Communications junior Emily Pacenti goes beyond her art area. When she isn’t competing in congressional debates, Pacenti balances school, work for her major, and her two bands, Beauty Lies and Prom Night.
Q: Can you tell me about your band?
A: My main band, or the band I’ve been in the longest and with the most material, is Beauty Lies, where I’m the rhythm guitarist. We’re an alternative rock group based in Boca and we focus on writing original music. We have a ten song original album, Revelator, that we will be recording in January at Purple Studios in Miami.
My other band is a low-fi duo called Prom Night that I play drums in and our whole thing is that for every live show we play, we dress up in full prom dresses and glitter. We don’t have a lot of original music finished for that group yet because it only just started this summer but we play regularly around Boca especially at a venue called Rockn Angels. My whole thing for that is being able to play the drums in four inch heels, that’s my primary talent.
Communications junior Emily Pacenti plays in one of her bands, Prom Night, in a prom dress to match the theme of the band itself.
Q: How did you guys begin?
A: Beauty Lies started about four years ago when we were all in middle school. It was a group that was put together by Ovation Music and Studios and we started as a cover band, but a little over a year ago we left that studio to go out on our own and we’ve written ten original songs since then. Prom Night started mainly because my best friend is an amazing singer and we love to make music together. We were in a cover band called Indigo together and after that we wanted to start playing our own music, so I taught myself how to play the drums, she picked up a guitar, we came up with the prom queen costume gimmick, and just started playing open mics.
Q: What has been the highlight of your experience?
A: The highlight of my experience so far was probably getting to play with Beauty Lies at Mizner Park Amphitheater. It’s the biggest stage I’ve ever played and the largest crowd I’ve ever had, the band was under a different name when we played that show, but I would kill to play a stage like that again.
Q: Who else is in the band and what are their positions?
A: For Beauty Lies, Briana Kovacs was behind vocals, Alex Abbasi was drums, and Nick Corcillo was lead guitar. For Prom Night, Kylie Parsons was behind both vocals and guitar.
Q: Where have you performed so far?
A: Some of my favorite venues I’ve played are Trio Live, O’Malleys, Rockn Angels, Packy’s Sports Bar, Mizner Park Ampitheater, Tim Finnegans, and Cheers.
Communications junior Emily Pacenti plays in one of her bands, Prom Night, in a prom dress to match the theme of the band itself.
Q: What instruments do you play?
A: I play guitar mainly and I play drums just enough to get by. I also play a little bit of bass, I played it for one show with a band called Tailored Thoughts a few years ago and I can do enough on piano to be able to write with it. [I can play] the ukulele too, but I don’t count that as an actual instrument.
Q: What inspired you to start music?
A: I got into music through my friends. In early middle school, we all kind of had a joint scene phase and got obsessed with some pretty awful music, but in the end it got us all into music and now me and all my friends all play instruments, we’re all in bands, we all are super in touch with the modern scene, and we go to shows together all the time. It’s really the sense of community that always draws me to music.
Q: What does your music focus on?
A: For Beauty Lies it’s exclusively about the music, we focus a lot on the writing and on the production and it’s about just making music that we can feel proud of. Prom Night is my avenue to be a little more creative, theatrical, and political. We’re organizing a Planned Parenthood benefit with other local bands as Prom Night, we’re working on writing music that has more queer themes in it, so there’s definitely a heavier political focus with Prom Night, it’s less about the music, more about the big glittery message of love, confidence, and acceptance.
Q: Where can people find your music?
A: For Beauty Lies, our album will be recorded in January and definitely released before summer 2017. The working title for the album is Revelator. You can see previews and practice videos of us on Instagram @beautyliesband and you can find us on Facebook too. Prom Night you can hear on Instagram @promnight99 and we hope to have some demos soon for the original music we’re working on, but we have a lot of videos up on the Instagram page.
