I remember crossing the railroad tracks driving across town early in the morning to take violin lessons before preschool started. I think the lesson was at 6 a.m. or something. My mom would take me in her little black Honda hatchback and we would wait on a little bench in this sort of atrium between the front door and the studio, and I remember the way the light came through the windows first thing in the morning, shining on the houseplants. Then my teacher, Jeannie, would open the door and I would go into this room that was sort of dark and wooden and there were violins everywhere hanging from strings going across the walls. We would have our lesson, just playing together and learning new songs. I still love the way the violin smells when you first open the case, even though I can’t play violin at all anymore!

Throughout my childhood I was part of “the fiddling friends”, consisting of basically anyone in my teacher’s studio, and we would do regular recitals and gigs and play together as a pack of violin children, suzuki style. We would play at various festivals and events, as an opening act for my teacher and her husband who played lots of Zydeco music together. I didn’t really think anything of it at the time. Then one day in kindergarten I brought my violin to school for some reason and played for the rest of the students on the playground. I remember this odd feeling where I realized their perception of me changed because I knew how to play an instrument and they were acting like it was a big deal. I guess I had assumed it was something that everyone did up until that point. I remember feeling good about it all of a sudden and thinking, “oh this is cool, I should probably keep this up then.”


In fourth grade, I found my dad’s old bass wedged between a shelf and a concrete wall in our laundry room. It was caked in dust and beaten to hell. I didn’t know what a bass was, or that my dad ever played it. But I did know that I wanted to play that thing - whatever it was.

There was something about playing along with a pile of burned punk rock CDs from my older cousin that made complete sense to me. I never questioned it. Playing music was the most obvious thing for me to do, and so I kept doing it.

I never had one of those “Aha!” moments, or profound and convenient “l didn’t choose music, music chose me” stories. Music just became my way of relating to the world - a tool, a lens.


In third grade, we were given the option to play flutophone, which is basically a recorder. It was my first time playing an instrument in an ensemble-type setting and I really enjoyed it. There was just something really exciting about me and a bunch of my friends tootin’ out Hot Crossed Buns as loud as we could together. Fourth grade was when we could pick a real instrument and I chose the saxophone. I think the influence of my decision mostly came from the cartoon show Arthur and my appreciation for the Muppet character, Zoot. When my saxophone arrived in the mail I remember thinking, “this is the big time.” I loved music and I loved my sax but it wasn’t until I started playing guitar that I knew I wanted to be a musician.

At the tail end of eighth grade, just a few months before we graduated and got ready for high school, our general music class teacher told us we were going to finish out the school-year with the guitar. Two of my close friends in the class already had some guitar experience and started to teach me some Nirvana and Black Sabbath. I immediately took off with it and my music teacher said, “you’re really good at this, you should keep going after you graduate.” A friend’s older sister leant me her guitar and I was completely hooked. All I wanted to do was learn and write guitar riffs. Brian May’s guitar solo on “Killer Queen” made me want to get an electric guitar. Once that was acquired, I started a band with some close friends.

Photo courtesy of John Harold Perez

Growing up, I was a shy kid. Not just a little shy, I was painfully shy. If I was out in public with my family and a friendly child my age dared to say hello to me, I would ignore them and turn my head until they went away. (Much to my parent’s horror!) This was a stark contrast to my older sister, who was naturally extroverted and would go on to become a competitive dancer and Prom Queen.

Along with my shyness came a big imagination, introspectiveness and a touch of melancholy. (Or as I like to call it, The Holy Trinity for Introverts.) I would eventually grow out of my shyness, but that wouldn’t start until I discovered music. Enter Silverchair. Thanks to my sister and her friends, I had access to what the older kids were listening to in school. One day, I grabbed one of her burnt CDs and popped it into my Walkman. As soon as I heard Daniel Johns’ longing voice backed by electric guitar, I was hooked. The emotion, the grit, the attitude, the controversial lyrics… For a shy, rule-abiding book nerd, this lit me up more than Nancy Drew ever could.

After Silverchair came Rooney, The Strokes, My Chemical Romance, The Distillers and Marilyn Manson. Music transported me into a world where I had an outlet to say and feel the things I didn’t yet have words for. While my friends lusted after rockstars and daydreamed about being with them, I dreamed about being them. As I got older, the more shocking and heavier the sound, the better. I knew I had unlocked a passion that would never go away, and that passion was singing.

But there was a problem. I was still way too shy.

During the week, I had exactly one hour from the time I came home from school to the time my dad came home from work. This meant I could sing along with an album for about 40 minutes and still have time for a snack. (Pop Tarts were a fav!) If I sang any longer, I risked someone hearing me, and if that happened, I felt like I would shrivel up and die. Despite this fear, I talked about my rockstar dreams constantly. My mum would ask if I wanted to sign up for singing lessons, but that was always met by a hard “no” from me. They told me I needed to do some kind of extracurricular activity, and since it was clear I wasn’t going to follow in my sister’s dancing footsteps, my parents asked me what I wanted to do. “You have to pick something!” They would threaten. I knew I wanted to sing, but I wasn’t ready to “perform” so I tried soccer, figure skating, Girl Guides, etc. When everything I signed up for inevitably became a chore, my fed-up mother begged me to pick something I actually liked.

“How about singing?” I looked up and my eyes grew wide. My mother had pulled the car into the Connor’s Music parking lot, the music store in town.

After a few more encouraging (and threatening) words from my mother, I finally went in and signed up. This. Changed. Everything. I slowly became more confident and better with singing. I went from a shaky-legged kid to a full on ham. I did musical theatre, I sang in voice competitions, I even got into Humber College’s Theatre Performance Program where I would study with opera legend Fides Krucker. I performed Shakespeare, I did improv and I joined a band. While working on my technique, I also had the chance to see my heroes in action. I saw My Chemical Romance, Coheed and Cambria, Marilyn Manson, Deftones, The Distillers, Silversun Pickups, Mother Mother, the list goes on!

By this point, I knew music would always be essential to my happiness. I still tried other jobs: flight attendant, video editor, server. But much like the doomed extracurricular activities before them, they fell by the wayside. Now I am focusing solely on music. I spend my time writing, performing and releasing my own music as well as coaching other vocalists! Voice lessons were a huge part of why I became an artist, so I like to share my knowledge with other singers whenever I can. (Especially those shy, introverted, rule- abiding ones!)

I grew up in a small town in an Eastern European country most people only know for vampires and high inflation. It was an upbringing not necessarily well suited to the hedonistic, self-driven rock lifestyle I would eventually pledge my livelihood to. None of the rest of my family played instruments, although a general interest in the arts runs in the family. I became interested in music to combat the largely pastoral, painfully mundane reality of my existence.

Such is the way with small town boys.

As puberty made its unwelcome advances, music became a tactic for survival. I, like many other musicians (and songwriters, in particular) have a largely melancholic disposition. That is to say – I have a tendency towards brooding, masochistic introspection. Songwriting is exactly that. Or, at least, it should aim to be. You write 100 songs, and out of those, maybe 10 are worth your consideration. Of those, two to three get introduced to the band, and a band is very often a marriage of (four, in our case) very different personalities. And “very different” is really a euphemism’s euphemism. I’m talking about four people whose general outlook could not be more different. Of those two to three songs you introduce, one may make the setlist for your next show.

You yearn for a 1% success rate.

I wish I was joking.

I write most of the songs in the band, and I write in a variety of genres, for lack of a better term for it. Genre is, ultimately, a dirty word, because all it is is a suggestion for how something should sound. Artificial sonic parameters. It is, more often than not, a long-established tradition rooted in aesthetics. And tastes change, or they can be combined, or, we would like to think, re-discovered in a new light; that proverbial envelope has a lot more depth beneath it than most people realize. You can push it, and, if you do it right, it can linger on the edge without tipping over.

Succeeding in the music industry is an uphill battle that Sisyphus would be envious of. Once you dedicate yourself to the pursuit, gone are the overarching dreams that spurred this little Romanian boy. You hope (and work meticulously) for little victories. The small wins, the meager gains.

You (yes, you) reading this right now is one of those wins I count among them.

Music is an end, not a means.

Within the confines of a 8-10 song album, there are no failures. Where persistence exists, all it leaves in its wake are opportunities for improvement and emotional moments cemented in time.

At least, that’s what I tell myself.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk!

I grew up in a small town in Oklahoma with eight siblings. I was homeschooled and spent most of my time at home. My mother started us all on instruments at a very early age, and mine was cello. As I got older, I really started to connect with music that would take me out of the house and help me escape the reality of constantly being at home.

My home life started to get really rough and I picked up piano and guitar because I wanted to write songs. I figured since in the songs I listened to people talked about their struggles and that helped me through the hard times, that I could write songs that helped me through things in a more personal way. It was venting at first; an escape, a release. Then I started doing it all the time.

I thought the songs were getting pretty decent so I decided to show my vocal coach some stuff I had written. She had nothing but praise for me and encouraged me to continue. I then decided to start showing more people and posting songs I wrote online because that little bit of encouragement was really all I needed. It was the only thing that I was really excited about.

As I neared the end of high school, I got really scared because I didn’t know how I could do the one thing I really loved to do and be successful. My parents wanted me to go to college and get a typical job and that sounded like impending doom. My vocal coach suggested I go to college for music and I decided I would give it a shot. If nothing happened in those four years, I would do something else and just write music on the side.

Something did happen in those four years, shoutout to 604 Records for that. That’s when it really struck me that I could make music that people liked and I didn’t have to live a life that didn’t fulfill me.

I knew I wanted to make music from an early age to escape my environment and release my feelings, but I didn’t realize I could actually make music my career until I was signed to 604 Records. For me, the smallest bits of encouragement keep me going and keep me excited to keep making music, not only for myself but for others as well.

Photo courtesy of Danica Robinson

Since I was a kid, being creative was always a meditative thing for me. Concentrating on something I was making gave me focus and made me feel present. I would zone out and draw these characters, taking time to get every line right. It made me feel really good to make something from nothing.

I taught myself guitar when I was about 15 years old. I would play covers of my favorite songs at the time and that’s how I learned some basic chords. Once I started that, playing music instantly became part of my life. I always kind of felt out of place in my high school years, so music became a light and fun place for me to escape to when I was daunted by my hormonal teenage self.

My mom used to read my siblings and I all her poems from her college years. She had boxes filled with yellow-lined paper pads that she had dated and spilled her experiences onto. I will never forget the sparkle she had in her eye as she read them out loud to us. She was instantly taken back to a memory or a time in her younger years. Sometimes she would even shed a tear. It made me emotional to see her so transported.

This is when I realized how powerful writing can be. I was so inspired by my mom and how she expressed herself in such a simple and personal way. She wrote about experiences and feelings that I had not yet known at the time because I was just a kid but they still had the power to affect me. The fist song I put together was one of these poems that my mom had written. I put some chords to it and sang a melody and just like that a song was made. Once I realized I could make original songs, something clicked and it felt like my life had begun.

I moved to New York City when I was 17. At that point, songwriting was a part of my life. With more life experiences living in a new city and meeting so many different people, I had so much more to write about. I felt energized and inspired by the city. I started meeting other people who play music or write songs. There was so much to learn from the experiences I was having and the people I was meeting. I felt like a sponge, taking in as much as I could while at the same time trying not to overflow.

I’m a very sensitive person, so I think I was always going to need a creative outlet. The more I grew, the more vulnerable I was able to be. The more honest I became with myself, the more honest I became in my lyrics. This was around the time that I started to feel like music was my calling. About a year ago I connected with my producer, John Eatherly. We had an instant music connection and songs seemed to flow out of us effortlessly. We're always talking about how music is magical. I’m not a religious person or anything, but when melodies are created and songs come together so naturally, it almost feels like they’re given to us from something higher. Something I can't really describe. But it’s something like magic.

Photo courtesy of Shannon Earl

The moment I knew I wanted to make music was in third grade when I wrote my first song. I don’t remember what it was about, exactly, but it had all the hallmarks of an Ava Earl piece - longing, imagination, hopeless romance. Much like running, another life-long passion, it felt freeing to create music.

The moment I knew I wanted to make music was my freshman year of high school. I played my biggest crowd to date and opened for then-up-and-coming pop star Maggie Rogers. I sang a couple of wrong lyrics and played a few wrong notes, but no one seemed to notice. I was presenting myself truthfully and, not for the first time, was met with a kind and listening audience.

The moment I knew I wanted to make music was a year later, when I first attempted actual banter. I told a true story about the inspiration for my song, and made the audience cringe and laugh and applaud when I had finished. After years of practice, that night my stage presence felt natural, like something I was made to do. Singing became like breathing; something I did constantly, not always thinking about it.

The moment I knew I wanted to make music was the first time I recorded music with a band. It was my fourth time in a studio but this felt different. It was as if the music were weaving itself around me, wrapping me tightly in a cocoon of creation - my music imbued with the beauty and talent of everyone I was working with. I truly learned what it was like to create in that moment, and I swore I had never been happier. I thought to myself, “I could do this forever.”

The moment I knew I wanted to make music was at cross country practice, when a male teammate asked me why I was self-promoting “so much.” Why would I not pour everything into something I loved, something I was proud of? The answer felt so obvious for me, that it didn’t matter what anyone else thought or if I was being obnoxious. I would suffer greater embarrassments to be heard.

The moment I knew I wanted to make music was when my sibling looked me in the eyes and told me how much they loved my new song. Usually my mom would be the first to hear it, but it was a present and I wanted to run it by somebody trustworthy without ruining the surprise. Most songs I write for myself, but giving a song away places an extra weight and I wanted it to be great. Even if I just played songs for my family, I knew I would always write music.

The moment I knew I wanted to make music was when a girl referred to me as a “campus celebrity” in college. There is nothing I would rather be known for.

I’m looking forward to more of these moments; times in my life that underscore what I knew when I wrote that first song: that I am doing exactly what I was meant to do.