I've said it before: just being a pretty face ain't going to get you that far. It has to be about whatever the art behind it is and what the message is and what the music is, the purpose.
Maria Brink
I'm a Sagittarius and I love adventure and new beginnings, new experiences, because it makes me feel like I'm living.
Black Widow' is a metaphor for this innocent young girl who gets infected with life, traumas, experiences, and the balance of light and darkness. She becomes this poised and powerful creature. That's the album.
I actually rarely ever get hit on. Isn't that funny? People think I do, but I actually don't.
We had a demo recorded that we made available on our MySpace site, and that was quite successful for us too, but not on the same level as 'Beautiful Tragedy.'
Everyone has their own right to their own point of view and everyone has their own perception of everything and everyone doesn't have to love me, obviously, but I just think that it's too much when people say that they want you to die and it can be so dark and mean.
I completely, 100 percent got bullied, and I'd still stick up for myself and try to be strong, but it was always so deeply painful.
My Maria on stage definitely is a real natural part of who I am, but obviously I can't walk around as that girl. You know what I mean? It's definitely an alter ego, but it is part of who I am, it is who I am, it is my life.
I struggled with kind of fighting with the inner illnesses within myself where my psychological madness and I have always kind of struggled with different disorders and mental things and so the biggest thing that I was kind of always ashamed of or being embarrassed of was kind of that.
When I play piano by myself and sing, something really special happens. I connect to something that I love.
We didn't want it to end up in discussions where we would talk about whether this song needed to be more metal, whether I needed to scream more in that song or whether I shouldn't sing quite as much in those songs because metalheads wouldn't like that.
World In Flames' is pretty powerful to me, it's about waking up in the middle of the night, the whole world has ignited into flames, and I'm there alone. And it's kind of like a fear of dying alone and the whole world is burning.
I do tend to fall to the dark side of things visually sometimes.
I love my mom. I think my mom is responsible for me loving music and being in music because she subjected it to me at such a young age.
The numbers in women in rock 'n' roll and metal are pretty much growing a lot, which is a great thing.
With rock 'n' roll, Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, the Runaways, there was always that feminine spirit.
You have to hustle and work hard, but we have been fortunate with big crowds and having a good time.
I love conceptual art and artistic expression.
I don't think we're metalcore. To me, metalcore is more like hardcore-influenced metal, with lots of breakdowns. I think we're a lot more diverse sounding than that.
In This Moment has gone through some big changes.
I get it from everything - anything that's theatrical, watching the other bands, looking up Vegas shows online... anything that can just inspire me. I'm always searching for inspiration.
We always wanted to have this big show. So we just kind of started doing little things, like building our own little props, and starting to put on a show. And we just started seeing the response, and it felt amazing to us, and then I fell in love with it.
We're not partying out on the road, but we still have fun.
In the metal world, if you're using a wireless mic... I was so scared to do that. I'm, like, 'They're gonna boo me in the beginning.'
I like that weathered, torn look.
I've got a lot of darkness in me.
I know I am more on the sexual side in terms of my appearance, which is something that the metal world is not used to. But I am comfortable with it. It's how I express my art, and myself.
People think they know who I am, but they don't.
I will not bow down to others' perceptions of me; I will only rise in the name of art, love and music.
I love all the pain I have endured because it has also taught me about love.
I really try to find inspiration in all band's I've toured with because everyone's up there doing their own thing and captivating in different forms.
There's only rules if you place rules on yourself.
Well, I have definitely had a very intense life and upbringing to say the least. I did have a beautiful young mom who loved me as much as she could but I still had to deal with all forms of abuse and hardships.
I love being theatrical, we love electronics in our music, and we're not afraid to put electronics on my voice and do all these fun things.
The band likes to be different which each album, so that the listener is taken on a fascinating, but different journey each time.
Embrace who you are, and if people don't understand you, that's their own problem, that's their own insecurities. They're really the one with the problem - the people who are judging you and saying negative things to you, they are really the people with the problem, not you at all.
Black Widow' is definitely the darker part of me. This album is about finding the weakness inside and turning it into strength. It's about being reborn, setting yourself free and realizing the balance in everything - the dark and the light.
What kids out there who are getting bullied need to know is that it's not OK. There's a lot of reach-out programs, people that you can talk to, people that can help you figure out how to get an answer to the problem.
We are resilient beings and need to realize our incredible strengths.
I am a lucky woman to have my loved ones and my experiences to open me up the way it has and inspire my art.
I don't know what genre you would put us into, and I'm always telling people that. When I'm trying to explain In This Moment's sound to them, all I can say is that its diverse-sounding, with influences such as metalcore's breakdowns, metal in general and some melodic rock.
I think it really comes down to, it doesn't matter if it's a girl or man, it's about if you have something to say, it's about the music, you know?
I think that all of the deep, intense things, a lot of different abuse, and all kinds of crazy stuff - I think it made me really strong and it made me learn how to appreciate every day, appreciate people in my life, so it's just another good example of sometimes bad things make us appreciate the beautiful every day.
I love doing covers.
The Maria, what I look like in real life and how I am, I'm a super flower child. I wear all flower child '60s dresses.
I am such a fiery woman and I am a real passionate woman and I get so much stuff built up inside of me that I can release all that on stage, and I kind of counterbalance it with the normal Maria that I am because with the real calming, natural kind of earthy spirit stuff and it kind of balances me out so I don't go too crazy.
I wear like lip gloss and my hair is always really natural, and I'm a really kind of natural free spirit in my everyday life who has crystals and I burn sage, and I think I find a lot of calming beauty in that stuff.
Some people go to the gym and some people have different ways that they express themselves, and I do all mine through my music.
Instead of yelling and screaming or losing myself all the time, I release everything in my music, and that's kind of how I expel my demons, as you would say.
I love change.
