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Girls rock

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[Left to right] Bassist Kristi Wimmer, drummer Jency Rogers and lead singer Natalie Espinosa of local band Bella. Bella will celebrate the release of its self-titled CD on Saturday.

Watching these members of local band Bella walk up to the Mills End coffee shop in Tempe was like watching a family reunion in play.

The three women in the band have taken a short hiatus from performing as they await the release of their six-track, self-titled CD on Nov. 23.

Their conversation over coffee and laughter on a sunny Sunday exemplified their close-knit group.

Lead singer Natalie Espinosa, drummer Jency Rogers and bassist Kristi Wimmer say they're like sisters.

They dress alike.

"Usually we all wear black T-shirts to shows and it's not planned," Espinosa says.

They talk alike.

Asked to describe their music, Espinosa says, "It's all about the fun-rock-rock-fun."

Wimmer chimes in with, "It's pop-rock, or rock-pop, or girl-rock-pop."

Sometimes, they even laugh alike as they remember the past 11 months together as a band.

But that's where any similarities to the Patty Duke Show end, it seems.

The band played Oktoberfest at the Tempe Beach Park, and the family affair was an odd fit with Bella's loud rock songs.

"We played at high noon next to a Polka band," Wimmer recalls. "There were all these kids walking by, eating their free brats and soda, making faces and shoving their fingers in their ears."

So maybe the band's "feminine touch to manly rock" doesn't have the family appeal of identical cousins, but that's not what they're going for anyway.

"We have our own sound," Wimmer says.

"We're kind of like a dark horse," Espinosa adds.

The women perform original material with few covers, they say.

Rogers says, "Doing a cover is like the search for the Holy Grail. You only want to do it if you can do it perfectly."

"Or it's not worth it," Wimmer says.

But the band is becoming known in local circles. And they're producing their EP with a new management company, Interiors Records.

"There was a live buzz about us before we were a band," Rogers says.

The girls all played in other local bands before getting together last January to form Bella. And that buzz has only increased as people hear of, or pretend they've heard of, the group.

Rogers relays an anecdote about a recent trip to the emergency room she took after becoming dehydrated. She says the paramedics saw the band's equipment in her house, the band's usual rehearsal spot, and pretended to be Bella fans.

"They so lied," she laughs. "There's no way this 45-year-old paramedic with a full mullet has heard of us. They were just trying to be nice."

The women say it's not a challenge to be a girl band in Tempe, so long as they don't get pigeonholed.

"We sometimes fall into a rut that we only play with other girl bands," Espinosa says. "People might not feel like they can book us with boy bands. But we're getting there; we're starting to turn that around."

Still, the women of Bella would love some more local competition.

"It would be nice if there were a few more girl bands," Wimmer says.

Rogers adds, "There's not a lot of girl musicians here. At least girl musicians that are willing to get out there."

Instead, Wimmer says that Bella faces the same challenge that many local bands do — finding places to play.

"So many of the venues that used to be in Tempe are gone," she says. "Too many bands are starting to bring their own opening acts with them."

Wimmer remembers the competition Bella faced in order to play the same show as Sleater-Kinney at Nita's Hideaway on Sept. 17.

"We had to flip a coin to play after them," she says. "We didn't get on stage until 11:30 p.m., but we had the best time. We were so pumped."

The women of Bella also face balancing careers or motherhood with being in a rock band.

Wimmer works in ASU's justice studies department and Espinosa works as a marketing manager at an architecture firm. Both have master's degrees, Wimmer's in justice studies and Espinosa's in business administration.

Rogers, who jokes, "I have a bachelor's in diaper-changing," is a fulltime mom to 2- and 4-year-old sons.

It seems Bella appeals to some in the toddler crowd.

"Her 4-year-old thinks we're called 'Natalie and the Pussycats,'" Espinosa laughs.

Rogers' son could be seen at one Bella show playing air drums on his mom's shoulders while the band rocks out.

"He's a rock star already," Rogers says.

Though some might say Bella isn't family entertainment, seems like rock 'n' roll runs in the family.

Reach the reporter at sara.thorson@asu.edu.

Bella CD release party with Before Braille and The Go Reflex. Mesa Centennial Center, 201 N. Center St. 7 p.m. Saturday. $5. www.bellarock.com.


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