Original-Cin Q&A: Lisa Michelle Cornelius talks about the pre-fab band series Band Ladies, learning to play and scream/sing
By Jim Slotek
If you’re making a short comedy series like Band Ladies - about a group of thirtysomething women who ditch their book club and start a punk band – what better place for the actors to meet for the first time than a recording studio?
“Our very first day was in the studio,” says Lisa Michelle Cornelius, who plays lead singer Chloe. “We recorded our songs before we shot any scenes. I knew (director) Molly (Flood), Dana (Puddicombe) and Kate (Fenton). I didn’t know Kirsten (Rasmussen) except from afar at Second City, and I didn’t know Vicki (Kim).
Lisa Michelle Cornelius (center) discovers her inner-scream in Band Ladies.
“So, it was all introductions. ‘Hi, I’m Lisa Michelle!’ – ‘Hi, I’m Vicki!’ And they gave us instrumentals and lyric tracks and direction on how they wanted us to sing it. But it was all about being guttural and raw and getting all the emotions out there. It was a really good ice-breaker for the production.”
Before I write another word about the six-episode series of 10-minute band tales - think of it as “if the Monkees were moms” - let it be known that the Band Ladies album, with songs by Christian Hansen, is available on iTunes and Spotify among other platforms. And it sounds pretty good for a bunch of actors who had to learn to play their instruments, partly from YouTube tutorials.
The story is told with some haste, given the limits of the format. “Uptight homemaker” Marnie (Fenton), “disillusioned lawyer” Chloe (Cornelius), “misguided manipulator” Cindy (Kim), Penny (Puddicombe) a high-society power player who wants a baby, and broken-hearted Stephanie (Rasmussen), just out of a same-sex relationship, decide to dump their book-club chardonnay and get drunk for real.
Their night at a club leads to them taking over the stage for some cathartic rockin’, and leads Chloe to torch her career by becoming an alcohol-fueled corporate whistleblower at the microphone, a bad move that ends ending up going viral.
“She ends up being sued for millions of dollars, and she’s got nothing else to lose,” says Cornelius, “so why not join a band?”
Band Ladies, is available to view on Highball TV ( Highballtv.com), a platform created by indie filmmakers to showcase their work (it comes with a seven-day free trial). But the deserves to leap from there to a bigger showcase in a longer form (CBC Gem, perhaps?).
A sometime recording artist, the Mississauga-born Cornelius is the only professional singer in the band (her dream was Broadway before having a daughter tied her to home, and to roles in Toronto-based projects like The Handmaids Tale and the Star Trek: Discovery spin-off Star Trek: Short Treks). Ironically, she says, it meant she had the most difficult time finding her inner punk.
“Even though I’m the recording artist, quote unquote, of the group, I think I had the hardest time with the punk, because it’s so far from what I normally do,” she says. “I write and record for myself as Lisa Michelle, smooth and sensual, and that kind of sound. Being given permission to scream on a track was so foreign to me.”
You get a sense of her natural sound when Chloe tries to apologize her way back to the band after an argument, by singing a bluesy song she wrote (after the apology is accepted, the song is shaped into the band’s signature scream format).
“I absolutely loved that I sang it that way. It was a tender moment for Chloe, where she literally came with her tail between her legs – like, ‘Guys, I know I kind of blew up at you earlier. But I need my friends, I need my girls.’ And so that song came out with that melancholy sound.”
It says a lot about Canadian showbiz that Cornelius’s connection to co-writer Puddicombe came from an “industry gig” they performed together at a wine conference, where they were paid to improvise being grapes.
“So later, I heard from her this idea about a book club that turned into a punk band. And in addition to acting and improvising, I would also get to sing. I was, like, ‘Yes of course. I would like to be part of this!’
“I really identify most with the character Marnie, who has a child that she brought on tour with them. That’s my situation, I have a husband and I have a daughter and I have a job as an actor. And that’s a lot of parts that don’t always want to work together.”
And in the show itself, the Band Ladies can’t avoid the “mom rock” label, even though only one of them is a mom.
“It’s funny because I’m the biggest fan of Tricia Black, who played the band manager, Kaley. That photo-shoot scene with her went all day, with her (improvising) and making us laugh. And she keeps referring to us as, ‘band moms,’ and ‘sexy sassy moms.’
“And you’re right, only one of the Band Ladies is an actual mom. It’s funny for sure, but that’s a thing for women over 30. Whether you’re a mom or not, you’re in that group.”