By: Caitlin Carter
April 10th, 2024
Mad Gallica could very easily become a household name in the rock universe in the coming year with her long-awaited debut EP Enter The Vortex: Act One, set to release on Friday, April 12th. With a style described as “rock popera”, Mad Gallica embraced the madness within to create a rock opera that developed from an extended period of debilitating illness. Following her recovery, the music discovered within stayed, and in February of 2023 Mad Gallica took to Kickstarter to seek assistance in funding her creation. Through the strong will and advertising of her Patreons, fans, and vocal students, by the end of the campaign, she managed to exceed her goal and raise over $28K! The first act of what will eventually become a three-part epic listening experience was produced, engineered, and co-arranged by Hayden C. Scott in conjunction with Mad Gallica and contains the instrumentals of the Czech Studio Orchestra in Prague paired with choir arrangements by New York theater performer and musician, Matthew Goinz. In addition, Mad Gallica's vocals are supported by the impressive voices of New York performer Sophie Amelkin and LA-based musician Jutty Taylor to create an ethereal choir that will send your brain into a spin. Mad Gallica sat down with Hype the Sound to lead us on a journey into the vortex, discussing her latest album and what to expect moving forward.
Let’s start with the origin story of Mad Gallica and this album. Your experience that sparked this music is very unique and unlike anything I’ve heard before.
“I wrote a lot of this music when I was going through [a] 3-year illness. It just poured out of me. All this stuff started coming up and I shelved it for a while because it was such a weird idea. I had a manager at the time, and he put me with this big-time producer. Everything was paid for, it was like the perfect dream. [But then] they were basically like 'We're going to make you like Lorde with all the branding, all of your music. Everything. We need to dumb you down.' I remember being hit really hard with that. 'Why!? You're trying to make me into something else. That's not who I am!' [The] manager even said this is all a great experience for you to learn how to not have any say in your music.”
Wow! That’s horrible!
“Right!? So we ended up parting ways and I went out to California and wrote a lot of music during that time. Shorter songs, poppy songs, rocky songs….I got to LA and I kept getting a similar message. 'You're not marketable, it's not the kind of music that will be successful, you're in the wrong industry,' and so I just thought that if my more "palatable music" is still getting this, then there's no way anyone is going to want to record or produce Enter the Vortex.
"[Then] over the pandemic when the world shut down and was going through an illness, this music came back to me. I felt like it was so healing to work on before… I wanted to revive it. So for fun, I started to orchestrate everything and record a demo version of Act One, beginning to end. Everything you [will] hear is what I had a demo of.
"Flash forward to being on tour with Hayden, Laura (Scarborough), and Sophie. Hayden and I were talking about doing something together [on our next break]. We talked about this for a long time. He [was] getting more into arranging and film score work so he's like 'Yeah, send me some of your music, let's talk about this.' So I sent him dozens [of] songs, and it was all stuff that I was like 'This is marketable, this is more palatable'. I didn't send him Enter the Vortex.
"I was sitting with Laura and Sophie and I remember we were talking about it. They were just like 'Dylan you have to include this music for Hayden.' So I ended up uploading it. I didn't expect him to say anything about it because [there were] dozens of other songs….We got on the phone together and he started talking about an orchestra. I was like, 'Wait, are you talking about Enter the Vortex?' and he was like 'Yes! That is the one that we've got to do!'
"It was such a great experience because I've been told by so many people in the industry to go the opposite direction, but this is truly who I am. This is me completely. Hayden helped me build confidence in my music and he honored my vision. It was so cool how it all happened and now [we’re] here! It’s been such an empowering experience to do this and to be seen and heard by my colleagues.”
"Mad Gallica harnesses the creative spirit in her music with such commitment—she is fearless!" - Hayden C. Scott
How will this album compare to your other released work?
“I think if people like “Souls on Fire” they will like this because “Souls on Fire” harkens to that orchestral element. We did it with an octet instead of a 32-piece orchestra so it compares to it in that way, and it's telling a story. “Souls on Fire” is a very spiritual song, it’s about reincarnation, so right in the wheelhouse of my madness. As far as “Beautiful Creature” goes I think you'll find the vulnerability in “Deep in My Heart” to be in alignment with “Beautiful Creature” because I wrote that song when I was in a rough spot mentally struggling with really bad body dysmorphia [and] bad thoughts about myself. I wrote that song as an anthem to get out of that funk and similar [to] “Deep in My Heart”, it's kind of that anthem of trust in yourself, trust in that intuition, that inner guide, and don't be afraid to follow your heart. It's brave, it's really fucking brave when you follow your heart.”
With your background as a backing musician touring with a rock band, you’ve had the opportunity to travel the world. Is there anything that you took from your travels or career and infused into your music?
“Yeah! Gosh well just visiting Prague…It's one of my favorite cities to visit. I would [also] say traveling in a rock band definitely influenced me to add more of a rock sound to my music. I’ve always loved rock music but seeing the band that I’m with and their amazing success with this kind of theatrical rock that's a niche; It gave me hope that my music had a place in the world too.”
Do you have a track on the album that you are most excited for listeners to hear?
“My favorite track initially was always "Enter the Vortex”. It’s 7 minutes long, it’s chaos, it's just balls-to-the-wall epic, throwing all the paint on the wall sonically. It's big, it's badass, and it's a journey. But then “Dagger” became my new favorite because it's such a fun journey, there are a lot of different things that happen, it's more concise. But it's funny [because] now “Deep in My Heart” is my favorite song...but I love all my song babies equally!”
What do you hope listeners will take away from Enter The Vortex after experiencing it?
“I hope they can find it in themselves to listen to it from beginning to end in one sitting. It's less than 20 minutes of music. I hope that they can close their eyes and let images come to them. When I was a little girl I didn't have a TV and I would listen to film scores and create the story in my mind. I want people to really access the creative part of their brain when they listen to this and let the music take them for a ride. I hope that by the end of it, they are feeling hopeful, uplifted, and want more.”
Similar to many other independent artists, you ran into the struggle of not having the funding to meet your vision for the album and turned to Kickstarter for help. How was the overall experience of using Kickstarter to crowd-fund the album? Going into it, did you anticipate that it would do so well?
“Oh my gosh no! I was absolutely terrified to do it! [But] I find that life is all about doing the scary things especially recently, like promoting my EP and reaching out to people. It's terrifying, it pushes me past my comfort zone, but I love that too [because] it keeps me on edge [and] keeps me growing constantly. I knew the only way really to get this done would be to do crowdfunding. When I launched it, I had no idea it was going to be successful but I knew it was my only choice. [During] the first hour into the live stream we raised I think it was like 8 grand. I'm so grateful for people just giving this a chance and giving me a chance. Artists can be successful when people give them a chance.
None of it would be possible without all of the backers and all the people I worked with, everyone has just supported this project and supported me. I can't imagine anything better, it feels so good. I just want to make them proud because I feel like I'm working for them.”
With the funding that was achieved, both you and Hayden were able to produce the album utilizing the Czech Studio Orchestra in Prague as well as Grammy three-time award-winning music mixer Bob Horn. What led you to go with these choices to contribute to bringing Enter the Vortex alive?
“Bob is fantastic, he's legendary. He's worked with some of the biggest people [and] he recorded and mixed both "Souls on Fire" and "Beautiful Creature". We hadn’t landed on our engineer yet but I did record some of Jutty’s vocals and some of mine with Bob. When he heard this music he was like 'I want to mix this, I really want to mix this'. It was like 'Woah! If Bob wants to mix this, that's really cool!' And of course, he just fucking nailed it. There are hundreds of tracks. The normal track count is like maybe up to 80 tracks in a song. [But in Enter the Vortex] some of them are around 500 tracks because of all the vocals and orchestral elements. So it is a tsunami of sound that we're throwing at people with this and he balanced it so well. I don't know how he did, he's a wizard.”
“Mad Gallica’s new project is an exciting journey—I can’t refer to it any other way. It’s not like listening to any regular songs. It’s an experience you have to be ready for. It’s deep and moving. She takes no prisoners so be ready!” - Bob Horn
Personally, one hope I have for (especially for any super music nerds like myself) my readers, is that if they appreciate anything technical from this album, it's the immensity of audio track layering that was involved in this whole thing!
“It's absurd if not borderline absurd. I've learned a lot from this and I've apologized (not that he ever made me feel like I needed to) [because] it's a lot of the vocal tracks. We created choirs from four people, layering and layering to make this big sound because I couldn’t hire a full choir and a full orchestra. But because of that, there's just an absurd amount of vocal tracks. I'm going to do it differently next time and I think Bob will thank me when we do it differently next time.”
You have several collaborators on the album all in different parts of the globe. How did you manage to coordinate all of that?
“Well, we recorded the orchestra in Prague virtually via Zoom. Hayden and I were on a short little break in LA on tour. We woke up at 4 am, hopped on Zoom, and recorded the whole session from Prague virtually. Hayden really took charge of directing it, which was fantastic; And then Matt and Sophie, they're married. Matt is a brilliant arranger of vocals and so we did a lot of back and forth. I arranged the vocals as well but he threw his special sauce and made it so incredible. He would send me scores, send me ideas, and then he and Sophie would record a bunch of tracks and then they would send them to us. We recorded Jutty separately in LA and I recorded all my stuff with Hayden in LA as well…and then some with Bob. We used Audio Movers which enables me to have a recording session with Hayden across the country. So when he was getting guitars and bass recorded, I was in North Carolina, he was in LA, but I was able to hear and talk with them through Audio Movers. So thank god for Zoom and technology!”
Did you experience any challenges or breakthrough moments during the creation of Enter The Vortex?
“When we first were working together, we worked for about 2 weeks, just almost every day, like 12 long hours every day. The idea was that we would create high-quality demos to maybe pitch to labels, [and] try to get more funding so that we could come back and really record it. But as we were recording it we were like 'This actually sounds really good! Let's not!' We were programming all the sounds and Hayden was working his wizardry with Midi making all of what I was playing sound like a really great Orchestra… but we were like no we need to do the real thing. That was a challenging moment because I really wanted to do that so badly but I was like how am I going to do this? Kickstarter really terrified me so that was a big breakthrough moment to be like 'No! I'm going to do this.' But I think a big challenge too was being on tour and having to orchestrate this because you just can't get things done in a timely manner; so that was a big challenge but we did it!”
What's next?
“Ideally the goal would be to tour with this at some point. I am getting a band together and am going to start to create a live experience with this music that's very rock-focused. Act 2 and Act 3 are always in the pipeline. I'll continue to arrange those and work on them. I also have this whole other album called Periwinkle Sky I will be focusing on as well in a few months. Hopefully, at some point play live with an orchestra…. That would be really cool.”
Do you have any advice for fellow independent/ underground bands and artists?
“I'm sure we could all learn from each other but my advice, like “Deep in Your Heart”, [is] follow your artistic sensibilities. Trust in yourself, trust in your creation, and in the process. Don't let people try to dumb you down or change you. [Yes] you want to collaborate, you want to be open to change if it's going to be better for the music if it's going to make it better, but don't give your power away to anyone else.”
"I want to inspire a world where we embrace our MADness. This EP is my invitation to the listener to enter the Vortex and explore the Beyond Within themselves." - Mad Gallica
Following our conversation, on Sunday, April 7th, Mad presented the final product of Enter The Vortex to her Patreon followers and Kickstarter backers. With over 40 people in attendance, the final response was overwhelmingly positive. The hour-long experience began with a 40-minute meditation led by Madeus as she escorted listeners on a path to “open your senses” and the eventual entrance into our own “vortex”. Following the mediation, listeners were instructed to remain with their eyes closed and relaxed to further experience the music just the way Mad Gallica intended for it to be absorbed. The experience was indescribable. Backers and Patreons then joined Mad Gallica, Sophie Amelikin, and Laura Scarborough in celebrating the success of the final results as the floor was opened to everyone to give them a chance to describe their thoughts and feelings associated with both the meditation and album. With many saying that the experience was so moving it brought them to tears, there was the question of what Mad’s plans were with Act 2 and Act 3, as everyone was itching for more. Whatever the final results may be, I invite you to join us in the vortex on Friday, April 12th where Enter The Vortex will be available on all streaming platforms.
Links to Mad Gallica’s website and Patreon are below. You can also follow Mad Gallica on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for the latest on her music and upcoming shows.
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