s really, really crazy. His mom put it together.

Laurel: Oh Wow.

Nina: Yeah and it has interviews and like performances and then on the CD it’s just songs from Grace performed around the world. It’s really good. And it’s really inspiring, that DVD. And umm…Smashing Pumpkins for sure. I started listening to this band called “Sparks”. And they sound like…70’s and onward. They’re a really cool band, like fun music. And then David Bowie. And then T-Rex.

Laurel: Oh man, T-Rex. You guys should do “Cosmic Dancer”. It’s one of my favorite T-Rex songs.

Nina: Yeah! That’s a great song. I love that song too.

Laurel: Ok so here’s the last part of the interview and this is, I guess…the random question section.

If you could have three female musicians on your side in a bar-fight, who would they be?
Nina: Kim Gordon, from Sonic Youth. Kim Biel from Breeders and the Pixies. And…Joan Jett.

Laurel: Three things you can’t tour without?

Nina: My laptop. Peanut Butter. And a good book.

Laurel: I noticed you’re all pretty inked up. What’s the last tattoo you got?

Nina: The last one I got…actually was a cover-up. Cuz I had my boyfriends name tattooed on me. And then we broke up so I got a tattoo of a train over it. *laughs*

Laurel: Alright, lastly being on the road together with your sister and best friend, you start to pick up on behaviors of those who are with you for a long time like that. Have you started noticing any weird habits or sort of fun idiosyncrasies of everyone else in the band from being on tour for the past 3 months?

Nina: Well, we’re just really silly people. We were talking and whoever is the 4th person that comes on the road with us, we like to say that we kinda make em’, a little less smarter. It’s one of our jokes.

Laurel: *laughs*



The Girls, at Hogwild Records


Nina: And Jenn likes to make these movies on the road. Hopefully someday she’ll put them out to the light. They’re really funny movies and we’ve kinda been acting in them too. And we just ya know, goof around a lot, that’s the main thing.

Laurel: Current Ringtone?

Nina: Well, I used to have Dirty Boots, the Sonic Youth song. But my songs got erased so now I’m just stuck with original T-Mobile ringtone.

Laurel: That’s sad.

Nina: Yeah…it sounds like a career point song. Like, a “Get down to it!” kinda thing. *laughs*

Laurel: Alright well that’s all I have for today. Thank you so much for giving me the interview.

Nina: Aw, no problem.

Laurel: Hopefully I’ll get to see you guys live again when you’re with someone else other than Tegan and Sara. I really enjoyed that show.

Nina: Oh thank you!

Laurel: Have a great night and thanks.

Nina: No problem, you too. Bye.




To learn more about Girl in a Coma, you can find them on:

Myspace
GIAC Website

Albums "Both Before I'm Gone" and "Trio B.C, are both available on Itunes now :)