While what the world sees from Cherry Bombs is talent, beauty, inspiration, and jaw-dropping performances...behind the curtain, the true story of Cherry Bombs is grit.
Alicia Taylor, leader of Cherry Bombs, is calm, collected and dialed in at all times. Nothing seems to shake her. In the first season of 'Girl Gang', the behind the scenes documentary of the Cherry Bombs, she's faced with a prospective manager no-showing to a showcase performance, a venue ill-equipped to handle their performance despite rigorous clear communication, an injured foot and much more.
Season 2 kicked off by throwing the Knotfest Mexico riots at her, and in the season finale missing baggage containing key performance equipment, wardrobe, materials, and more threatened to derail one of the biggest performances of their career at Knotfest Colombia. And yet Taylor laser focuses on the problem at hand, "You have to be resourceful."
"It has taught me to lean into it, go with the flow as much as we can. Focus on the things we can control."
This demeanor has allowed her to execute last minute requests, even ones on a major global scale...like appearing in Corey Taylor's "CMFT Must Be Stopped" highly-anticipated, explosive solo debut music video.
“About a week in advance - no more than 7 days - Corey asks 'Do you want to do this music video?'" Alicia explains. Without missing a beat she fires back, “Ok, what part do you want me to create?”
Unfazed, within a week she's able to put together a crew, performers and creatively choreograph a segment that will now be one of their biggest looks yet - the video currently sits at over 2 million views.
“They gave us chunks we could contribute to the video so we began the process by just starting to move around to the beat. For the actual shoot, I scrambled up six other performers, local Vegas girls (video was shot in Las Vegas). We were only able to rehearse once before the shoot. We added some speciality show effects; the fire kit, fire arts, grinders - giving it different structure, different vibes.”
There's got to be some concern coming into the day of the shoot: a performance in a major video, only one rehearsal, all last minute...
"No worries at all. All the girls are professional, they learn the choreography really fast and are able to do it immediately. That's what I look for when I'm picking girls - how fast can they pick up, how fast can they perform it.”
This blend of determination and resilience combined with the talent and vision that Taylor has consistently displayed is a formula for continued success and exponential growth.
As seen in last week's piece, the future carries major plans on the horizon for Taylor and Cherry Bombs including; a headlining tour performance, a 3rd Season of Girl Gang, and a can’t miss performance at Storm the Arena this December in Paris (alongside Mass Hysteria & Lacuna Coil, among others).
But with most plans during this lockdown time, it has an indefinite TBD on it. Taylor, predictably, isn't discouraged.
As she says in the finale, "Things are going to happen, you can't stop it, there's no point in trying to fight it. It's not about the things that happen so much, as it is how you react to them...let's just go out there and put on the best damn show we can."
