Britt Black

Britt Black
Blackout (Her Royal Majesty's Records)

Don't be fooled by the cover, which looks like some sort of homage to Black Sabbath's first album, complete with bare-limbed winder trees and a scary wizard dude standing in front of some creepy old church building. The Tony Iommi-inspired guitar line that power "Baby Come On Back" nothingwithstanding, Blackout, doesn't have in common with the classic sludge-metal pioneered by Ozzy and company. No, the vibe of this debut solo album by former LiveOnRelease member Brittin Karroll (who goes by the punchier Britt Black moniker these days) can be summed up by the title of the third track, "Jet Black Heart". I'm guessing that's a none-too-veiled reference to Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. Like Jett, Black is at her best when's she's belting out snotty, punkish numbers, and there are plently of those on Blackout, bearing such titles as "Sick & Tired" and "In Your Face".
Ballad-style songs like "Leave a Light On" and "Stuck Here" and slightly less successful, and attempting an amped-up cover of the Cult's "She Sells Sanctuary" would be be a mistake for anyone. Fortunately, Black and her cohorts-guitarist Dave Dandy, bassist Howard Humenick, and drummer Daryl Hood-do a bang-up job of crunching their way through the simple, power chord-driven tunes, many of which bear co-writing credits from producers Todd Kerns and Peter Karroll (Britt's dad). - The Georgia Straight

Thursday June 9, 2005

rock
Black like her

Britt Black at Club 279 (279 Tonge) tonight (Thursday June 9), 9pm, $8.

The last time I talked to 20-year-old rock chick Britt Black she was Brittin Karroll, high school student and guitarist for BC teenaged girly rock slash pop punk outfit LiveOnRelease who saw a modicum of success when their tune I'm Afraid of Britney Spears made it onto the soundtrack of Dude, Where's My Car?
"We broke up two and a half years ago," she says, "and I was wondering what I was going to do with my life."
She wound up playing guitar for Bif Naked for two years - Black's dad is Bif's manager and co-owner of her Her Royal Majesty label. Now she's bringin' on the harder rock with her quartet.
"With LiveOnRelease I had to write teenager pop, and I never really like the songs I played. I wanted to do something closer to what I listen to."
She likes stuff like Slipknot and the Used, but her stuff is, thank god, a little easier listening than that. She also digs Audioslave. There's no accounting for taste.
Being a frontperson, she says, is a new and challenging experience. "When you're just the guitar player, you can put your head down and have your hair in your face, but a frontperson has to relate to the crowd.
"I'm just figuring out what I'm supposed to do onstage and how charismatic I have to be."
-Elizabeth Bromstein - Now Magazine Toronto

Britt Black wasn't always Britt Black. The 20-year-old aggressive rock singer for her namesake band was given the alias by another determined rocker, Robin Black, when she was just 16 and a member of Vancouver pop/rock band LiveOnRelease.
"He was like, 'You're my littler sister now'", recounds Britt, who was born Brittin Karroll, but quickly adopted the new surname and uses it for her debut solo album, Blackout.
"I've always been a fan of Brittin's," says' Toronto's Robin Black, leader of his own eponymously-titled band. "I always thought she had something very special. And damn it she kind of reminds me of me - only with boobs. So I thought that we should share a last name, kind of like a married couple."
As every red-blooded male will attest, Britt - who looks hot in the photos for her new band and the video for the first single, 'Jet Black Heart' - has indeed grown up. But the singer, songwriter and guitarist was always beyond her years musically.
Raised in, on and around rock & roll, she's the daughter of musician/producer Peter Karroll, who manages Bif Naked, with whom he also co-owns Her Royal Majesty's Records, the record label which release Blackout distributed by Warner Music Canada.
At age 10, she co-wrote 'Violence' on Bif Naked's I Bificus album; at age 13 she co-wrote for LiveOnRelease, which made two albums, four videos and landed, 'I'm Afraid of Britney Spears' in the movie Dude Where's My Car? and at 18, she player lead guitar for Bif.
There are a number of reasons Black decided to go it alone with own band. "If a member decides to leave then I can keep going. Like LiveOnRelease, they wanted to quit, and it was done," she says.
"I just jumped from touring (with Bif) to wanting to do this record and wanting to do it fast because I was kind of getting not excited about going on tour with Bif anymore, just because it's not my own thing. You can only be a hired musician for so long."
Writing mainly with another HRM artist, Todd Kerns, as well as a little bit with her father (both produced the album as well). Britt Black solo emerged with a fierce but melodic hard rock sound - quite rare for a female in Canada, where Bif remains the frontrunner in that neglected genre.
On Blackout Britt says, there are about four songs about a guy who broke her heart last year; one for her mother called 'Leave The Light On; and "Speed Of Light, a matter-of-fact account about what happened with LiveOnRelease. Sound-wise, it ranges from the old school metal sound of 'Baby Come On Back' to the emotive power ballad gem 'Stuck Here', and the honourable Cult cover, 'Sanctuary'.
"I do have a lot more writing than I did on LiveOnRelease; I have more than 80 perfect on this records," says Black. "Todd did have a big part in writing a lot of the music, but I wrote every lyric that there is on this album, so I think that's the difference between LiveOnRelease and this.
"I'm trying to go in a more aggressive way and that does have something to do with Bif I think. I don't want to be like I was in LiveOnRelease."
-Karen Bliss - Access All Areas

Britt Black
(Vancouver)

Britt Black (a.k.a. Brittin Karroll) is in the vein of Velvet Revolver, The Ramones and any band with that straight-ahead NY/London rock brashness. At 10, she co-wrote 'Violence' on Bif Naked's I Bificus album, and, at 13 she co-wrote for her own band, LiveOnRelease, which made two albums, four videos, and landed 'I'm Afraid Of Britney Spears' in the movie Dude Where's My Car? At 18, she played guitar for Bif before recording her own album with her co-writers, dad Peter Karroll and Todd Kerns. Backed by guitarist Cole Schleppe, bassist David Dandy and drummer Tom Terrell, the album is set for release May 3 in Bif's Her Royal Majesty's Records. First single is 'Jet Black Heart'. - Access Magazine Feb-Mar 2005

Former Bif Naked guitarist sets out on her own.

The phone call from Britt Black is 20 monutes late but comes with a full apology - rare for a rock singer with a debut album to promote.
First-album rockers are usually overexuberant and completely ignorant of others. HOwever, Black isn't some full-of-herself newbie. THough just out of her teens, she has been around the music business all her life.
Her father is Peter Karroll, manager and producer of Vancouver-based rock diva Bif Naked for the past 11 years. When she was just 10 years old, Britt co-wrote the song 'Violence' with Bif, and young black often accompanied her father on tour. By Grade 9, Black was in LiveOnRelease, a all girl punk/pop outfit whose song 'I'm Afraid of Britney Spears' was included on the soundtrack for Dude Where's My Car?
After two albums with LOR, Black joined Naked's band as lead guitarist. She has now gone solo, flying on her own as frontwoman, songwriter and guitarist with her own band. Her debut album, Blackout, hit the streets on May 10, she has had a video on MuchMusic and MTV Canada, and she's a bit behind with this day's round of interviews.
"I'm just running the office right now and it's a little more hectic than I though," Black says.
The office that of TKO Entertainment, the management company run by her father and by her sister, Riley Karroll. At this stage in her life, Britt's is all about the music biz - but then that's almost always been the case. Playing in a rock band of her own has been Black's goal since she was about eight years old. She first pciked up a guitar at age 12.
"I have always wanted to do this," she says. "I have been Britt Black since I was 16 and in LiveOnRelease. That band ended and I was playing with Bif and after a while it was just time for me to go out on my own, to have my say and do what I want to do."
What Black wants to do is win the hearts and minds of young Canada with the kind of straightforward, gutbucket rock'n'roll favoured by the likes of Velvet Revolver, old GN'R and late-80's Cult. In fact 'She Sells Sanctuary' is the sole cover on her album, which was co-produced by Britt's father and Vancouver-based rock vet Todd Kerns (also managed by TKO).
"It was pretty intense," Black says of the effort required to put together Blackout. "Especially when we were writing. It was like we were going to work. Todd and I would meet at nine in the morning and he'd have a song he was working on. I'd have something and we'd work on that and then we literally had homework."
Black admits she freaked out a little bit at one point as her first show drew near.
"I was like, 'I can't do this! I'm a guitar player!' but then I kinda realized I can do this, " she says.
"I'm still getting used to singing and not playing leads but I am very excited about getting out and touring with my own record. My best friend is coming out and selling merch. It's going to great."
Following her initial touring jaunt, Black says she'll travel as opening act on Bif Naked's upcoming national tour.
"Everything will be familiar that way and then I can go out on my own again." - Uptown