Story by Ada Tseng.
In so many ways, music defines a generation or a culture, giving us the soundtrack to our multilayered, bicultural landscape. And the 10 women we highlight here not only lay it all on the line and bare their souls in their music but, each in their own way, do much to round out a picture of what it is to be an Asian woman in America. Our cover girl Yuna defies the modern definition of pop star with her inimitable voice juxtaposed with a girl-crush-worthy style of chic turbans and covered-up ensembles. We have the gossamer voiced Priscilla Ahn, whom we feel like we’ve grown with as her life journey (and music) goes from melancholy to bliss. Then there’s the flame-haired Hmong American hard rocker and an indefinable artist whose voice is featured in one of the hottest hits of the year. From sweet little ditties to feminist anthems, from odes written in the throes of love to songs that feel more like a cathartic purging, their music moves us, inspires us, rocks us. Take a glimpse into the meaning and memories behind the melodies.
The fiery, scarlet-haired vocalist of the alternative metal band Fields of Prey never even listened to hard rock before she met her friend and former bandmate Ricardo Guevara in 2010. “All the screaming frightened me, to be honest,” remembers Alley Her, 31. “I was brought up singing in a choir at church, and I was playing in a pop-rock band. [But] after some time of studying the techniques and style of hard rock, I started understanding the emotions behind such music. Afterward, I made it my ambition to be the first female Hmong hard rock vocalist, and I’ve been trying ever since.”
Her’s mother is Lao, her dad is Hmong, and their family migrated to the States seeking asylum post-Vietnam War, when she was 6. “I actually have a photo that my parents took of us during that time because my sister was very ill and we didn’t think she was going to make it. So my mother sold her last piece of jewelry to hire someone to take a photo of her children,” she says. Her was 13 when she wrote her first song to try to cheer her sister up, and that was when she discovered her ability to express herself through music.
Fields of Prey’s first single, incidentally, was titled “Red.” Why can’t you see that you are mine, she belts in both hard rock and acoustic versions of the song. I’m your salvation, your demise. Her and her guitarist Sunny X’s Hmong heritage made them favorites at the first-ever Hmong Music Festival in 2012 in Fresno, Calif. Though Fields of Prey recently made the difficult decision to disband last December, Her is still working with a few of her former band- mates to release a new album. “I am proud to say that through my struggles as a musician and in the world of Fields of Prey, I have become the person I have always wanted to be,” says Her.
First Musical Memory: Dancing and singing with my mother when I was about 7 years old. She used to teach me and my sisters folk songs from Thailand. We would sit together and watch videos of grand concerts and performances from Thailand, and I used to fantasize that I was on stage performing along.
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Influences: I’d have to say my influences are a compilation of many different genres and styles, ranging from Avenged Sevenfold to Green Day, Paramore and Flyleaf to TLC and Whitney Houston, to bands like Train and Collective Soul – all melting together to make up the full scope of my music personality.
Favorite Song: My favorite song with Fields of Prey is called “Ghosts.” It’s on our Perfect Dark album. I wrote this song for my bandmates. It is a tribute to our struggles, an apology for our imperfections, the anthem to which we live our lives and the reminder to never forget the dreams that we dreamed.
What’s Next: Sunny X, Arion Tucker and I are still writing and creating new music together and will continue to do so. We will never stop. We have been spending night and day in the studio composing and experimenting with crazy ideas. A new project is in the works for the three of us, and my favorite single “Sleepwalker” will be released soon.
Go to charactermedia.com/alleyher to hear her distinctive sound.
This story was originally published in our Spring 2014 issue. Get your copy here.
