Patrice Pike

Patrice Pike found her calling years ago at Dallas’ Booker T. Washington High School for the Visual and Performing Arts.
PATRICE PIKE IS A SMALL BUNDLE OF smiles and tattoos. She’s earned comparisons to Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, and Sheryl
Crow in her performances that mix of rock and soul
with, in recent years, broader, so-called world
by Tom Geddie
She is seheduled to perform with Carter Sampson on September 14 at Poor David’s Pub: Patrice Pike
music.
At 42, she’s no longer then teen phenom who went from homelessness to a major label contract when she was 16; she’s better. She’s still got the talent and she’s grown into the depth that, in 2007 in her adopted home town, at the Austin Music Awards she was named musi- cian of the year, best rock band, best song (for “Beautiful Thing”), and best female vocalist, and was inducted into the Texas Music Hall of Fame.
Something that happened five years ago might be old news — ancient history — to some people, but it’s just part of the curve for Pike.
On maturity
“I’M GRATEFUL FOR THE WIS- dom I’ve gained through my career, and happy that I’m taking care of myself,” she said. “I’m probably in the best shape of my life. When you are a singer, you don’t mature until later.
“The voice is a muscle. I remember learning that when I was in my 20s. I get a lot of compliments that my voice is better than it’s ever sounded, and I appreciate that. I’m also grateful that I don’t worry about the industry anymore, and that my fans have stood by me and given me a sustainable career.”
That sustainable career includes, perhaps, a couple of hundred shows a year; sometimes, that’s three shows a week, and sometimes it’s two- and three- week tours with lots of shows.
The performances are fun, uninhibited by the restraints of so-called perfection.
“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” she said. “The over-polished stuff is out there and I pride myself and my colleagues on making well done records, but if you suck it dry to make it too perfect, it gets kinda boring. Sometimes you get more from a live performance because of the audience.
“The most important thing is that people are moved by the song,” she said.
“Not just that it’s believable for the listener, but that you’re emoting truth in your emotions, you believe it too. Otherwise, what’s the point? I want to feel it, and believe it. When I become a fan of somebody’s new releases, it excites me and I get something real from it.”
With her heavy, colorful tattoos and the fact that she gets up on stage and sings, Pike is often seen as a flamboyant person. Just as often, though, she’s quiet.
“Some of my best friends say I’m an extroverted introvert,” she said.
Most of the tattoos came earlier in life, from pictures Pike found on her mother’s book- shelves, including a Tibetan dragon. Her most recent is a tree swallow from the Hans Chris- tian Andersen fairy tale “Thumbelina.” It’s a story of a tiny girl whose adventures include toads, moles, and other creatures before she falls in love with a flower-fairy prince just her size.
In Pike’s more than 25 years as a professional musician, she’s fronted the band Sister 7 that charted a couple of Billboard hits and toured with the Dave Matthews Band, John Fogerty,
and Lilith Fair. She’s made main- stage appearances at festivals in- cluding High Sierra, Kerrville, Strawberry, and Austin City Lim- its. She won the grand prize in the 2004 USA Songwriting Com- petition and finished in the top seven — from 20,000 applicants — in the 2006 Rockstar Super- nova competition on CBS.
Arts Magnet grad
THE BOOKER T. WASHING- ton High School for the Visual and Performing Arts provided Pike the opportunity, first of all, to understand whether she cared enough to become an artist, with all of the sacrifices that involves.
“Do we care enough about figuring out where we’re coming from and how we want to ex- press ourselves to the world? And if we do, we better get our shit together,” she said. “That takes discipline, focus, and practice. There are a lot of amazing artists who aren’t disciplined, who are never on time, who shoot up heroin. But Arts Magnet was a haven and refuge for kids living in Dallas — some poor and some rich, so many different kinds of people with similar interests. Everybody in that school knew they were in a special place. On some level it was showing them who they are and saving their lives. That was definitely a catalyst for me, to know what I needed to do at so many points in my life where I could have gotten off track. And it was fun, too.”
The Calling
PIKE’S NEWEST CD, THE Calling, is tentatively scheduled for release in January. She and co-producer Mark Addison planned to master the songs in August, and she’s shopping it around to various labels but also may release it on her own.
Release was delayed because of Live at the Brushwood Lounge, recorded last year at the Black Bart Theater in Murphys, a tiny gold rush town in the Sierra foothills of Northern Califo - Buddy Magazine by Tom Gheddie

Editor's note: Some last names have been kept confidential in this story to protect the subjects from potential harm.

In the fast-paced milieu of a busy performing artist, going from venue to venue, from hotel to hotel and from city to city, it's easy not to pay attention to the people around you no matter how remarkable they may be.

That's the world Austin-based songwriter/rock singer Patrice Pike lives in. On the road, sometimes she makes friends and sometimes she doesn't. It's just how things are. It's something that happens as we grow old, she thinks, we don't let as many people into our lives knowing that it takes time and effort to maintain personal relationships — and who has time?

But at one gig in Arkansas, one sassy server, a feisty cowgirl made Pike stop and pay attention.

Amid a sound check Grace hollered, "Y'all sound great. . . you'll do well tonight!" Grace kept sharing her thoughts out loud, going on and on.

A hardworking showgirl like Pike has her act down pat. She wondered who this young gal was and why she would offer her unsolicited opinion. Pike was taken, charmed — though put off at first. Despite her tiny figure, Grace was all personality, serving up bar food and cocktails to her loyal crowd. From that encounter, a pen pal friendship ensued.

Lighthearted letters went back and forth. But one day, Pike received a letter of a different tenor.

"Grace was about to have heart surgery and wanted me to know that in case she didn't make it, in case I would no longer hear from her, that she didn't just disappear," Pike says.

"It means so much to anyone for someone else, especially someone who hardly knows you, to believe in you. For so many people to say, how can I help you be the person you are capable of being, it means a lot. It's beautiful."
A combination of genetics, descent into vagrancy, alcoholism and drugs led to cardiomyopathy. But this story has a happy ending.

Grace wasn't counting on Pike's medical know-how, something she inherited from her mother, who's a nurse. She didn't count on the many similarities that the two women shared, from growing up in an at-risk household to running away and to enduring homelessness. And she didn't think Pike would get involved personally, help her emotionally and financially, and stage a benefit concert to bankroll her medical care.

That was in 2004.

How one person inspired a movement

"Her story could have been my story, " Pike says. "But I was lucky, though I barely missed her trajectory.

"I went to a high school (Booker T. Washington in Dallas) where I wasn't a black sheep. Many of my friends came from unstable family environments. I had teachers and counselors that looked after me. I had a place to stay and a couch to crash on, but others weren't so fortunate."

Fast forward two years. That's when Pike joined forces with Todd Young, CEO and co-founder of ProspX, to establish The Grace Foundation of Texas in Austin, later expanding to Houston in 2009 and Dallas in 2011. It's in her DNA: Pike is on a mission to break the cycle of teenage homelessness. Her weapons are college scholarships, one-to-one mentorship, career training and placement and access to health practitioners.

One of the foundation's first cases, Candice, said in a video message: "It means so much to anyone for someone else, especially someone who hardly knows you, to believe in you. For so many people to say, how can I help you be the person you are capable of being, it means a lot. It's beautiful."

"Think of a typical 13-year-old: Do you think they have the maturity to deal with living in the streets? These kids don't have a support system."
Grace in Houston

Working alongside Houston's Star of Hope, five local youngsters ages 17 to 19 have been selected as this year's Grace Foundation's scholarship recipients. They are headed to Texas A&M University, Prairie View A&M University and the University of Houston to major in engineering, political science and education.

Every scholarship winner receives a different awards package, one that's aligned with their specific needs and aspirations.

"We treat runaway teens as if they were adults, and we should not, " Pike says. "Think of a typical 13-year-old: Do you think they have the maturity to deal with living in the streets? These kids don't have a support system, and since Child Protective Services is not involved in many of these cases, they fall through the cracks."

The Grace Foundation of Texas operates on a shoestring budget. With Pike at the helm, minimal staf - Houston Culture Map .com

"Y'all look pretty awesome!"

With that opening shoutout, Patrice Pike brought her jolly caravan of musicians to the rockin' stage of McGonigel's Mucky Duck in Houston.

The packed house was there to welcome PP's new CD release, 'The Calling' and party down. Pike has a beyond loyal following with this venue that she plays every Wednesday about 9 months out of the year. It is an intimate tip jar Happy Hour gig that is a nice getaway on "hump day" deal that she's been doing for years.

This night though was special indeed, mainly because she had longtime Sister 7 alum, Wayne Sutton, was in tow to amp up all of her songs and give them a fresh coat of paint, if you will.

War horses like 'Temple' dominated out the gate and when Sutton took the stage the magic that these two share together is quite evident. PP had just logged 5,000 miles in 3 weeks and was tired, but you could see the glowing energy she exudes when Sutton just burned solos on epic songs like "Love What You Are Doing' (GREAT lyrics abound!) with heavy scat rap by PP, funky rock hard 'Jacknife Girl' and 'Sweet November,' which almost sounded like a new song it was done so sweetly.

Can't say enough about when WS is in this squad, it takes the weight off of Patrice where she can shine brightly as a lead singer fronting solid backing band, which had at different times Frank Zweback or Glenn McGregor on bass, Laran Snyder on vocals and steady skin pounding by Carles Zanetti and Seth Orell.

The show got down right crazy hot when Sutton's 'Kiss Me Baby' off the new CD rocked into an elongated jam session, concluding with PP on drums! Sans the goofy ass dance sequence by the human cartoon Zweback, this was a highlight of the evening for sure.

An odd choice to have no break to a full house on a Saturday night was a tad odd, but it did not break the momentum of cracker jack hits like 'Joey', her most requested tune 'Rufus,' which Sutton smoked on, 'Babylon', a tender version of 'I Used to Hold You' and 'Under the Radar' with Pike strapping on electric for the latter portion of set!

A Pike gig would never be complete without her doing 'Chico" plus a Sara Hickman goodie 'Woman Waiting to Happen' to round out a raucous good time in H-town. Sutton has another current collaboration going, 'Gumshoe Dogs', that I'm going to be on the look-out for and he's playing Almost Austin House Concerts (7/27) in Pasadena, Tx!

Pike is making the trek to Viva Big Bend Fest in Marfa on 7/27 also... All in all as usual a show with Ms.Pike warms the heart and leaves ya satisfied. This night was no exception and all left beaming...Big 10-4 and see ya around town!
- Houston Music Review . com 2013

June 20, 2013
Patrice Pike returned to Little Rock on Wednesday June 19, 2013 for another great show at Stickyz. The night began with Arkansas' Annalisa Nutt, whose incredible voice had the room in awe. Patrice even grabbed a drum and joined her onstage at one point.

After Annalisa showcased her talent, Patrice took over. Backed by only a drummer, she had a great time with the crowd at Stickyz. She played her older stuff like Rufus, Dominique and Sweet November. She played songs from her new CD The Calling, like I Won't Give Up and Push Me Over. She even played requests from the audience that included Honey Tree Lie and Ridiculous Mess. Her Voice sounded great all night as she belted out songs with her own brand of sweetness, sometimes scatting like and jazz vocalist and sometimes channeling Janis Joplin.

The high point of the show was the song Kiss Me Baby, which included Patrice taking over the drum set for a solo followed by a medley of the songs I'll Take You There, Rasberry Beret, and Chain of Fools. She followed that with the fans singing along on Chico. Then she closed the show with a special love song for a girl in the crowd that was getting married in a few days.

Patrice plays Little Rock quite a bit, so make sure you catch her on her next trip up. For more information visit: www.patricepike.com - examiner.com June 2013

Lilith Fair alumnus Patrice Pike has played her eclectic mix of rock and soul on the main stage of several music festivals, from the High Sierras to Strawberry. She burst onto the music scene as the electric frontwoman for Sister Seven and co-wrote and sang the Austin jam band's 'Know What You Mean,' a Billboard Top 10 hit.

when: 7:30 p.m.

where: Don Quixote's, 6275 Highway 9, Felton - Santa Cruz Sentinel 2013

PATRICE PIKE HELPING FRIENDS IN NEED WITH FRIENDS IN DEEDWhen members of her musical community found themselves in trouble, Patrice Pike immediately put her talents to work to help out.

Chris BitontiMon, Aug 5, 2013 (11:54 a.m.)
Patrice Pike is typically not one to stir controversy. A professional musician since the age of 16, Pike refers to herself as “that nerdy lead-singer who creeps off to bed while everyone else is partying.” But there are definitely certain things she’s willing to agitate for and tops on that list is her friends.

Pike—from Austin, Texas, and once called "Tina Turner, Bessie Smith, Janis Joplin and Robert Plant all rolled up into a tiny but explosive package" by Rolling Stone—says she belongs to a huge group of “friends, entertainers, performers, designers, artists of different mediums that are all around the world.” So when two members of her community found themselves in serious trouble, Pike immediately put her talents to work to assist them.

While on an extended road trip, Jimmy Gallaway and Bevin Shaengold were arrested in Arkansas for possession of marijuana and intent to distribute. While both have medical marijuana prescriptions from their home state of California and were carrying an amount within that state’s limit for personal use, California and Arkansas are different states with vastly different laws and mentalities regarding marijuana. In the meantime, all of their assets have been frozen while they await trial.

Pike and a group of musical superfriends including Kye Brackett (singer, dancer and choreographer from the Barry Manilow show at Paris), Craig Cady and Carl John have swung into action to host three shows on the west coast, aptly titled Friends In Deed, to benefit Jimmy and Bevin’s legal defense fund. “It is certainly a controversial issue, how people feel about marijuana laws around the country,” Pike says. “What it’s really about is four friends coming together and believing that you put your neck out on the line and speak out against injustices, even when they are controversial.”

Friends In Deed featuring the Patrice Pike Band August 9, 9 p.m., suggested donation of $10. Tommy Rockers, 4275 Dean Martin Drive. - Las Vegas Weekly 2013

Any musician can tell you about the long, tumultuous road en route to their big break – the highest highs, as well as the struggles. Patrice Pike, former front-woman of Sister 7, knows these ups and downs like the back of her hand – from writing a song that made it to the Top 10 and touring cross-country to the politics of changing record labels and the eventual breakup of her band, After several CDS and 11 years with Sister 7, she is now focusing her energy on the winding road that is the music industry and making a new name for herself with Patrice Pike and the Black Box Rebellion.

“Along the way, challenges manifest themselves in different ways. You just have to maintain your integrity and know that you will be okay,” she said. Pike, along with Sister 7 guitarist and longtime friend Wayne Sutton; former drummer for David Garza, Michael Hale; and bassist Danny Beltran, has been setting a new standard with Black Box. On July 25, 2002, Pike, along with her fellow band members, became the first to dedicate a guitar to Austin’s Hard Rock Café. “I have so much respect for the music community here and I feel like there are so many other people here that deserve this,” Pike says, but she adds that she is honored by the dedication and happy with the achievement of a “comfortable middle ground somewhere between being a rock star and a struggling new band.”

From music to food to foreign schools of thought, Pike has a self-acclaimed child-like openness and excitement for any new aspects of life. She attributes this and her high self esteem to her always-supportive mother and grandparents. “I was especially nervous to tell my family that I was dropping out of college to tour with a rock band,” she said, but to her surprise, they were completely supportive. “they knew that I loved school and I wasn’t copping out. I was a good student and I love to learn.” It’s true – after learning to play the violin and French horn at a young age and later training in piano, voice, guitar and percussion, she still hopes to learn much more. “I can still sing a couple of Italian arias, but probably not very well,” she admits laughingly.

During her days with Sister 7. Pike toured with Dave Matthews, Sheryl Crow, Blues Traveler, Sarah McLachlan, Natalie Merchant and Edwin McCain – and that’s just to name a few. “We were the ‘little’ bands on tours like Horde Fest. It’s nice to see that these people, these friends we made, have hopefully fulfilled their dreams.”

And an unexpected dream came true for Sister 7 in 1996 while driving cross-country in their tour van. Kasey Kasum, infamous voice of the weekly Top 40 Xcountdown, was introducing what would be the band’s first Top 10 hit, ‘Know What You Mean.’ “That was crazy,” she says “I used to listen to him as a kid and all of a sudden, we heard him talking about us and playing our song!”

Now with a few more years and a lot more experience under her belt, Pike isn’t necessarily praying for another mainstream hit with Black Box, saying “I gained so much from the experience and it propelled me with so much energy, but I like to be able to mean what I say, and if that doesn’t make it on the radio, that’s okay with me. If it were to happen again organically, I would be happy, but if not, I’m happy too.”

A popular local celebrity, Pike can still go to a movie or a restaurant and enjoy herself and says “Austin’s community seems to appreciate my space; they are respectful and supportive. I just want to be happy and make a good living.” She is doing just that, and the once tumultuous road ahead is now looking a little less rocky.

- Celebrate Austin

This magazine's history with Patrice Pike goes back to our first few months. She was one of the first shows reviewed, and that show still remains one of my favorites. Her performance with the Black Box Rebellion at Off Broadway in June 2002 was a tour de force with an energy and talent from the moment she bound onto stage. One moment she rocked and the next she sang a gentle little hymn: at one point in the show, Pike actually scatted (and did a great job at it).

Patrice Pike is hard to describe in words. You want to call her "pixie" because she is a petite blonde ball of energy, but there are the tattoos that would not fit well on Tinkerbell. The music she has created- both with Sister Seven and as a solo artist - is earnest, sexy, and tight. She also has a grasp of the music business that few other performers have. Sister Seven was promoted as "the next big thing" by no less than Arista's Clive Davis, but it was not to be: the band splintered, Davis left Arista, and Pike made her own way. Since 2000, she has formed her own company with fellow Sister Seven bandmate Wayne Sutton (ZainWayne Records). She has released several disks and toured - Lord, has she toured - across the West and the Midwest, crisscrossing the clubs and bars and building a reputation for herself as a signer/songwriter/storyteller and advocate.

Pike is also genuinely fun and interesting to talk with, as we did about her future, touring, and Joan of Arc.

What are you up to these days?

There is a lot going on. I've worked on a lot of recordings over the last year. We are working out how we want to do that - whether through ZainWayne or with a bigger label that has more structure - but that is mindful about a lot of things that are important to me, especially artistic content.

I have a wonderful band that I am touring with. We have done a lot of festivals and traveled the West Coast often. I have been working with a friend there who publishes a magazine in the Sierra Mountains. He approached me because he saw that I have a lot of the same philosophical beliefs on environmental sustainability and business. He tries to communicate these ideas using various types of artists, including musicians, fine artists, and writers. We are trying to get the word out about buying products from businesses based locally that harbor a sense of community.

You, more than most, are aware of how the music business is constantly changing. How have you reacted to those changes?

A lot of things have happened in the music business. This is the first time in a long time that record executives and companies are paying attention to alternative ways of promoting. They have to. The popularity of downloads and different ways that people can make music available to the public has taken much of the control out of their realm. Artists can do a lot of the things for themselves: that gives a better balance of power. In some cases, it allows the artist to pay for their masters and deliver a complete album to a label. The label can function as an umbrella for marketing and distribution.

So really, all this change isn't necessarily a bad thing?

A lot of young people grow up thinking, "I want to be a pop star." There are so many more bands now than there were in the late '80s. The talent pool is massive. There is a lot of competition and there is a big transformation in the record business. There are a lot of new younger people in the business, yet there is this old guard, old-school esecutives who did it a different way, and they have a big learning curve ahead of them. That is what brings that window of opportunity. You can look at it as a big old mess or you can look at it as an opportunity, if you are a positive person, and how that opportunity applies to you and how you can influence it.

You tour a lot. How do you maintain your enthusiasm?

I did five tours in 2004 and I think I am going to be on the road even more in 2005. It is really important for me to be healthy. I practice yoga. I try to get sleep when I can, I read a lot of good books that inspire me. I also try to tour with a good band. These guys are so much fun to travel with and that can make all the difference in the world when you are on the road. If your only common ground is music, it can be kind of stressful. My energy level is so much higher when I have the support of a band that I like hanging out with.

You are a very literate songwriter. Any books you want to recommend?

A good author in general is Daniel Quin, who wrote Ishmael and the story "Beyond Symbolization." Ishmeal is the first of several books in a series and it is really challenges in a fiction context the story that we have told of ourselves about the way the world works- in context with how we think it works, in that we are the most important species. The main character is a gorilla...that can talk telepathically to humans. It challenges the idea that we have nothing to learn from nature, which works in su - PlayBack

Patrice Pike wants you to play her albums twice: once to listen to her lyrics and once to understand her jams.

A self-described storyteller with a flare for funk, gospel and jazz, Pike positioned herself to be the First Lady of Jam Nation when her band Little Sister made it's Austin debut in 1991. Educated at Dallas' Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and through the recordings of Ella Fitzgerald and Janis Joplin, Pike fashioned herself a frontwoman in the spirit of her heroes, leading an all-male quartet that included her longtime guitartist Wayne Sutton. Drawn to Motown's funky underbelly at an early age, Pike began to play a mixture of straight-ahead rock, funk, soul and blues, using her earthy voice to attract lovers of lyrics as well as open-ended jams.

"women have always been more accepted in the funk scene," Pike says. "But on the major labels, it's more about numbers and statistics...how many women a label is willing to have in their roster."

Not that Pike's sex has stunted her music industry success. Quickly climbing from Texas clubs like the Black Cat Lounge to spots on the H.O.R.D.E. and Lillith Fair festivals, Pike juggled her various oersonas with acrobatic ease: a female voice in a male band, a white woman singing soul hymns.

Signing to Arista Austin, a subsidiary of Clive Davis' label, Pike and Little Sister found themselves engrossed in major label politics, changing their moniker to Sister Seven. Sharpening her songwriting skills, Pike slowly weeded out her jamband roots, while earning herself a legitimate hit "Know What You Mean," in the process.

Though Sister Seven was courted by Davis to be part of Arista proper, the record esxecutive's label departure signaled the end of Sister Seben's stint in the music industry majors and the Quartet soon disbanded. Starting anew with the Black Box Rebellion, Pike found herself on familiar turf: After drawing rave reviews at SXSW, Pike and Black Box Rebellion were courted for California's annual jamband summit, High Sierra.
Pike found it challenging to return to the jamband circuit. "I hadn't been around the jamband community for a while," she says. "It was totally all men - that tripped me out. It was also challenging packing both [songwriting] elements into an hour-long set."

After performing in front of a hometown crowd at the Austin City Limits festival, Pike doesn't plan to let her jamband roots slip away a second time. In fact, her new studio experiments wil help connect Pike's two music passions: "Some songs are based more around lyrics and stories, while others are more smoothly layered sound scopes.

"People, all through my musical life, haven't been able to classify me," Pike adds. "It's been a plus to come from both places." - relix

At some point between the last miserable day job and the first national tour, countless musicians have either chosen, or been forced, to take a new direction. Sometimes it's a crafty decision that pays off; sometimes you simply screw up and -- poof -- you're in the bargain bin. Sometimes it's just a matter of circumstance.
For Patrice Pike-Zain, a single event far beyond her control led to the breakup of her band, weeks of deep thinking while knocking back gallons of slippery elm tea, the adding of an appendix to her last name and, finally, the commencement of a rebellious trip down a new fast lane.

Vigorously piloting her five-speed Miata down Washington Avenue before a recent gig at the Satellite Lounge, Pike-Zain talks about shedding baggage. The 30-year-old former Sister Seven lead vocalist is recounting a visit to a friend's house in the woods near Austin, where she swam and read and cooked catfish. She also spontaneously dug a hole one night under the trees and buried several items from her backpack before pouring rose water over the shallow grave. She swears she was completely sober.

Among the items deep-sixed that night in late April were a cell-phone earpiece and a plane ticket -- tokens of flying four days a week for Sister Seven gigs and the tyranny of modern communications. Also entombed was a metal emblem bearing the likeness of an angel, representing the notion of placing faith in objects rather than oneself. Then she planted a copy of Fencing Under Fire, the first album of her new band, Patrice Pike and the Blackbox Rebellion. Perhaps she hoped the project would take root and blossom.

How big a deal was this ritual to Pike-Zain? Consider that the next night, she was late to a gig for the first time in ten years.

"I was in this strange mood, I guess, but I really was able get a handle on what space I was in at various times over the last couple of years," she says. "There were a lot of things going on before Sister Seven broke up. I was connected to so many people that it burned me out and was challenging my free will. It's one of those things where you could just say 'Fuck it' and not do it anymore because you're trapped."

Some musicians would sacrifice a delicate body part or two to be "trapped" like Pike was in early 2000. S7 was making a decent living with steady touring and had tight connections with some of the biggest names in the industry. After Pike mailed some demos for a new record to Arista Records founder Clive Davis, she was summoned to appear before the man himself. Davis, then basking in the megaplatinum glow of Carlos Santana's Supernatural, told her that he thought the album, Wrestling over Tiny Matters, was killer. With elements of heavy metal, catchy heartland hooks, hair-raising riffs by underrated guitarist Wayne Sutton and a Garbage-inspired lead-off track that had alt-rock radio hit written all over it, Tiny Matters, Davis told her, would be the one. He would see to it personally.

But Arista's parent company, BMG, had other plans, and thus Tiny Matters is the best damn album some folks will never hear. Three months after her meeting with Davis, the mogul was toppled. In spite of his recent success, the bigwigs at BMG thought the 66-year-old Davis was too old to run a label, and they chose to replace him with Antonio "L.A." Reid. (In one of those delicious ironies the music business delivers up so regularly, Arista's schmaltzy 25th-anniversary tribute to Davis aired on NBC two weeks after his shit-canning.)

Tiny Matters was left championless and in limbo; the band was now some fired guy's unfinished business. By December 2000 the band members knew it was over with Arista, and five months later they knew the band itself was "done."

Today, Pike wrestles with crates of Tiny Matters stacked in her garage. (Perhaps a front-end loader might have helped her really finish off that rite in the woods.) With an insistent wave of her hand, she says she doesn't want to discuss that album, thank you very much.

She does want to talk about the present and the future. Instead of calling it quits after the Arista fiasco, Pike and Sutton -- musical partners since 1986 -- got busy. They still had piles of unreleased S7 demos, and they decided that they would continue making music with a new band and their own label. Pike says today that she is transformed, free of the self-imposed confines of a band that had become a prison. But it seems that she kept a souvenir from Sister Seven: The new appendage to her last name, Zain, just happens to translate to "seven" in Aramaic, the extinct language that Jesus spoke.

At the Satellite later that night, it's evident that Pike likes the new space she's carved out for herself, but space is at a premium in front of the stage. In accord with Pike's bisexual preference, a group of men admire her from stage right and a group of lesbian women, their arms wrapped around each other, stand transfixed at stage left. When - Houston Press

There is no record of Patrice Pike having to lift up a boiling cauldron of water and hot coals with her forearms, branding the symbol of an ancient musical order on her wrists as she earned her chops. Other than that, Pike's path to music pretty much resembled the training of a Shaolin monk: From birth she was surronded by talent and people fostering her skills. From being raised in smoky Dallas bars by her musician stepfather to matriculating at the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts, where she had Erykah Badu as a classmate and a one-on-one lesson with Wynton Marsalis, Pike was as well trained as any bald-headed David Carradine look-alike.

You can hear it in her voice. It isn't the over-trained perfection of a vibrato-obsessed diva, but the supple-yet-strong twang of a country gal who has mastered her instrument. When she barks, when she pleads, when she seduces, it is with intent, and you feel what she wants you to feel. Pike is a veteran, having traveled with the famed Austin jam band Sister Seven, whose members eventually focused and polished themselves out of the noodling genre and into respectability - and then of course broke up just as they were hitting their artistic peak.

Pike is still up there on the peak, crafting solid country rock and ballads for her own label, ZainWayne Records (founded with former Sister Seven member and longtime collaborator Wayne Sutton), and polishing and pumicing that stressed and gorgeous voice. She's not a grasshopper anymore. - RiverFront Times

This may be old news to faithful followers of ”Rock Star: Supernova,” the quest to find the lead singer for Tommy Lee’s latest project, but others may not be aware—Austin’s own Patrice Pike got the boot on last week’s show. Now I have to admit that I haven’t watched one episode in its entirety, but I have seen bits and pieces of several airings - enough to name three of the six remaining competitors. That said, media in this music-obsessed city has done a fantastic job of covering Pike’s Hollywood journey.

Pike is a local music veteran, having fronted one of Austin’s most revered rock bands, Sister 7. This upbeat group had a tumultuous time that included a Billboard Top 10 hit ("Know What You Mean,") a massive following, and a personal courtship by Clive Davis at Arista Records that ended abruptly with Davis’ forced departure in 2000. Despite the roller coaster ride, Pike has maintained her musical focus, leading her straight to this die-hard competition. Her thin frame, offset by an impressive amount of ink, camouflages her intense vocals—think a much sexier Melissa Etheridge. Although the attention that the lead singer position with Supernova would have garnered had she won, it makes more sense that she walked at this point. Bluntly put, her talent outshines anything that a been-around gang of rockers could appreciate. Check out her brand-new solo album, Unraveling, available within the next few weeks.

Pike’s MySpace features streaming audio from this upcoming release, including the first single, “Beautiful Thing”
Sister 7—”Know What You Mean“ from 1997’s This the Trip
Sister 7—”Under the Radar“ and ”My Three Wishes“ from 2000’s Wrestling Over Tiny Matters - live daily : Rough Mix

Patrice Pike goes solo and she's better than she's ever been.

In a South Austin coffeehouse, Patrice Pike locks eyes with her interviewer as she talks about herself and her career. It’s a gaze that direct but intense, with a warmth that feels almost seductive. It’s similar to the way Pike, a seasoned performer at the age of 33, addresses an audience from the stage – as if she’s singing individually to each person in the room. That need to make true contact is what also prompted her, years ago, to write record mogul and industry legend Clive Davis and request a meeting to discuss his plans for the band she fronted for a decade, Sister 7 (nee Little Sister).

“It probably has to do with growing up necessarily independent and being on my own since I was 16,” explains Pike, who grew up in the Dallas area. “So I need to look into somebody’s eyes and know what their intentions are and how that is going to affect me.”

At the time she contacted Davis, Sister 7 was eight years into its run on its second major-label deal. After reaching the upper realms of the Billboard charts with its album This The Trip, the band had graduated from the Arista Austin experiment to Arista’s New York Pop operations. Most young artists would have been in awe of Davis, who helped launch artists from Janis Joplin to Whitney Houston. Not Pike.

The result was an airline ticket to fly to New York and meet with Davis. He subsequently put his support behind the band’s nest album, Wrestling Over Tiny Matters, and the single “only Thing That’s Real” reached the Top 20. Then Davis was forced out of the record company he founded, and Sister & was dropped. Later, they disbanded.

It was a monumental letdown, but Pike never gave up. “I still feel like the sky’s the limit in what I’m capable of doing.” She asserts. “I can’t believe I am so lucky.”

These days, Pike is releasing music on her own label, ZainWayne Records, which she started with her former lover, guitarist Wayne Sutton. Her most recent release, Fencing Under Fire, finds Pike expanding and maturing beyond the mix of funk, jam rock and metal that won Sister 7 slots on the H.O.R.D.E. tour and Lilith Fair. Her new music is more modern and adventurous; rich with the personal intimacy Pike can forge with strangers (including this writer, who panned her former band’s debut release).

But Pike’s survival skills in life and the music game were sharpened by her youth, when she grew up a self-described “latchkey kid” with a musician stepfather who played with such poplar area acts as Bugs Henderson and Nitzinger. By 16, Pike was attending Booker T. Washington High Scholl for the Performing and Visual Arts and had moved out of her mother’s home. She was also the kid who hung around Club Dada and got onstage every once in a while to display her mighty set of pipes.

Then, after some early stabs at singing in bands, she met Sutton. “It turned out he was just a huge fan of Janis Joplin. I reminded him of her.“ Pike had spent years hanging around and working with older musicians, but Sutton was the first one who felt as passionate about music as she did. “He had this conviction that we were not going to have day jobs. We were going to write songs together and build a career.”

After a gig at Trees, the duo formed Little Sister in 1991 (the name reflected Pike’s status in the local scene) and immediately began opening shows at Dada for the top players in the burgeoning Deep Ellum scene-The New Bohemians, Ten Hands and Sara Hickman. The Austin group Soul Hat invited the band to play with them at Austin’s Black Cat Lounge, where acts like Soul Cat, Joe Rockhead and The Ugly Americans packed in college students with party music that jammed all night.

Little Sister relocated to the capital city and soon made “mad cash.” SBK/EMI Records caught them at Club Dada during the Dimensions of Dallas music convention and signed the band. SBK went south, and when another band called Little Sister threatened legal action, the group changed its name to Sister 7, releasing an indie CD amid the name shift. Arista launched an Austin operation and scooped up Sister 7, who were soon within sight of genuine rock stardom.

Then came the fall. “It took me a little bit of grieving to get over how close we were,” Pike says, “and to step back and look at all the things we experienced that so many people don’t get to experience. And look at what I had accomplished, what we as a group had accomplished. And look at the reputation I acquired through my work, the support I have from people who want me to continue, who are interested in me and the songs that I write.”

She and Sutton formed Patrice Pike and Black Box Rebellion, which gave her a venue to perform and record the songs that didn’t fit within the democratic structure of Sister 7. She even paid out of her own pocket to promote her CD Fencing Under Fire to Triple A radio (adult a - Dallas Observer

PATRICE PIKE WINS BIG, 10TH USA SONGWRITING COMPETITION BEGINS


Patrice Pike, a true woman in rock behind the Rock/Alternative group Sister Seven has won the overall top prize of the 2004 Songwriting Competition. “My Three Wishes” was the winning song written by Patrice Pike, Wayne Sutton, Sean Phillips and Darrell Phillips. 'We are ecstatic to win the competition for ourselves as a group as it emphasizes once again the crediblity of our work as Sister Seven and as individual songwriers in our solo efforts apart from each other. It's amazing that just after three weeks afterour first time to play together again in 3 1/2 years that we are sharing this together as great songwriters.' said Patrice Pike. She was first signed to EMI/SBK, later to Arista records by the world famous Clive Davis and now she is an indie. See her website: www.patricepike.com .

Over the last ten years, she has been the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for the Austin based Rock Band: Sister Seven. Patrice Pike has performed onstage with the likes of Dave Matthews, Sarah McLachlan, Natalie Merchant, and the Allman Brothers to name a few.
She sang the National anthem to a worldwide audience for the JFK memorial in Dallas as well as for the homecoming celebration for Lance Armstrong after his first victory at the Tour de France.
There’s an excellent description in the Chicago Free Press about Patrice’s beginnings in the music world. Jen Earls writes, “Pike grew up a musical child, influenced early by [artists] such as Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, and Elton John, before getting into Motown.” “I listened to Stevie Wonder every day,” Pike says. She also played vilolin, French horn, and sang. In her teen years Pike sang and studied jazz, opera and traditional African-American spirituals at Booker T. Washington High school for the performing and visual Arts in Dallas. “Back then, we were just a bunch of kids trying to stay out of trouble and surviving by being in that godsend of a place. It was my saving grace, I mean, there were people in my class that I was hanging with like Roy Hargrove [Grammy award winning Jazz trumpet player] and younger kids like Peaches [Erykah Badu] just being creative and getting exposed to all these amazing things. I remember getting to watch Gregory Hines teach a class of dance students, and sitting down one on one with Winton Marsaillis telling me...
...that it was all right if I didn’t want to be a jazz singer. He said, “It’s really just about being soulful, Patrice. Just do what you love.” Patrice comments, “ We were all so lucky to have that place. It forever solidified my conviction that I am a musician.”
Earls continues, “ In college she wanted to study jazz, but at the time, the famed University of North Texas music program didn’t offer a full curriculum for vocalists. By then Pike was learning more playing with the band Little Sister [later named Sister Seven] than she was in college classrooms.”
“She traded her textbooks for smoky bars.” “The school of Hard Knocks, that’s it,” Pike says. “The stuff I’ve learned [since I was 15] I wouldn’t trade it for any piece of paper.”
Patrice’s new band, Patrice Pike and the Black Box Rebellion was invited to play their industry debut in March 2001 at the annual South By South West music conference in Austin. The band includes Wayne Sutton on guitar, Michael Hale on drums and Danny Beltran on Bass. Wayne and Patrice were the founding members of Sister Seven and have been a songwriting team since before Sister Seven was formed. Wayne and Patrice wrote the two Billboard hits “Know What You Mean” and “Only Thing That’s Real”, both of which propelled Sister Seven into the strange and fickle world of Pop Radio.
The two along with their bandmates in the Black Box Rebellion and some guest musicians will release an EP, Flat 13, this summer followed by their full-length album, Fencing Under Fire, in the spring of 2002. “We are really excited about the record we are making, because these are songs we have been writing over the last few years that did not fit the Sister Seven spectrum. We formed this band based on what musicianship was best for these songs we have been writing. It all stems from the songwriting, where as Sister Seven stemmed mostly from the wellspring of musicianship and grew into songwriting. One of the coolest things is we chose the engineer we wanted without the input of any other opinions. Jim Watt’s was my first choice and his work as the engineer on the most recent Emmy Lou Harris record Red Dirt Girl is so sonically fine; I had to call him right away. I can’t wait to put this record out!”


- www.womenrock.org