FLYLEAF’s Lacey Sturm says PANTERA influenced her to start screaming more
Speaking with Rock Feed, FLYLEAF‘s Lacey Sturm was asked if there was a band that she heard when she was young that made her go, “I want to do hard rock music like them.”
She replied (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “PANTERA. The thing about PANTERA was that my brother liked them. They’re from Arlington, Texas, and that’s where we grew up. So that was like cool to know PANTERA. You knew where Dimebag [PANTERA guitarist] lived and walked past his house.
“In Halloween, they had like these big claws that looked like a monster was gonna pull the house on the ground on top of the roof. It was this cool thing — legendary. And we went to this junior high that they went to. So you could look them up in the old yearbooks. And so, PANTERA was sort of legendary a little bit.”
She continued: “But I liked pop music when I was in fifth grade. And then my brother went to a NIRVANA show at Dallas at Tree’s, actually — he went to that legendary one — for his, like, 12th birthday or something. Yeah, ’cause I was 11. And he brought home a tape. And I had the only boombox in the house.
“And so he had to come to my room to listen to it. And so, I started listening to that. And there was something about that, that was different than anything I’d heard in music, that it was like — it wasn’t just to entertain you; it was an expression of something that I didn’t realize you could express through music, because it was a mess.
“And I wasn’t a musician, but I was, like, ‘This is so… There’s something about this.’ And I fell in love with NIRVANA. But then when I heard PANTERA, I was, like, ‘This is so dumb. This is not music. This is just somebody screaming.’ Like, ‘Why are you listening to this?’ And then I pick up the lyric booklet and I see there’s crazy abuse and like rage and I’m, like, ‘Oh, wait. This is the only way to sing these lyrics, is to scream them.’
“And I was, like, ‘I wanna scream some stuff too. The world’s a mess.’ So then me and my brother started bonding over PANTERA. And I wrote one of my first songs screaming. And I thought there is an appropriate time for that.”
Lacey is set to unveil her second solo record, “Kenotic Metanola,” in mid-November.
FLYLEAF had its long-anticipated reunion gig with Sturm, which occurred on a spring evening at Schoepf’s BBQ in Belton, Texas.
FLYLEAF, having been dormant in the live music scene since 2016 prior to the Belton show, concluded its festival appearances for the year with a performance at the Blue Ridge Rock Festival in Alton, Virginia, held in September.
Sturm parted ways with FLYLEAF in October 2012. Her position was subsequently filled by Kristen May, who contributed to one album during her tenure with the group, known as “Between the Stars,” released in 2014, prior to her departure.