MUEN: HI LUX! HOW OLD ARE YOU, WHEN DID YOU FIRST START PLAYING DRUMS, AND ARE THE DRUMS THE FIRST INSTRUMENT YOU LEARNED, OR WERE THERE OTHERS BEFORE DRUMS?

LUX: I�m 22 years old and I started playing drums when I was twelve. I never really thought about it before but yeah, Drums were the first instrument I learned to play! Afterwards, I learned how to play classical piano and just a couple years ago I taught myself how to play the violin.

MUEN: WHEN DID YOU SWITCH TO DOUBLE BASS FOR DRUMS, AND WHY DID YOU DECIDE THIS?

LUX: I switched over to double bass when I was about 16 years old. My brother had come home with a Judas Priest album called Painkiller and walked into the garage where me and my sisters were practicing that night and he says hey listen to this and he puts it on in the cd player and I just remember being blown away by the drum intro to Painkiller. I had no idea drumming like that was possible! After that I completely became a metal head and was hooked on that heavy metal sound. That year, I had saved up money to buy another bass drum. I think I came up with half of it and my mom paid the other half.

MUEN: YOU HAVE AN AMAZING BIO, AND HAVE ALREADY OPENED FOR MAJOR ARTISTS SUCH AS "THIRD EYE BLIND," "JOAN JETT, " AND "CHRIS CAFFERY" .. WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU�VE GAINED FROM THESE EXPERIENCES?

LUX: Sharing the stage with accomplished and internationally renown artists is always an awesome experience for us. It gives me and my band inspiration to keep playing our music and working hard to get our music heard and to be at that level where they are. Especially when we get good feedback from their band members and crew, it gives us further motivation to keep rockin� and doing what we love to do.

MUEN: YOU ALSO APPEARED IN "DRUM MAGAZINE" IN DEC. 2006, AND WAS NAMED "WORLD�S FASTEST DRUMMER" AT NAMM �07... SO WHAT OTHER GOALS ARE YOU HOPING TO ACCOMPLISH IN THE YEAR, AND WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR OTHER MUSICIANS AND ARTISTS WHO ARE VERY TALENTED AND DESERVING, BUT MAY NOT BE GETTING THE SAME OPPORTUNITIES?

LUX: I�ve set a high goal this year actually which I�m currently working on. I�m practicing to become the World�s Fastest Drummer regardless of gender because in just about every drummer competition or music awards there�s always a gender separation when it comes to us drummers. There�s the male or female category and it really shouldn�t be this way. Females play no different than male drummers, it�s almost like classifying us as a different music genre. Dave Navarro commented to me after seeing me perform live that I play just as good as any guy drummer he�s played with! So at this year�s Summer NAMM Show I�m going to compete with WFD again with a goal to set records in the hand and feet competition. Until then I�ll be practicing my butt off to meet my goal and make the statement that we�re just as good and sometimes even better.

Some advice I have for other musicians and artists is to get involved in anyway you can. Whether it�s the guitar center drum off or drum battle at your local music store, your chops get seen and heard and you gain experience from it. Something that�s helped me a lot is setting yearly goals by month. Whether it�s getting involved with music awards, drum competitions, touring, and even with the amount I practice and how much I�m advancing with my instrument. If you meet your goals every month you�ll keep the momentum going and then your unstoppable. But most importantly, always be yourself, be creative, original, and enjoy what you�re doing.

MUEN: YOU HAVE A GOOD GUITARIST, AND BASSIST IN THIS BAND SACRED STORM! HOW DID THAT BAND COME ABOUT? ARE YOU STILL WITH THE BAND, BECAUSE WE NOTICED YOU ARE ALSO IN THE ALL-FEMALE BAND, NAMED MYSTERY HANGUP - AND IF YOU ARE STILL IN BOTH BANDS, HOW DO YOU FIND THE TIME FOR TWO BANDS?

LUX: Yes! The guys in Sacred Storm are great musicians! Kenny Krenzin and Dave Maciel currently do all the guitar work in the band and our newer stuff is just much more heavy and technical. It�s so sick and we�re excited to be recording a couple new songs in the upcoming months. The way Sacred Storm started was, a couple years ago I was browsing through a musicians wanted type site and saw our guitarist Kenny�s ad up there saying he was looking for other metal musicians to jam with. We had similar taste in metal music, we liked the same bands and he was local so I replied back and set up a rehearsal/jam here in my garage. He had no idea I was a girl and my voice over the phone on the day of the rehearsal surprised him because this whole time he assumed I was a guy. So he came over and we setup in the garage. We had previously agreed to play the song Painkiller on that day and I definitely blew him away when we started playing it! That�s basically how it all started. We would rehearse weekly and found the rest of the members to complete our lineup. Originally we were named Bonesaw but due to copyright issues we changed our name to Sacred Storm.

I really have no idea how I find time for both bands I�m always so busy! haha. It usually works this way, every day I�m practicing with one of the bands. If it isn�t Mystery Hangup, it�s with Sacred Storm and if I�m not on tour with one, I�m on tour with the other. It�s a lot of fun though and the way I see it, neither is better than the other I love both styles of music.

MUEN: WHAT OTHER EVENTS HAVE HAPPENED, THAT WE HAVEN�T MENTIONED, THAT HAS TO DO WITH YOUR MUSIC CAREER?

LUX: Late last year, I was involved in two music awards here in Los Angeles and received two drummer awards. I was awarded �Best Female Drummer� in the Metal/Hard Rock Category by All Access Magazine and also was awarded �Outstanding Female Drummer of the Year� by Rock City Magazine. I was also offered an endorsement with Serial Drummer Clothing (France) by drummer Franky Costanza, he shreds! I also got an endorsement with Paiste cymbals in December which I�m still very excited about because I absolutely love their cymbals. I picked up a new 18" Twenty China that sounds incredibly rich and dark at the same time. I can�t get over it, it sounds so good! In January I also got an endorsement with Axis Percussion, they have the smoothest drum pedals I�ve ever played on and I immediately switched over after trying them out at the NAMM Show in January. Just recently I officially became the first female �sicko� on www.sickdrummer.com which is an honor for me because I�m listed amongst great metal drummers such as Gene Hoglan, Pete Sandoval, Tim Yeung, etc.

MUEN: WHO WRITES THE LYRICS AND MUSIC IN SACRED STORM, AND WHO IS THE BASSIST, THEY ARE REALLY GOOD!

LUX: Kenny Krenzin is our vocalist/lead guitarist and he writes all the lyrics. He likes to use metaphors in his lyrics too which I think is pretty cool. The bassist on our recordings is our current second lead guitarist Dave Maciel. Dave used to play bass for us but once our original second guitarist left to join the Air Force he moved over on guitar. And Dave is a theory madman. I think moving him up on guitar and his writing contribution definitely helped us bring our newer material to the next level. On bass we currently have a long time friend of ours, Jimmy Sullivan.

MUEN: WITH THE BAND MYSTERY HANGUP, YOU RELEASED THE ALBUM, "THREE MOONS AND THE CRASHING SUN" AND DID A NATIONWIDE TOUR WITH SOME TOP ACTS.. HOW DID YOU MEET PRODUCER PAUL ROESSIER (SCREAMERS, JOSIE COTTON, ETC.) AND GEZA X (DEAD KENNEDY�S, THE GERMS)?

LUX: The way we met Paul Roessler and Geza X was, when we were getting ready to head into a studio to record our debut album, I was talking with Steve from PunkRockers.com, he�s my mentor/part-time manager, and he brought up the question of who�s going to produce the album? And I was like, well I don�t know we�re just planning on going in there to record and produce it ourselves. But he brought up the idea of having Paul produce our album and was confident that with his experience he�d be able to capture our unique sound. So he contacted Paul for us since they kept in touch here and there. Steve introduced our music to Paul and sent him our site where he can listen to our music. Paul completely loved our sound and was very interested in working with us so he turned over his contact info for us to give him a call. And I remember me and our singer Cat going back and forth with who was going to make that call, we were nervous to talk to the punk legend Paul Roessler! haha. In the end, I made the call and we set up studio time at Satellite Park Studios in Malibu, CA. Paul forwarded our music to Geza X and they both produced our album. We refer to Geza as �Professor X� and he refers us as the �Power Puff Girls�.

MUEN: IS THE VIDEO FOR "VISTA DE UN LADRON" OUT YET, WHICH WAS SUPPOSED TO BE RELEASED IN JANUARY?

LUX: Yes, our music video is out online now which is awesome because it�s our first real music video and it came out great! �Vista De Un Ladron� is a real rockin� and upbeat song in Spanish and we�re really looking forward to pushing it out in Mexico as well. We made a lot of new fans when we played at a Festival in Oaxaca a couple years ago and to this day we get comments when we go back to visit that our stickers are seen on people�s cars. We�re planning on touring in Mexico this year in September.

MUEN: WHAT ARE SOME OTHER PROJECTS THAT YOU HAVE GOING? IS THERE ANYTHING UN-RELATED TO SACRED STORM OR MYSTERY HANGUP, THAT YOU�D LIKE TO MENTION?

LUX: Aside from playing in Sacred Storm and Mystery Hangup I also give drum lessons here at my home. I also do session work and get called to fill in for Latin Music cover bands which is also fun.

MUEN: WE HEAR YOU HAVE ANOTHER TOUR WITH MYSTERY HANGUP, COMING IN APRIL, AND ALSO ONE WITH SACRED STORM IN EARLY JUNE! ... AND THEN!! BACK WITH MYSTERY HANGUP, WITH YET ANOTHER TOUR STARTING IN MID-AUGUST! ... DO YOU EVER GET TIRED OF TOURING?

LUX: I never get tired of touring! When I�m not on the road, I miss touring. The only part I get tired of on the road is the heat during the summer. It�s gotten unbearably hot these past couple years. I don�t know how other musicians and I got through Warped Tour in �06 and how we played in North Carolina last summer with the heat and thunder storms at night. It must have been the love for playing music!

MUEN: IN YOUR OPINION, EXCLUDING YOUR OWN BANDS... WHO DO YOU THINK IS ONE OF THE BEST BANDS OUT OF ORANGE COUNTY RIGHT NOW?

LUX: One of the best bands coming out of Orange County is My Machete. They�re a 4 piece Indie Rock band based out of Anaheim and they have a great sound with unique guitar playing. The drummer compliments them really well with drumming ranging from slow to fast paced beats and on one of their songs, the drumming reminds me of At The Drive-In. To wrap it all together they�ve got a gal on vocals who has the sweetest and softest voice. They make a great Indie Rock band.

MUEN: OK, WELL THANKS FOR THIS INTERVIEW, AND HOPEFULLY WE CAN TALK AGAIN!

LUX: Definitely, thanks for having me and keep in touch guys!

LINKS:
www.luxdrummer.com
myspace.com/luxdrumgoddess
myspace.com/sacredstorm
myspace.com/mysteryhangup

Interview by G. Cataline