Dream Girls

Peppy fivesome ROCKET go from made-up to making it

From California's sunny beaches bursts Rocket, a 5-piece all-girl MySpace phenomenon that surprises its listeners with a spunky mixture of Glam-rock meets Spice Girls that showed actual talent. Roxie Rocket, Lauren W. Rocket, Lauren C. Rocket, Kelly Rocket and Kristin Rocket are the five spicy, boylovin' bubble-gum chewin' girls behind Rocket who sold-out the Viper Room at their headlining debut live show mere months after the release of their 2005 album, Too Hot To Be Bothered, and since have toured with Butch Walker and taken the stage at the VANS Warped Tour.

"We kind of like, made up a band," Lauren W., the band's lead vocalist, keytar player and lyricist, admits proudly. "This guy who wrote for a local weekly was like 'What do you guys do? What are you doing here?' We said, 'We're in a band, write about us,' and we just kind of made it up on the spot. But then we thought, maybe we should actually be a band, so the guy had a little label and he asked if we would record a song for him." The name Rocket was simply another improvisation that occurred in the conversation. "He asked us what our band was called, and I just said 'Rocket!' It just kind of came out... and then it stuck, it seemed appropriate for what we wanted to do." Rocket's music has been placed in every genre imaginable by fans and critics, possibly, Lauren W. says, because the "songwriting just comes from all over the place." The taste spectrum in the group is vast, ranging from bass player Kristin, who Lauren described as "super into dark metal," to punk-rock drummer Roxie and the glam-rock Laurens. "I think that's the reason why we end up getting classified as all these different styles, because as a band we are all those different styles. We're not stuck in some rut where we don't know what we're doing. We're such a young band that I think we're still finding our sound and that's why we're all over the place," Lauren W. concluded.

Though Rocket's lineup has seen changes (their original drummer only stayed a short time, and the third Lauren left for school in New York), they haven't faltered on their strict no-boys-in-the-band policy. When asked about their insistence on an all-girl band, the Laurens laughed and explained that they had formed a little band when they were 14, and that it was all girls then, too. "It's just something we thought would be cool," Lauren W. explained. "We were always really influenced by girl musicians and we sort of grew up in a time where there was a resurgence of girl bands and we were really intrigued by groups like Hole and Bikini Kill. I think something we always really wanted to do was follow in those footsteps, but do it updated."

This 5-woman explosion has earned itself a reputation for busting the stereotypes associated with a "girl band" onstage. "And we love to do that!" laughed Lauren C. The punk/glam-clad circus takes the stage with heels, stellar hair, and one goal in mind: to just have fun. "I think I speak for everybody when I say that we, like, love the music that we play, so it's really just about us having fun doing what we're doing and being crazy on stage! Lauren (W.) likes to call us 'Motley Crue-esque,'" Lauren C. giggles, "and ...it doesn't matter, whether we're playing to five people or 5,000 people, we put on the same show; we're gonna go bonkers onstage!"

Working from the excitement from their first album, Too Hot To Be Bothered, the girls of Rocket released their second full-length, Girls With Candy Hearts, and have been performing coast to coast enchanting audiences of all ages with their unique style. Currently the group is gearing up for a tour around their home state of California this summer and for the release of their newest E.P.

— Corley Sims


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