MuzicNotez: First off, it’s an honor to be doing this interview with you, thanks for taking the time to sit down with us.
Introduce yourselves, what are your names and roles in the band?
Moxy And The Influence: Sydney: My name is Sydney Ellen, and I play lead guitar
Alexey: I’m Alexey Poblete and I play the drums
Shea: My name’s Shea and I play bass
Moxy: And I’m Moxy, I’m the singer!
MuzicNotez: How did you meet and form up? How long have you been together?
Moxy And The Influence: Moxy: We’ve been a band for a little over 2 years now. It actually started kind of as an accident – I was doing a solo project through a development company, and a close family friend booked me for his gig without telling me and then was like “Hey, find a band!” And, Sydney and I had already worked together for like, 2 years I think?
Sydney: Yeah I think it was around 2 years by then. We were in another girl band before this one *laughs*
Moxy: So I was like “oh crap uhhh SYDNEY HELP”
Sydney: And of course I said yes, cause we’re best friends. I mean, we always have been. And it just kinda went from there and we’ve kept it going and had fun with it. It’s amazing being able to play music for so long with your best friends.
MuzicNotez: How did you come up with the name Moxy and The Influence?
Moxy And The Influence: Moxy: Well as I said, I began doing this as a solo project, so our first few gigs were simply under “Moxy Anne” – which is obviously not a band name. It was kind of a work in progress on the name for a while. To be quite honest, I don’t even remember where the idea of The Influence came from, but we liked it and we felt like it represented us well as all being very influential people.
Sydney: Like, in our individual groups of friends and stuff. People were always coming to us for advice and help and we were always the ones who would help our friends and just like… be a good influence on their lives, you know? So someone suggested it and we just ended up going with it.
MuzicNotez: Who were your musical influences, idols, or bands growing up that have helped mold you into the band you are today? Or helped mold the music that you create?
Moxy And The Influence: Shea: I’ve always been very influenced as a bassist and a guitarist by Journey. Definitely one of my all-time favorites. Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers is a huge one too, he’s an incredible bassist.
Sydney: For me and for us it’s always been a lot of the greats, you know, Led Zeppelin, Heart, Rush, AC/DC, Joan Jett, Michael Jackson, all the good stuff we grew up with.
Alexey: Like Eric Singer, Neil Pert, Tommy Lee, John Bonham, Mike Portnoy
Moxy: Yeah it’s all about just the best music out there, the classic stuff never gets old. Aerosmith and Motley Crue, Pat Benatar, and Guns and Roses, we listen to a lot of newer stuff too – obviously there’s good music from every decade and generation and we love it all.
MuzicNotez: What’s the greatest concert you’ve ever been to or performed?
Moxy And The Influence: Moxy: I think now that the lineup’s finally where it is right now, our best so far had to have been the first one with Alexey when we opened up for Missing Persons. We were kinda nervous as to how it was all gonna work out and then she got up there and just killed it and the crowd loved it. It was like complete happiness for us.
MuzicNotez: What’s the ultimate goal you want your music to achieve, or for you to achieve in your career as a musician? Any particular message you wish to send?
Moxy And The Influence: Sydney: We want to inspire and encourage everyone out there. Our music is all about building people up and being strong in who we are, becoming the people we’re supposed to be and we want that and more for our fans. We’ve gotten so many people messaging us saying that our music has helped them get through the day, and it makes them happy, and all this amazing stuff.
Moxy: At the end of the day we just want to play the best kind of music in the world and love life doing it and do all the good we can.
MuzicNotez: You recently got a new drummer named Alexey. How has she added to the band dynamic?
Moxy And The Influence: Moxy: Getting Alexey was amazing to us, because we finally became a girl band. I mean obviously our last drummer was awesome – he was with us for almost two years and it was his decision to leave to pursue school and career. But becoming a girl band has just done so much for the dynamic of the band, publicly and personally as well. Alexey’s so badass and it’s so much fun having her in this band. We love it.
Shea: Yeah being all girls is super fun now, it’s like we’re all completely on the same page in what sound we want and where we’re going and what we want to do. She’s really brought it all together and made us like, a complete entity as a band.
Sydney: We’re all really confident in each other now and we love working together.
MuzicNotez: You’re really known for your amazing shows, and you’ve been playing a lot of them recently. What’s your most memorable live show experience?
Moxy And The Influence: Moxy: Oh my gosh there have been so many…
Sydney: I think I’d have to say it was one of our first, we played at the House Of Blues Anaheim and it was just this huge experience to see the whole place filled with people who came to see us. It think we were opening for Katy Perry’s brother? Right?
Moxy: Oh yeah – HUDSON! That was a great show. I think that was the first time Syd and I actually realized hey, we could keep doing this. It was like our third show or something. Maybe fourth.
MuzicNotez: What else are you working on? What can we expect to see and hear from you in the future?
Moxy And The Influence: Moxy: Some really big things coming up that we’re excited about. On February 12th, one or two of our songs will be played on KLOS at 9am on the Heidi and Frank show. We grew up listening to that station so it’s incredible to us that we’re gonna get some of our first FM airplay on 95.5. We’ll be on the “Stay or Go” show, so they’ll play one of our songs and then people will call in live to vote if we should stay, and if they give us the thumb’s up, they’ll play another song. If they do, then we’re gonna get to give an exclusive premiere of our newest song “Stomp You Down.” It’s our first one with this lineup and we love the studio work and the mixing. We’re working with Paul Miner (who was from Death By Stereo) and it’s just sounding great. We have a show that night as well at the Yost in Santa Ana. Really fun venue, opening for Faster Pussycat and Pretty Boy Floyd.
Sydney: We’re also gonna be playing at Rocklahoma out in Oklahoma on Labor Day weekend, the last weekend in May. Scorpions, Rob Zombie, Megadeth, Five Finger Death Punch, Sebastian Bach, Sixx A.M., Bullet For My Valentine, Thousand Foot Krutch, some other big names. We’re really excited for this.
Alexey: I can’t wait to get out there, we all really want to start touring again
Shea: Dude yes, I need to go. Like right now *laughs* I miss tour so much.
Moxy: We all do! Can’t wait for everything coming up. There’s more, but we can’t announce everything yet. Suffice to say though, we’re really stoked.