In This Moment singer and visionary Maria Brink is a survivor. After experiencing loss and abuse in her childhood, she moved to Los Angeles in her early 20s as a single mother and headed to the Sunset Strip, where she transformed her band into a theatrical, arena-filling modern metal behemoth. As the band geared up to release their eighth album, Godmode, we caught up with her to look back on it all, and find out what experiences have shaped her most.
SOMETIMES MOM KNOWS BEST
“My mother was a rock’n’roller free spirit, and she loved music and concerts. She started taking me at five years old to the concerts, wearing the little t-shirt, barefoot, with my mama and all her friends. I got to see Tina Turner, Stevie Nicks... I got to see some of the most amazing artists. As a little girl, she loved The Runaways; my mom loved Joan Jett. My mom really subjected and opened me up to all these amazing women on the stage, and she idolised them, and I idolised my mother. So, I really like to think it was my mom that created all this in the beginning.”
- "I’ve been whipped, stabbed and had to have surgery. Most recently, I got licked on the tongue by Alice Cooper's snake." Nita Strauss shares the battle scars that shaped her into a modern guitar hero
- "Andrew Lloyd Webber said 'Be yourself - you're a rock star.'" How Vukovi's Janine Shilstone turned trauma into liberation
THE 90S REALLY WAS A GOLDEN ERA
“I’m a 90s girl. My favourite bands are Nine Inch Nails, Deftones, Tool. There’s amazing music that’s always happening, but I think no matter who we are, that first music that really grips onto us, it just holds on to you forever, and so I’m stuck there.”
DON’T BE AFRAID TO TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH
“I moved to California to become a rock star. It was scary and it was hard times for both me and my son. We didn’t have a lot of money and we were struggling. When I first got there, the highway was eight lanes wide, and there were a million cars and there were a million people. In the first few days, I drove up to Mulholland Drive and you could see all of LA. And I remember looking out and thinking, half of me excited and the other half like, ‘Oh my God, there’s millions of people. How can I even scratch the surface to poke through?’ It was a really amazing moment in my life, and I’m so grateful I did it and that I took that leap. The weather was beautiful, the palm trees... I was so starry- eyed and just had such ambition. It definitely had its cons; there are a lot of people trying to take advantage of those young dreamers, so you’ve got to be strong, hold your own and not lose yourself.”
FIND YOUR TRIBE
“I used to go to The Rainbow [Bar And Grill: hallowed rock bar on the Sunset Strip] by myself with a little keyboard and do open mic night, because I didn’t even know how to start getting into the industry. All the dreamers go there, and there was this magical energy in surrounding yourself with a bunch of other dreamers. If you’re in a small town or with people that don’t quite understand dreamers, they’ll tell you all the things that you can’t accomplish in life. When you surround yourself with a bunch of people that are in that same mindset, there is something special to that.”
THE DARKEST TIMES CAN LEAD TO THE LIGHT
“We had a big transition happen right before [the band’s fourth album] Blood. A bunch of our bandmembers ended up quitting, our manager dropped us, and we really thought the whole band was done. I cried and went outside for a walk, and came back and kicked the door in. I was like, ‘I’m not done. I am not going to let other people’s disbelief in what we have, pave my path for my future.’ It was actually a big gift. It gave us this exhilarating moment to feel like we wanted to start fresh, let go of any fears that we ever had, and do whatever we wanted to do - no rules, no expectations - and we just moved forward.”
MUSIC IS THERAPY
“On all our albums, I’ve been able to take things that I’ve gone through in my life, things that have been hard, things that have hurt me, and it’s been so amazing and healing for me to let it out in the music. Whether or not it’s childhood, things that I’ve gone through – pain or relationships or death – it’s always somehow funnelled through my music. When I’m gone someday and dead, these parts of me will all live on, which is a cool thing.”
I WROTE WHORE TO BE AN ANTHEM OF EMPOWERMENT
“When I wrote Whore [from 2012’s Blood], I called my son and talked to him about it. I wanted him to understand where I was coming from: taking the power back for a dirty word. He totally believed in me and was like, ‘You do what you want, mom. You follow your art,’and he totally got it. The real meaning of the song is about not letting people hold you back, owning who you are and even loving your past. It’s one of my favourite songs because of how people really identify with that.”
VISUALS ARE JUST AS IMPORTANT AS THE MUSIC
“I come up with the storyboards for the music videos, and then I like to bring the music videos to life onstage. I’m involved in every single thing that you can think of. The wardrobe. The lights. I sit down with the light person, and we come up with how my brain is seeing it. We have so much going on and I direct it all, too. In my headset that I’m wearing, my whole crew can hear me in their ears, so if something’s wrong in between songs, I can let them know and we fix it. We are so seamless.”
IF YOU HAVE A PLATFORM, EMPOWER OTHER WOMEN
“I have a female tour manager. I have a female merch person. We have women not just onstage, not just my performers and my dancers, but women that work throughout. When you look at the crew members of most of the touring acts in the heavy metal world, you don’t see crews rolling in with all women. To me, it’s so badass and it’s so exciting to keep empowering women and lifting them up, and then you see it more. It’s definitely something I’m passionate about.”
SLOW AND STEADY REALLY CAN WIN THE RACE
“I’m grateful for the way that we did it. There were times in my career where we’d see a new band coming in and, all of a sudden, they’d skyrocket past us. You’ve been paying your dues for 10 years and oh my gosh, you wish that could be you. But the beauty that I’ve learned is, when you build this foundation, those fans stick by you, and it gets bigger and stronger. So I think that slow and steady benefits us now. It gives us credibility. We’ve really earned our stripes and we deserve to be where we are. Now I’ve got my own coach that I only share with a few people and some people might look at me like, ‘Dang’ but listen, I paid my dues.”
THE UNIVERSE WILL GUIDE YOU
“I’m a spiritual person and want to connect myself to the positive and the light in the universe. I pray to the universe... it gets me through hard times, it gives me strength, and I definitely do tune to it. I believe in good energy. In my everyday life, I’m like a barefoot hippie in the forest.”
SPEND TIME IN NATURE
“My whole house looks like a jungle. I’m moved by the forest. Grounding yourself, the silence and the peace in being connected to nature, to me, is what it all roots back to.”
YOU NEED TO CHILL... BUT STAY DETERMINED TOO
“Everyone strives to headline that festival and we’re main support right now. We’re so close. So, I try to stay super-grateful for everything that we’ve accomplished, feel that gratitude, but then still aspire to do bigger things. I’m a workaholic and I’m always trying balance my work with peace and serenity, but I still got that fight in me. We were [on the soundtrack of] John Wick 4, so I want to do more soundtracks. We got nominated for a Grammy, but we didn’t win it. It’d be so cool to win someday.”
Originally printed in Metal Hammer #381
