A Fine Frenzy, Indeed

Hauntingly beautiful vocals are juxtaposed by giggles that erupt from pianist Alison Sudol as she receives audience applause. After one performance on her VH1 You Oughta Know Tour, she blogged: “Lately, people have been singing along… I don’t care if it’s uncool to show you care about that kind of stuff... Cool is not my forte.”

When I met Sudol (a.k.a. A Fine Frenzy) backstage at The Electric Factory in Philadelphia, she seems enviably cool, with blazing red locks of hair, tied into a disheveled ponytail and the face of either a movie star or an angel. But the 22-year-old explains, “I was so shy growing up and really into my studies and literature. Through high school, I wanted badly to be loved, but never felt like I was completely seen.”

Suddenly, the singer/songwriter is being seen. Her debut album, One Cell in the Sea, ranked No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Heatseekers chart and the first single, “Almost Lover,” is a VH1 VSpot Top 20 video. Sudol made a cameo appearance, acting and singing, on CSI: NY, but makes it clear that music is her passion. “I took an acting class because my parents are drama teachers, but acting terrifies me,” she says. “I’d rather sing naked in the cold!”

“Music lights me on fire,” adds Sudol, who took voice lessons, studying opera, soul, blues and jazz. As a child, she wrote fantastical stories and when a friend taught her piano chords, she began writing songs. “That’s when I found my voice,” she says.

Stephen LeBlanc on keyboard anddrummer/guitarist Daxx Nielsen(son of Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen) are among the musicians who performed on Sudol’s 14- song debut and are her bandmates on tour. “Stephen, Daxx and I were always connected,” says Sudol. “There’s something about when personalities and musicality mesh; others can come and go, but we are the core.”