Photos by Marisa Padilla
Roxie Bardo is a 19 year old on a mission to become great and do great things to help others.
Born Oct. 3 in Tennessee, Bardo realized singing was her “calling” as a child.
“I’ve always been singing. When I was in … kindergarten, I had these two neighbors and … we would perform in my front yard. I would put these whole little dances together to … Britney Spears’ “Baby One More Time” and I remember performing that in the front yard and making my grandparents come down and pay to see us perform. So I’ve always wanted to be a performer. I’ve always known that it’s my calling.”
Because the performer “feels no ownership” of her other name, she chose to adopt “Roxie Bardo” as her stage name.
“I just kind of fell in love with Roxie Bardo. I remember thinking about it for months and it just finally came together and clicked and so now that’s 100 percent me … I’ve just become a different person, I’ve evolved.”
She plans on legally changing her name later this year.
Bardo says that her musical inspiration is Michael Jackson. “He gave everything. I feel like as an artist he knew what he wanted, he went for it and he didn’t settle for less and I aspire to be like and to have that confidence. If you watch interviews behind the scenes he just seemed like such a loving person, but he had that side of him that was able to get done what he wanted to get done and he was a perfectionist. I’m a perfectionist as well, so I really just admire what he’s done.”
Bardo also admires Lorde and BANKS and says she would like to work with both of them one day.
Bardo made the leap to Los Angeles with her mother when she was nearly 14 years old. She recalls the road trip that she and her mother, Ezban, took from Tennessee to LA as “terrible.”
“It was a seven day, cross-country trip with our dog and two cats and everything that could go wrong really went wrong. We even ended up camping one night. It was the most terrifying and unsure kind of situation and I remember feeling so scared at that point because all year I talked to my friends like I’m going to be moving, I’m going to be fine,” Bardo said.
Despite the struggles experienced during the trip to LA, Bardo says that “it was worth it.”
After arriving in LA, Bardo and her mother settled in Orange County where she was enrolled in a performing arts school in Dana Point.
According to Bardo, school “didn’t work out” in Orange County. “All the girls there were just blonde, blue-eyed and I just never fit in. I wasn’t given any opportunity. I think there were only a couple of other mixed girls or even black girls, I’m telling you it was crazy.”
Bardo recalled how the school’s musical theatre director was focused on “realistic” casting and performances.
“… I couldn’t play Jo in ‘Little Women’ because they didn’t have enough black girls or girls of any color that would make it look realistic enough. I feel like in high school that shouldn’t matter, you could’ve given me the part.”
Bardo left the school after a semester, was homeschooled for a short time and at 15 years old took the California High School Proficiency Exam to test out of school.
“Between 15 to 17 we were trying to survive. We moved out of Dana Point but we still didn’t really know where we wanted to be in LA so we moved into Korea Town … which was just terrible. The city was kind of intense for someone who comes from Tennessee.”
The pair eventually ended up in Glendale, and has been living there for the past two years. “It’s a little more suburban so we feel OK … we can be fine here.”
Bardo began performing and released her first EP in 2012 when she was just 17. The self-titled EP was produced by Brian Reeves, who has also produced for Bridgit Mendler. Bardo recorded her first song, “Crossfire” with him.
“It was kind of my first taste of music. I worked with producer Brian Reeves; he’s pretty well known, he does Jungle Room Recordings, and so he’s worked with tons of artists. Bridgit Mendler had recorded her album the week before I came in, but he really just kind of took control. I brought him these demos that I had made on GarageBand, and we did my first official recording ever, which was “Crossfire… It didn’t turn out like the demo, it didn’t have the same sound, it just wasn’t me,” Bardo said.
After Reeves, Bardo worked with indie producer Johnny What.
Bardo described What as “really talented, but admits their “music vibes weren’t the same either.”
Bardo feels that her EP “is not the best representation of [her] musically.”
“I’m … more confident in my music now. I know what I want; I’m not going to settle for anything less. I know I have to be that way because if you don’t say anything people will treat you how you let them treat you,” Bardo said.
Bardo began recording a new EP at the end of September, which is slated for release in December. She released her first single off the EP, “Cigars,” but is unsure if this is the single she wants to promote.
Bardo is currently working at The Eleven, a recording studio open 24 hours a day in Glendale. The close locale allows Bardo to frequently visit to rehearse and record “four and five times a week. It feels like I can really give it everything, it lets me feel like I can have a little freedom,” Bardo said.
She feels that she and her producer is Miko Erevanski, have “really musically clicked.”
Self-described as a “pop-alternative artist,” Bardo says she likes to mix musical genres together.
“The new album is going to be pop but off-center a little bit. It’s going to have some hip-hop tones, a little bit of dancey-ness, some of the tracks even have a little bit of world culture. I think it’s going to be exciting. I don’t want it to be boring, but I want it all to sound kind of similar, I want it all to have kind of a common thread. I think it suits me really well,” Bardo said.
Working on the new EP, Bardo is realizing now “all that [her] music can be and how it can make others happy and how it can really also make [her] happy.” She is enjoying not only writing the songs, but listening to them as well.
Bardo’s next move is to schedule a radio tour to promote her new EP, although nothing has been scheduled as of yet. Her goal is to start in California, move on to the rest of the United States and then on to South America and Canada.
“I really just want to give it everything. I feel like the success of something is based off of how much you put into it, and I’m completely willing to give up a year of my life or two years of my life to do a radio tour and promote it everywhere I can. I’d love to go to Europe and promote over there as well just to get as much exposure behind me as possible.”
Bardo’s mother, who is a painter, is currently her manager. She feels that despite the bad press about parents as managers, her mom is not “in it for the wrong reasons.”
“They’ve had their kids doing acting and all these things since they were three and they don’t have a childhood and with me it’s just not been the case. She understands my artistry; she understands where I’m coming from most of the time. She’s able to speak for me and she’s able to get across everything that I would want to get across, and at the same time she’s on my team 100 percent. We’re both dreamers, we both go after very seemingly unattainable goals. We’re planning the radio tour and everything and she’s behind me 100 percent, and so for right now I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
Bardo feels the struggles and obstacles that she has overcome have affected her music.
“I’ve heard before that my music has some darker undertones, like a little bit of a roughness I guess. Every hardship that we’ve been in has made me the artist that I am now and I’m so thankful for that really. The most important thing to me is songwriting. I’m a songwriter at heart, and so if I hadn’t been through hard times, struggles, times where you just don’t think anything is going to work out and that you’ve made a huge mistake … If I hadn’t been through that I’d have nothing to write about,” Bardo said.
Bardo feels that the place her music comes from gives it a “deeper meaning.”
“I want to have a message … something that makes you think longer, something that you need to listen to over and over again to really understand, and so the struggles … and the hardships have given me that and I’m so thankful for that now, I really, really am. When you’re doing a song and it relates to someone else, like ‘Gosh that’s how I’m feeling. I didn’t think that anyone else understood that.’ … That’s what I want my music to be,” Bardo said. The first song she wrote, “I’m a Stone,” was written during hardship.
“I wrote ‘I’m a Stone,’ and it’s on my first EP, when I was probably 17. We were in Korea Town and we were in this little apartment and I was so disappointed in how far I still had to go. ‘I’m a Stone’ is … about support, it’s about how you feel like you’re just so heavy and let me go … I’m going in basically a downward spiral, nothing’s working out and there’s nothing anyone can do. The song is more about support; it’s about having those support systems that reach down and pull you back up. ‘I’m a Stone’ was kind of like my bare-all song where I was speaking from the heart. I remember I wrote it in ten minutes because it was just real. It was genuine, and so I would say that that represents in general the struggle so far.”
Although she is young, Bardo feels that her music is meant for a more mature audience.
“I want my music to reach the right people who will understand it and appreciate it for what it is,” Bardo said.
Besides songwriting, Bardo also loves to perform.
“I love doing shows. Performing and songwriting, it’s almost like two different people, because writing a song is something that’s very personal … and it’s not something where you’re in front of all these people. When I do have the opportunity to perform it’s … this whole other light that comes down. When you write these emotional songs you’re trying to bare all and be vulnerable, and when you’re on stage you’re kind of doing the same thing but it’s a more confident and praised, happier experience,” Bardo said.
Bardo says that she “gets nervous like everyone does,” but that she is very comfortable performing because “it’s what [she’s] been working for [her] entire life.” “It’s a different level and feeling of success because the people are right there, they’re tangible, you can see them, they’re standing there,” Bardo said. Bardo says that her fans push her to keep making music.
She spoke of Kevin Lioko, who tweets her “all the time” and shares her music.
“They [fans] have no idea how much they mean to me either, and so it’s crazy how they just feel like I’m doing all this for them, but really it’s them who keep me going.”
Bardo is learning what how to deal with admiration from fans in her everyday life. While trying to remain under the radar at a Bridgit Mendler concert, a young girl recognized her in the crowd.
“I remember thinking I’m so silly for trying to avoid this because I need this to keep making my music, to continue to keep doing what I’m doing … It wasn’t a huge situation, but I remember I felt differently and it changed me in a way and so now I completely embrace fans from everywhere at any time,” Bardo said.
Though she loves what she does, Bardo acknowledges that her pursuit of a music career has affected her social life.
“It’s bittersweet in a way, but that’s when you find out if it’s meant to be, if it’s destiny or if it’s just a hobby. To achieve a lot you have to give up a lot. You can’t have everything. I’m so thankful for the success I have, I’m so thankful for the life I have, but at the same time I didn’t get to go to high school, I more than likely will not go to a university – actually going to classes. I think I’ll probably do college eventually because it’s important to me, but I’m not going to have a typical experience. It’s kind of just all or nothing. You have to give, especially in this type of career, everything. I’m not going to make it seem like it’s just glamorous all the time, it’s not that at all, it takes a huge amount of patience. You have to be grateful for every little thing,” Bardo said.
Besides her passion for music, Bardo, who is a vegetarian, is passionate about animal and human rights. She hopes to have a charity that covers many different categories of human rights, focusing on ending poverty.
“I feel like people think that there are so many problems and they just don’t know where to start. It’s our right to help others,” Bardo said.
To “stay sane” she attends charity events often which she feels are “the only thing that really grounds” her.
Bardo’s aspirations are big. She wants to be internationally known on the level of Michael Jackson and Beyonce.
“I want to have numerous No. 1 albums, dozens of No. 1 singles, I want to be everywhere. I want to be as big as one can possibly be in this field. Philanthropy is really important to me and power is nothing if you don’t use it to change things,” Bardo said.
When she reaches her goal she wants to give back as much as she can. For her, this equates to 50 percent of all her profits.
“I just want to make a difference and I want what I do to matter and to change things in some way,” Bardo said.
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Follow Breanna Grigsby on Twitter: @Bre_Louise
