Interview by Author Nic Brown-
Actress and Musician Victoria De Mare!
Victoria De Mare is a true renaissance artist. An accomplished actress with over 135 film and television credits would be considered quite an accomplishment all by itself, but that’s just scratching the surface. She’s a singer, songwriter composer, arranger, producer, music publisher (ASCAP), & catalog artist with over 50 songs on the Warner Music Group Film & TV Licensing catalogs, not to mention four solo albums and numerous singles on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon music. When she’s not making music she’s talking about it on her RockRageRadio.com show “Groove Time With Victoria De Mare”. Let’s not forget that she’s also a writer, a professional dancer and model. Victoria even has her own action figure and comic book!
Her newest album “FuckU” is burning up the airways now and she’s not only co-starring in Steven Seagal’s new film “Beyond the Law”, but her single “Wondering” is also featured in the film!
I was lucky enough to catch up with Victoria right before the new album dropped. We got to talk about some of her projects, what it’s like to have your own action figure and why she loves what she does!
Nic- Victoria it’s great to catch up with you. I know you’re super busy so thanks for taking the time!
Victoria- No problem, it’s always fun to chat with you!
Nic- Thanks! So speaking of busy, you just released a new album, didn’t you?
Victoria- I did! It’s my fourth solo album, it’s titled “FuckU”.
Nic- Can you tell us a little about the music on it?
Victoria- It’s a rock-n-roll album, but it’s more than that too. The album actually combines nine different genres of music! It’s a twelve-track album and mixing all those genres… it’s just an ear orgy!
Nic- Who doesn’t love an ear orgy? (both laugh) But I have to ask, where do you get your inspiration for something like that?
Victoria- That’s a good question (laughs). For the past five and a half years a lot of it really has come from an individual source. I was taught to write a song when things affect you passionately and to write about those experiences. So there are a couple of songs on this album that are about some of my experiences in the business, with certain individuals.
The other thing is that I love such a variety of music and when I make music I want to express that. I also think that, especially in this day and age, that I don’t want to be stuck into any kind of box. I celebrate music, all the different kinds and when I do an album I like to let that love come through. So you’re never going to get a Victoria De Mare album where my voice sounds the same on every single dance song and then every single dance song sounds the same as the last one, except for that one song that you downloaded the whole album for. Of course, most people don’t download a whole album now because they might say “hey I like this song and I like that song and I like this song” so they download the whole album. Only if all the songs on the album sound like those three they feel like it’s a waste and I don’t want that.
Nic- You know I’m glad to hear that because that’s actually one of my pet peeves, downloading a whole album only to find nothing original on it other than the one or two songs that lead me to it.
Victoria- Right!
Nic- Where’s the best place for someone to get the album?
Victoria- Well this is my third all digital album and it’s available wherever you want to get your digital music. iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon and iHeart Radio. My first album, “Victoria De Mare” is still available as a limited edition, signed CD through my website. But you know Nic this is the digital age baby! Technology has taken over and I’ve surrendered! (both laugh).
Nic- Yeah it is the digital age, but I am curious, do you ever play any live shows?
Victoria- You know I do sometimes, but I’m mostly in the studio writing songs and music for movies and TV. That’s been especially true for the past four years of the eight years I’ve been working with my music partner Michael Sean Colin. We’re constantly in the studio writing content. However, we do perform live when asked. It’s usually an awesome, living room style, acoustic, unplugged version of the songs because we can’t duplicate the full recordings of a lot of these songs with just the two of us.
It’s great to do a nice acoustic variety of the songs and they do translate well to that kind of personable, folk-rock style. When we play them this way people seem to love it! In fact, I usually press some limited edition copies of my albums to take to live shows and conventions so if you come to see me at a con or a public appearance you may be able to get a signed copy. It’s also funny because people say things like “Oh wow it’s a CD! I love those, I can play it in my car on the way home!” (laughs) but then they’re surprised that it isn’t like the acoustic versions they heard live, so it’s great to have that kind of variety.
Nic- Talking about all your musical work for film and TV, I know you’ve got a couple of projects out there featuring your work. One of them is “Art of the Dead”. Can you tell us a little about that?
Victoria- I’m so excited about that one! I love the filmmaker Rolfe Kanefsky and “Art of the Dead” is his new film starring Richard Grieco, Tara Reid, Lukas Hassel, and Jessica Morris. This is a serious horror film, it’s not a slasher film or a horror/comedy, it’s more of a horror/drama.
Rolfe is a big fan of my music. I’ve also worked with him on some of his films, both as an actress and providing music. So when I heard about this project I got excited about this film and wanted to have him consider some of my new work for it. In fact, I think I submitted 17 tracks (laughs) for at least a half a dozen scenes. I’d gone to a screening and was taking pages of notes and thinking about what would work here, and what would we need for this scene. There are bits where there’s music on the car radio, or on the stereo in the bedroom and how it’s presented in the film affects how it will sound on the screen. I had all these ideas and made notes about creating stuff just for a scene.
Rolfe was so great to work with on that and yeah, I submitted more than an album’s worth of material for it and he ended up loving three of the songs and used them in the film. I’m really proud to say that I’m the artist with the most material on the soundtrack. I hope that they release a soundtrack album for the film. Nowadays many films don’t actually release a soundtrack album or when they do some of the songs from the movie aren’t on the album or there are songs on it that weren’t even in the movie! So you want the songs to be featured in the movie and three of mine are!
Nic- So three of your songs are in the film, what kind of scenes are they playing in?
Victoria- Well the bit one is in a dramatic scene between two of the main characters. One of them is possessed and she’s giving advice to another character and my song’s playing. It’s a double honor for me that it’s in that scene because they’d originally be considering a Billy Eilish song for that scene. They actually used her work for the first and second rough cuts, but then they couldn’t secure the rights and so I’m thrilled to be the go-to person for music when you can’t get Billy Eilish!
There’s also another one of the lead characters in the film is having this very important transitional scene about what’s happening to her and in her life. It’s a big scene about what’s going on in her life or what her sin is in the film and one of my songs plays in two back-to-back cuts of this one scene.
The last one they actually only use the instrumentals for. Rolfe loved the song, but there were a lot of curse words in it and that didn’t fit, but the music did, so they took out all the vocals with me cursing! (Laughs). It’s so great when they can use your work in so many ways and so many places in one film.
Nic- You know with all the work you’re doing in music, it’s easy to imagine that’s all you’re doing. But I’ve heard this rumor that you occasionally act too. Is that true?
Victoria- (Laughing) It’s true, I occasionally do! I can confirm the rumors! (both laugh)
Nic- That may be a shock to some of your fans I know! But seriously though, tell us about some of your new projects that you’re excited about.
Victoria- Well, in addition to “Art of the Dead” I’m really excited to be a part of the new Steven Seagal movie “Beyond the Law” that’s just been released. It’s such a thrill for me because I was such a fan of Stene Seagal’s films, especially in the 90s and now I’m in this film in a supporting role as an actor and I had a lovely opportunity for a double-whammy situation that has been recurring for me.
Nic- A double-whammy?
Victoria- Yes! The director called me because he needed a really quick replacement song for one of the ones they were planning to use. At first, I thought he was joking. I was shocked! He wasn’t joking and in fact, he needed the song by the end of the day because the final cut was going off to the distributor. Apparently something happened with one of the producers and the song and they decided it just couldn’t go off to the distributor this way so he said “send me music, music, music!!”. He needed it really fast so I submitted five songs to him and he went with one so I’m not only acting in this new Steven Seagal film, but I’ve also got music in that one too!
It’s not just nice for me because I’m a fan of his either. It’s nice because this is an action film, not a horror film, and that’s letting me branch out a bit with my work. His films still play in theaters in Europe and Asia and India, so it’s a big deal for me because I’ll get to earn on that! Thank you to my amazing union ASCAP! Thank you ASCAP!!
Nic- That’s great! So where can we see it?
Victoria- It’s playing in limited theatrical release in 20 cities around the U.S. and in 11 countries. It’s also being digitally released so you’ll be able to see it on Amazon, Hulu, iTunes and absolutely everywhere digital film content is available. Plus it’s going to play on some of the premium cable services and on digital pay-per-view nationwide on that too.
Nic- Now “Beyond the Law” isn’t horror, but you do a lot of horror films right?
Victoria- I do! (laughs)
Nic- I bring that up because we were talking a little while ago and you’ve been having a few problems with Twitter, so your idea to help fix the problem with your number of followers has been to run a contest. Can you tell us what that contest is?
Victoria- Yes! I’m running a contest where I’m going to give my 10,000th twitter follower a free, signed Batty Boop doll/action figure! It’s an action figure because her tail moves. You can have it up, down, you can move it to the side, you can have her tail however you want it! That’s going to include free shipping and personally signed by me.
Nic- That’s a cool prize. I have to say, I love Batty Boop. She’s a great character from your work on the “Killjoy” film series from Full Moon Studios and they’re the ones who made the figure. I have to ask, what is it like to have your own action figure?
Victoria- Oh my God! I had a kind of out of body experience when I first went to the offices of Full Moon to pick up a doll. I was getting one and I was excited about that. They were doing some giveaways for the first initial release and I was signing some I was in there and the CEO Charles Band was there and he was telling me about all the giveaways and contests and how they were putting it up on YouTube, really filling me in on all the important information about what was going on with the doll. I just remember hearing his voice and looking at him and it was surreal. I was looking at him, I could see he was speaking, I could hear the words, but everything seemed to start to spin and I felt like I was hearing him from inside a jar or something. I mean I was feeling a little nauseous and thinking “Oh my God, am I gonna puke or pass out on the CEO of Full Moon?” because it was all just hitting me. But I managed to recover, and I didn’t puke on Charles Band (laughs) but I needed some air. Well, Charles said he had to take a call and it was great to see you Victoria and he went back into his office.
I remember then turning to one of the guys in the office and asking him what just happened what did he just say? Because I was having such an out-of-body experience. I was there holding this doll and I’m looking at it thinking that the face does look a little like me and it’s just so detailed and I was just… tripping!
I was biting the inside of my cheek trying not to cry while I was there because it was such a moment for me. They are pretty big and one of the guys from the office helped me carry them out to my car. Well then, I got in the car and I just couldn’t help myself I started to cry, it was just awesome!
Nic- That is so amazing!
Victoria- It was! Full Moon Collectables did that release in the Fall of 2017 and then in the Fall of 2018 they did a Batty Boop comic book! It was part of a series they did called “Dollman Kills the Full Moon Universe” and issue number four featured Killljoy and it had Batty Boop on the cover! I couldn’t believe it, the comic group had created a comic from my performance in the film series and the only two characters from the films actually in the book are Kill Joy and Batty. I just couldn’t believe it.
Well, that was so successful that just this past January they released a second Batty Boop comic book. They released two versions of the cover too; one censored and one uncensored. What was happening was in the final film Batty’s body paint was starting to come off because she was becoming more human so you were seeing more of her breasts. They duplicated that in the comic book and I was so excited by that. I’ve actually got two comic books now based on my performance in three of the five Killjoy films, that is insane!
Nic- Speaking of Batty becoming more human by the end of the films, do you think Batty Boop will be back in future films?
Victoria- (long pause) I don’t think so. There’s been a lot of discussion about it, a lot of rumors about a KillLupu 6 and what’s happening because Killjoy and Batty are having a baby. Kill Joy and Batty are also becoming more human so there’s a lot of questions about how she’d look. There’s a scene in the last film where I drop Batty’s accent on one word and that was how the director, John Lechago, wanted it. He wanted to exemplify the de-demonizing of the Batty Boop and how she was being ‘humanized’.
It would have been interesting to see where all that went. Killjoy and Batty having a baby and becoming more human. There were also questions about how they’d play off the whole baby thing, would they do it digitally, would they cast a young actor? There were a lot of possibilities there because clearly this wasn’t a normal pregnancy, she didn’t take nine months, she had it in a couple of hours so it would make sense that the child might mature very quickly too.
The other rumor was that the series is mature enough, why not do a spinoff? Why not a Batty Boop movie? So there has been some discussion about that. Never say never, but there is nothing written in ink yet.
Nic- I’d definitely check out a Batty Boop film! Which reminds me, you’ve been working some of the major haunted attractions in L.A. over Halloween the last few years. I understand you started to do something new for that last Halloween.
Victoria- Yes, I did! I started with L.A.’s House of Spirits produced by Meyer2Meyer entertainment and directed by Justin Meyer. He’s amazing and I’ve been lucky enough to work with him for a number of years.
I played one of the show’s lead characters. She’s a demoness, a very unpredictable demoness. For that, we went back to full body paint over full nudity, which is a lot different live in a show than it is on film. We also made the character much more fluid in movement so I went back to a lot of my modern dance skills to portray her evilness! (laughs maniacally).
The music for that was also a real delight because Justin is an accomplished musician and composer. He came up with some unique music to accompany the character and he always uses his music to enhance the experience.
Nic- That sounds like quite a show, I’m sorry I missed it this year.
Victoria- Well who knows, my demoness may be back next year!
Nic- That’s great! Now before we wrap this up, there’s one more project that I wanted to ask you about “Hanukkah”.
Victoria- Yes! “Hanukkah” is so much fun! It’s a Jewish slasher film and we’re going old school 80s style with the first Jewish slasher film! It has an incredible, iconic horror film cast with Sid Haig, Charles Fleischer, Caroline Williams, PJ Soles, Dick Miller, Sarah French, Sadie Katz, and the cast just goes on and on. Henry Mancini has done the score, Eben McGarr is the director and it’s being produced by Christopher Ott. This film is in limited theatrical release and it’s going to be insane so keep your eyes peeled for that!
Nic- Alright! That cast does sound amazing, I can’t wait to see it! Thanks for taking the time to chat with us today Victoria, you’re definitely Hollywood’s hardest working as well as hottest Scream Queen!
Want more? Visit Victoria De Mare's Kickass website or follow her on social media!
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