Meet Alice Valkyrie

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alice Valkyrie.

Hi Alice, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I was born and raised in Phoenix and Scottsdale by my wonderful immigrant single mother Nora. I was the Drum Major at Chaparral, marched in the ASU Drumline, and dabbled in the local drum corps community. But I’ve been a recording artist since I was fifteen using whatever tools I could find.

My sound has transformed almost as much as myself. In my teenage years, I wanted to be a mixture of John Mayer and Coldplay, In my 20s I wanted to sound somewhere between the Weeknd and Zedd. These days, I’m trying to iron out a gender-neutral pop vocal tone with dark elements that fit nicely with the Pop, Witch House, and EDM genres. I’m taking a lot of inspiration from artists like Rezz, Madeaux, SIERRA, and Nina Simone.

I feel like my self-discovery in regards to gender has really unlocked a lot of my creativity across mediums from my music production to my film production. I feel like I have new things to write about lyrically that aren’t just “you broke my heart” or “I love you so much” records. I’m writing about self-discovery, power dynamics, sexuality, toxic relationships and I’ve gotta say vanilla heartbreak itself on estrogen just hits different.

I am producing completely new records this year but am also re-appropriating a lot of previous releases from before my transition and records I sat on but never released. When something this monumental happens in your life story, it reframes a lot of events and in order to bring my old songs along for the ride, they need to change to feel honest to me now.

I feel like in the latter end of my 20s, I lost steam and enthusiasm for life as well as music. I thought that transitioning to live my life as a woman would be the final nail in the coffin to my musical aspirations but in actuality, it breathed new life back into it in a way I could never have imagined.

That journey started with a quarter-life crisis, that led to a psychological rebirth, and ultimately a newfound mission to live my best and most authentic life. I think a lot of trans-women find that if we can survive I dare say thrive as trans-women, we can really start to get greedy because it feels like anything else should be a walk in the park. Why shouldn’t we have it all?

Plus, I’ve found creatively that I’m not treating any aspect of my work as a means to an end. I’m enjoying each part of the process from mixing my own records to discovering new gems for a DJ set and really doing the work of being part of a community. I was more than a little self-centered in my 20s and that manifested in me not supporting others and then turning around and getting salty when no one supported me. I think I just hadn’t found my communities yet but it is fair to say I needed to pull my head out of my a$$ in a few ways.

I found my little villages within the Goth, Burner, and Gay communities here in Phoenix and in LA, when I lived there pre-pandemic. There are many wonderful humans there that have really had my back throughout my journey and opened doors for me. I’m incredibly grateful and they’re all doing so much to build a wonderful sense of culture here in Phoenix.

It’s actually hard not to totally fangirl about the great artists and performers we have here across mediums.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The biggest struggle I’ve faced has largely been losing my career in my transgender experience. Just a year ago, I was a Multimedia Creative and Marketing Coordinator with three years in the Real Estate sector. I had the best portfolio I’ve ever had. But women like us have a hard time getting or keeping jobs. I’m sort of comparing it to getting a face tattoo. Few of us manage to keep the careers we worked so hard for unless we’re self-employed.

I think sometimes employers feel like they can disrespect you and your time because you don’t have many options. And you have a significantly lower tolerance for disrespect because you just went through the fiery baptism of coming out publically. You risked your job, your life, your family, and your friends. You risk it all by existing authentically every day, so your tolerance for being mistreated gets smaller over time.

So when I was let go from my job after spending all of 2021 trying and failing to find work in a hot job market all I could do was focus on getting DJ gigs and freelance marketing work. I had been too scared to lose my sense of stability when I lived as a man to just commit to it but now I had the time to do it and so far it’s worked out. I’m paying my bills by DJing, a feat I never managed to pull off in my 20s living as a man.

I feel like I’m living the dream of being a self-employed woman playing music but sometimes it feels like I’m dancing on the edge of a knife. It’s fun but damn it’s scary. Another challenge has been finding my voice as a trans-woman. Trans surgeries for vocalists seem risky to me and a voice that has experienced male puberty has endured a one-way trip to bass town. I’ve made some progress with my range but I’ll be honest, I understand why many trans-women give up.

The dysphoria in terms of vocal tone gets real. So I am simultaneously training myself to create a vocal tone that is femme-ish, listenable and I’m proud of while learning to love the voice I manage to come up with. It’s a reoccurring theme across many aspects of the transgender experience.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a Goth Pop recording artist and multi-genre DJ and MC. I write, sing, record, produce, mix and master my records. I’ll also play a significant role in the production of my own music videos as a film producer. Not a lot of people can say they wrote a song, produced it, mixed it, did their makeup for the music video, coordinated the team, and cut it all together in Premiere Pro.

I’ve been super thankful to be a part of the local Herizon feminine empowered collective which has an amazing roster of DJs. We all have our own specialty subgenres and I’d say mine is EBM and Dark Electro.

We’ve got a lot of lovely spiritual lightworkers on our team and I like that I get to contrast them harmoniously by living in the shadows. From aesthetic to life philosophy, my music is largely about facing your demons and what some people call shadow work. Some of the themes will be about one of my favorite sayings “Seduce your demons”. It’s provocative music so I’m definitely going to go there.

I think I stand out because there is this romance between Goth EBM and EDM; a space I love to explore musically. They’ve been flirting for decades and now things are getting real. There are some amazing queer producers servicing that space and I’m just super psyched to be a part of that on a local level.

I love the Phoenix goth community and the local DJs like Mijito are really pushing it forward more from the goth side. DJ D_void is also spearheading the Graver (Goth Raver) community and I’m super excited to be working with him to build that niche. One of my favorite things ever is when Burners go Goth like in the Tainted Love event. There is a large Queer/LGBTQIA+ presence throughout those communities outside of the gay country bar scene and I’m just super excited about it.

It’s also pretty cool that I get to be a DJ getting booked at upscale restaurants like Wren & Wolf thanks to Herizon. Having trans-visibility normalized like that and not being exclusively confined to gay spaces I think is just a beautiful thing to be a part of. It wouldn’t have happened without my predecessors and I hope I get to help normalize our presence in even more mainstream spaces moving forward.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
First I’d love to give a big shout out to the people who’ve helped get me here including Matthew James with Synesthesia and Monica Lavander with Herizon.

A couple of Trans Women have really gone out of their way to give me a space to grow and develop myself as a performer.

Mozelle Rubio with Elite Karaoke and Regina Gazelle with Regina’s T-Girl Revue at BS West have really done a lot for the trans community as well as for me as a sister and performer.

I’m always looking for a good gig at a new club, bar, or restaurant. Ideally, somewhere that takes the safety of their patrons and staff seriously as the panini continues. I’d love to DJ or sing a live vocal set at some festivals soon or performing at Pride would be a dream. So helping make something like that happen would be lovely.

I’ll also be putting together more live, acoustic guitar/piano, and vocal sets to mix things up, so I’m looking for a good central location for that. Long term, I’ll be looking to offer some on-demand music production and music marketing services that cater to the local LGBTQIA+ community.

I really want to see a local queer live music scene gain some steam. It’s also really helpful to follow me on social media to stay up to date on my upcoming shows or music releases.

Contact Info:

• Email: alicevalkyriesound@gmail.com
• Website: https://alicevalkyrie.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alicevalkyriesound/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs0hqhBK6yozBfn-s_ons0g
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/alice-valkyrie
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@alicevalkyrie

Image Credits
Inspiriann Art and Themiskyra Music