Roc And Roll: Roc Zonte Rocks the House

"You know what I do when I play live?" asks Roc Zonte. "You know that Helen Reddy song, 'I Am Woman'? I go, 'I am woman hear me roar, I don't do dishes anymore. Take that toilet brush and shove it up your...'" What follows is a rather bold suggestion for said brush. But then this is from a feisty spirit who sings, "Girls like us don't give a damn if you think we're naughty."

The phrase "Well-behaved women rarely make history" springs to mind when chatting with the up-and-coming (and aptly named artist), who wails on the electric guitar loud, hard and fast. Zonte, 25, who writes her own songs, plays music that ranges from "Girls Like Us" a cheeky, female-empowerment anthem with a punk-rock vibe, to the aggressive metal songs "Do You Know"and "Sanity", to the mournful and melodic ballad "Never Get What You Want", to the trippy "Bhangra Rock."

Zonte's passion for music was sparked at an early age. "When I was little, my mom used to have me do the Indian music at the church. She was always singing and teaching me," Zonte says. Her desire to be different also came early. Zonte adds, "I made up my own songs because I didn't want to sing what everybody else was singing. Then I got into the guitar and that changed everything."

"When I'm playing and they find out I'm also Desi - especially the 15-year olds - they always come up to me. I always say, 'Believe in yourself and do what's good for your heart.' It's inspiring when you're a role model, so I try to be good. And if I see really young people, I try not to swear. In the song 'Girls Like Us,' when I have the words 'Girls don't give a damn,' I try to say 'darn.' I try to be a role model, 'cause I know they're watching me."

"I didn't have the best of childhood life," shares Zonte, who grew up in Chicago, "Being from the [South Asian] culture was a little difficult. Being 13 and watching all of my cousins getting scooted off to India and coming back married was a little bit of a scary thing. I just got into music because it was a way out, you know? And it's better than doing drugs." Neighbors in her apartment complex introduced Zonte to the music of rock icons: "They said, 'Well, she's not going to school....' so they started bringing over music like [Jimi] Hendrix, Van Halen and Led Zeppelin. I really got into it."

The budding musician worked diligently to duplicate the classic rock tunes. "The guitar was so hard when I started. I remember trying to press the chords down to get the sound out. With the piano you can just hit it and the sound comes out [but] with the guitar you have to press so hard. People started coming over with all this music and I thought, 'Oh, what did I get myself into?'" says Zonte. Eventually, the then-teen built her own guitar, enhancing it with various types of equipment to get just the right sound. "I still play the one I made," she notes. Something of a do-it-yourselfer, Zonte also makes her own outfits and is developing a clothing line.

Zonte kept expanding her musical knowledge. "After I figured out all the solo stuff, somebody gave me a record... Have you heard of Chic?" she asks before launching into the opening to the disco hit "Le Freak." "Aahh, Freak out! That was the beginning of my right-hand technique," she says, "That's what helps you get fast, so I have a lot of that R&B influence with the right hand."

After a while, Zonte put a band together and then made a leap to L.A. "I moved here to get where I need to go.... I actually had to run away," she admits, noting that she did not get a lot of familial support for her dream. "Being a rock star is just not a part of that whole culture. Especially being a girl. Guys have way more leniency in terms of what they want to do. Going out to be a rock star is just taboo; they look down on it. They really consider it like going out to be — I’ll just say it — going out to be a hooker."

Once in Los Angeles, Zonte met another challenge. "[A producer] did not like the lead singer that I had, [and] I was doing the guitar.... Everyone kept telling me, 'You gotta sing, you gotta sing.' The only time I really sang was with my mom in church so I wasn't really sure if I could. I was writing crazy music based all around the guitar. When I got the first demo deal, I had to sing so I did it. I wrote a couple of songs, [and] we recorded them and shot them off to radio stations. Then everyone said I sounded like Chrissie Hynde [of the British rock band The Pretenders]. I was like 'Oh, my God! Who is that?' Number one, I never really studied any singers because I wasn't into singing. Then I thought, 'Oh, my God! People think I can sing.' I got her records, and I got nervous."

That decidedly retro sound, which conjures up memories of acts like Blondie and The Motels, garnered Zonte some unexpected fans. "We were doing a bunch of in-store [appearances] a year or a year-and-a-half ago, and all these mothers come up to me and say, 'You sound like Pat Benatar.' They were buying two CDs — one for the mother and one for the daughter, and the daughters were 10 or 11," she laughs. And Zonte bears those young fans in mind. "When I'm playing and they find out I'm also desi — especially the 15-year olds — they always come up to me. I always say, 'Believe in yourself and do what's good for your heart.' It's inspiring when you're a role model, so I try to be good. And if I see really young people, I try not to swear. In the song 'Girls Like Us,' when I have the words 'Girls don't give a damn,' I try to say 'darn.' I try to be a role model, 'cause I know they're watching me."

Zonte is further expanding her audience by playing some of her music unplugged: "The people working with me said, 'Your songs would really come across with an acoustic guitar; you need to start doing some acoustic sets.' It was a struggle at first because I never really held the acoustic. Any time you see people with an acoustic you always think folk music. It's funny. I'm in these places, where everyone is playing folk with and then I do my stuff. It's going over really well; I'm really surprised. Everybody's shocked at first, but then they are clapping along."

Asked about career highs thus far, she says: "Fateh Ali Khan, the guys who took over after [Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan] passed away [his handpicked successor is Rahat Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan] were playing at the Key Club in Los Angeles, and I got to open up. Now this is Bizarro World: the crowd is totally Indian. I'm singing 'I've got a boyfriend who lives in Nowhere Land,' and I'm thinking, 'How is this audience going to react to rock and roll punk?' I got a real good reaction. They just kind of stood there.... I wasn't sure if I was getting through to them. But at the end they all came up to me and said they really liked my music, so I was really blown away."

Closer to home, Zonte's father didn't live to hear her album, but she says, "My mom is adjusting. I know she gets ridicule from her peer group. I think all the cousins are adapting to it. They're all doctors and lawyers and that kind of stuff. She always talks highly about them, but what's she going to say about me? 'Oh, my daughter's in rock and roll'? If they didn't want rock and roll for a career, they shouldn't have named me Roc."

To hear Zonte's music, check out: http://www.myspace.com/doyouroc.

Elaine G. Flores is a New York-based writer and editor, who specializes in covering beauty, style and entertainment.