Early 2010s Venezuela would not have been kind to a young, imaginative child. Survival was what was most imminent.
Amidst economic collapse and growing social unrest, Venezuela began crumbling in front of the young eyes of Calva Louise’s vocalist and guitarist, Jess Allanic. Their economy collapsed, social unrest brewed, the future of metal music looked bleak, and just as any young child would do to survive a world imploding around her – she burrowed, finding comfort in her own mind and imagination at ten years old, immersing herself in a universe that spanned, as Allanic says, “centuries.” Bassist Alizon Taho elaborates that Calva Louise’s recent release, The Edge of the Abyss, takes the universe Allanic not only created, but structured the band’s storytelling around: “This album is a direct continuation of the mixtape that we released before that. This one goes back to the 90s and focuses on what happened to some of the characters before the futuristic mixtape [previous].”
And while her universe soothed the chaos that lived inside her mind, Allanic’s familial background with music proved as something to embrace. “My dad is an amazing guitarist,” and he would “create playlists, but give them to me.” Pursuing music, in any way, shape, or form consumed Allanic from an early age but intensified as she grew older, and by the time she was barely a teenager, the socioeconomic crisis grew worse in Venezuela while Allanic’s universe expanded rapidly.
“It was funny the decision of me moving to France,” Allanic starts, “When I was almost about to turn 16, it was because it was not great where I was living with my parents. And I had a friend who had just moved to Normandy, which is next to England… and I remember turning around to my mom and I was like, “‘I want to go – I need to go there because that’s so close to England and then I can go to England.’” Having no home and “no material attachments,” in Venezuela, it became a relatively “easy decision to jump into the abyss of the unknown. I felt like the plan fit so well. I remember looking at the map and seeing that city where like [Taho] grew up, and I was like, ‘I need to go there because it’s just literally one ferry away to New Haven, England.’” So, there was only one way forward to teenage Allanic —to move to France, and chase music anywhere it would take her. Fleeing alongside her father to France and leaving her mother behind in the hope of a future submerged in sound, Allanic built her life from scratch. While Allanic’s French roots did prove useful, she “moved to France, and lived in a little convent,” she says rather nonchalantly, but it’s because her focus was on something greater, “My plan was like, ‘I’m getting a band here and we are going to England.’”
So, chastised and ridiculed for playing System Of A Down on her electric guitar during her time, she ended up attending the school next door in which she also met 16-year-old Alizon Taho, both when the world was still full of possibilities and forming a band made the most sense, taking every single one of them that landed on their door, no matter the chaos they may have found themselves in.
Eventually settling in the UK after travelling to and from the country religiously, and recruiting drummer Ben Parker, the now-trio did whatever it took. “The plan was just going to the UK – for me from the start, it was to go to the UK,” Allanic explains, except “Ali was like ‘I don’t speak English,’” to which she just smiled and said, “Well, I kind of don’t speak English either. It doesn’t matter.’” Language barrier damned, Taho learned English through working as a handyman, “I was doing handyman work around London, and I had to call people on the phone to set an appointment. I was absolutely terrified because not speaking English, I was writing scripts ahead of time to read on the phone.”
As lucky as it was, it feels like the plot of a thriller series – maybe even along the lines of the plot in Edge of the Abyss, a narrative easily followed. Better known to Calva Louise as their “Over The Threshold” universe, the stories revolve about the humans that represent us, living in a so-called real world and we are the avatars of ourselves, which are called the doubles. It’s about us, the humans called travellers, because we’re traveling through time to meet with our real selves and everything that comprises that connection, which sometimes entities don’t want us to meet up and become one. And the separation of that duality that us as humans have in this world.” As the characters in Allanic’s universe navigate their own, they hold up mirrors and flashlights to expose the very bones of our humanity, and what spurs us forward—pain, and hope.
“It’s very lucky that I was very naive, because if not, after going through all the things we went through, maybe I wouldn’t have risked it because it hurts a lot. It’s a lot of slaps and punches…. It’s still one misstep and it could fall apart at any time.”
The Edge of the Abyss is out now and you can order it from Mascot Label Group. Follow Calva Louise on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for future updates.
Photo courtesy of social media
