SKunk in the Roses

3D POp singer

Skunk in the Roses was officially formed in Hollywood, CA in 2016. But the idea came to creator Debra (Haden) Roberge in 2011 through a series of dreams and happenstance. The name "Skunk in the Roses" actually came from a trip to the airport in 2011. "It was four o'clock in the morning and I was putting my suitcase in the car. I heard something rustling in the neighbors rosebushes and I saw black fur. I sleepily proclaimed: "Kitty!" At that moment a skunk came jumping out and trotted off. It looked just like a cartoon. When she relayed the story of "the skunk in the roses" to people someone said "That is a good name for a band!" Roberge filed that one away in her mental bank for later use. The final pieces of those dreams started to fit together in 2017 when Roberge won an award with her co-star Princess Frank for Exceptional Emerging Artist - Composing at Hollywood Film Festival for their original duet called "Is This Real" from the movie Scumbag. "Working with Princess Frank helped catapult me back into songwriting. I cried and cried the night I came home from working on "Is This Real" for the movie in 2015. Because I never knew and often doubted how this particular dream of mine would happen." The use of old anaglyphs and 3D elements also came to her in these dreams. "I saw it in my dream and knew I needed to create some aspect of it as best as I could in physical form. The goal is to create not only a 3D multi-media experience but to go beyond that. I want to liberate my work from boundaries by bringing multiple elements in to play." 

"I would describe my music as a swing-house musical theatre cartoon. I love vintage sounds and coming up with new character voices. In my upcoming album there are only three voices other than my own used. Two are samples of male voices. The third I asked Die J! Mars to record a stage manager voice for me. People hear one of my harmonies and have thought it is a vocal effect that I added but it is really me singing 5 different voices on that one chorus. There is a deep, deep male laugh in one of my new songs that is actually me and I added a male vocal effect. If I can't quite sound like a man technology has ways to help me out. I have always had quite a vocal range. It took me decades to find a way to express it that suited me. I have always been drawn to rock music. I can wail some rock high notes like nobody's business and hold those high notes for a very long time. That is just something that came naturally to me. I tried being in bands but there were always intense egos involved. Even jealousy and sabotage. In the past, It always seemed to be sort of a guys medium. I never really guessed I would be creating electronic music and find that a sort of liberation from the confines of working with multiple people that cannot hear or see what I do in my head. Technology has definitely aided me in this moment of time. I can still have my introverted moments to work on my art and not get pushed around into someone else's ideas for me.  Now we are in an age where listening to certain lyrics are tired. How much sex, love, heartache and debauchery can people sing about and not get bored? There are classics that I will always love but, I have heard all of that for the last several decades. For some the cliches of the human condition do not get old but for me they do. So I choose to write about very symbolic things that perhaps no one has ever thought to sing about before, while telling a story and of course inadvertently still mixing elements of the human condition in with it. As for these current songs I actually saw a visual concept in my head or in a dream that I then set to music. Sometimes I hear the melodies for lyrics or songs in my dreams as well. Then I later go back and piece it all together like a puzzle that comes to me at different moments.  Most of the songs have an animated story or music video thought out before I even write them. Audio and visual go hand in hand for me. That is why I call it 3D POP. If you hear the song and already see visuals of your own in your head before seeing one of the videos I know I have done my job. It isn't only about me using my imagination. I want to enable the listener to use theirs as well."