Text Size: A | A | A

5Spot: Meet Chelsea Paolini of People Skills

Buy This Photo
Chelsea PaoliniDeb Cram photo

Chelsea Paolini — Brentwood

Scorching guitarist, and screaming (in a good way) singer slash songwriter. Chelsea is currently the guitarist and vocalist of People Skills, a pop-rock-psychedelic band made up of members of math-rock trio Comma and her old band The Dramadies. She's always up to something interesting...

Spotlight: What brought you to be part of the Seacoast arts scene?

Chelsea Paolini: My parents had some babies around here. I was one of them. The music thing happened afterward. It started with a $50 upright piano. Somehow that turned into a punk-ska band, and then to psychedelic pop-rock.

Spotlight: What keeps you hanging around?

Paolini: Lack of money and car.

Spotlight: What are you looking to get out of your art? What are you looking for somebody else to take with them when they experience your art?

Paolini: I just want to be successful enough so that if someone talks (badly) to me I have grounds to say, "Oh yeah, and what have YOU done?" But really, I want to be able to play original music in front of any sort of audience that will listen and appreciate it and hopefully make a career out of it. I hope listeners will hear my songs and relate them to their lives on a personal level. Also, I've always pictured living in a chaotic house with other musicians and having silly quarrels over food and beer. Whether or not that relates to my art I don't know.

Spotlight: Do you have any moments in particular that committed you to a life of musical "creation"?

Paolini: There wasn't any specific moment in my life where my aspiration as a performer "clicked"- I was writing songs as soon as I could read and write and I think I just always knew I wanted to do it. I do remember having a book called "How to be a Rock Star" or something like that when I was 8 and pretending to be the Spice Girls with friends.

Spotlight: What's the greatest compliment someone has given you regarding your art? What's the greatest or funniest criticism?

Paolini: Once someone told me I play guitar like an old, black man. I can't say I really agree with that but it was definitely the coolest compliment I've gotten. There's a tie for most epic criticism. After the first show my first band ever played when I was 15, a friend was telling everyone I played "the stupidest guitar solo he'd ever heard." It was a pretty stupid guitar solo, but he has since apologized countless times. Also, on a Youtube video of my old band The Dramadies, there was a comment stating that this was the perfect example of why women belong in the kitchen. I am a terrible cook, by the way.

For information about People Skills, visit www.facebook.com/PeopleSkills.

Reader Reaction
New Careers & Jobs
Hot Properties
Subscriber Rewards
Ads by Google