Meet Chastity R

 

We recently connected with Chastity R and have shared our conversation below.

Chastity, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

Being a female singer in the rock industry is no easy feat. Being a female lead singer of a band who is also a woman of color in the rock industry is a whole other level because it is something that is extremely rare. It is so uncommon that it really doesn’t exist in society or even in fictional movies other than Wayne’s World lol. So my entire career has been an uphill battle of finding prople who would “see” and accept me and build a place for me to fit in. I have found that in my band Heroine Honey with my bandmates and our fans, but it is no easy road. My resilience comes from the fire within me to be someone other ethnic young girls & women of all ages wanting to get into the rock industry can look up to. In my culture, there are little to no female rock singers. As a young kid I never had that example… I was often told that I would never be a singer who got noticed bc I wasn’t pretty enough & there were no female Asian rock singers & there will never be. My fire to keep going comes from wanting everyone to feel like they have a shot & encourage them to be different & go for their dreams no matter what society or anyone tells them. I never had someone who resembled myself as a child to look up to or to give me hope, so it is a goal of mine to be that for others.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I am the lead singer of an alternative/rock band called Heroine Honey. The most exciting thing about being in a rock band is playing and writing music with my favorite people and also having a platform to express my passion through our music. It’s also sharing my story about being an Asian female rock singer in the rock industry… and how it’s a rarity and comes with struggles but is a thousand percent worth it. I love introducing another perspective of Asian women to ppl of my culture… bc we are accustomed to big ballad type of singers or pop female singers with “pretty” voices. I’m loud. Daring and different. I take risks. That behavior is not something that is popular in the Asian culture for women to be… but we’re a powerful culture with powerful women who deserve to break out of their shells and see that it is okay to be different and not follow a path or follow what society has deemed acceptable in the past. I’m trying to bring awareness to this and show others who have similar dreams to me that they can do it and build their own places in the sun to shine… even if no one else has done it before.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

For me there there has been plenty of great things that have been incredibly useful as a working musician. Learning to love practicing by doing it often, taking care of your health both mental and physical, & learning to be resilient.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

My parents were and are to this day incredibly supportive. The most impactful thing they did other than introducing music to me and putting me in voice and dance lessons…was that they allowed me to find myself…to be myself…and to freely express that however I wanted to. I learned the importance of authenticity from this and learned to never hold back. I give 1000 percent on stage bc of this. They also taught me to love rehearsing…mostly bc they encouraged me to do it often and when a gig went well I’d be thrilled with the results, so I just grew to really love practicing. I got very lucky because every member of Heroine Honey shares the same feelings about the importance of practice and rehearsals. We love striving to be a tight unit.

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Image Credits

Kristin Anderson
Courtney Ware
Wesley Tingey
Sally Steele

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