Post by vespertine on Feb 13, 2022 1:14:09 GMT -5
(Camera cuts to shot of Vespertine and Kayla Riley in the Serius XM Octane radio studio. Vespertine has her black bass guitar on her lap.)
Kayla: And we are back! We have Kimber Le in the studio from the band Inner Darkness and her wrestling ring name is Vespertine. So far we have talked about your music career, your band and bandmates, your hobbies, your mentors in the wrestling business but we have yet to hear you play. I see you have your bass guitar with you.
(Vespertine nods)
Kayla: Now do you only play bass?
V: No, I also play violin, piano, guitar, keyboard and am trying to teach myself the didijerdoo.
K: Do you play drums too?
V: No, I play bass because it's easy for me. I mean I have tried the drums but I find it messes up my rhythm when I go back to playing guitar so I don't play.
K: How hard is it for you to practice?
V: Not hard. For the past 10 years, I have gotten it down to where I can play by ear and it comes out sounding right. I then practice to perfect it. I mean, I hear this song on the radio and I think "that's a cool song, let me try that." So I try it and if I don't get it within the first couple of times, I don't do it at all. That's 10% of the time. The other 90% I get it and am off.
K: Do you do covers?
V: Occasionally. We don't do many covers. But I would like to think that our own music is just as good as the covers that we do do.
K: Melissa Burnos from the band Burnos is like that too.
V: Really? She has really good songs. I've been thinking of adding one of her songs to my entrance theme.
K: Which one?
V: It's called "Warship". Here let me try and play it for you.
(She taps out a rhythem on the guitar and when she feels she has it, she starts singing)
"Somebody rattled my cage
The fire’s starting to rage
A riot I’m gonna stage, I feel it comin on
Ain’t no way they can restrain
I broke a link in the chain
And I can do it again, Ya know I’m feeling strong
Yeah, I just need a release
I want it give me a piece
The animal I unleash, I wanna let it out
My mind is starting to freak
This holding cell has a leak
The fiend is starting to speak, I’m gonna let it shout!
Because the gates flew open wide
A tidal wave of tears I cried
And all the fears I had have died
Got no use for this noose, I am untied
So on this warship I will ride
I’m finished doing my time
Though I’ve committed no crime
These walls I’m starting to climb, I’m barely hanging on
I won’t be stopping tonight
‘Cause I’m already in flight
And if they’re craving a fight, tell them to bring it on
Yeah I’ve been building up steam
The pressure’s making me scream
I’m heated to the extreme, I’m really burning up
I wanna cause a big scene
Toss a wrench in the machine
Spark a match in gasoline, I’m gonna blow it up
Because the gates flew open wide
A tidal wave of tears I’ve cried
And all the fears I had have died
Got no use for this noose, I am untied
So on this warship I will ride.
(She stops playing and Kayla and her techies all clap again)
K: That song would be awesome as an entrance theme. What is the song you use now?
V: Gasoline by Porcelain Black and the Trammps. I love her music. She is indie. In fact I don't think you have featured her yet on your show.
K: I'll have to tell my producer about her. Now, going back to wrestling. Why do you wrestle? After all that you have been through with the blood and the broken bones, face, ribs, ligaments, why do you stay and not give it up?
V: Well, it's a thrill for me. It's a sport I didn't start with in my life but I know now I'll do this forever now that I found it or it's found me. I like performing and acting but I love showing off my skills, that being wrestling, Tae Kwon Do, and Ju Jitsu. I am at one with the elements so to speak. I love flying. I'm not the biggest person on the roster, nor am I the strongest, nor am I the heaviest so I feel I have to always step it up a notch and take my moves to the next level and make them harder hitting or more imposing than my opponents. But that depends on the opponent.
(she shrugs)
I do it for the fans but mostly for me. I don't really care whether I'm good or bad or neutral in a fed, if I can do a move, be it technical or high risk or high flying and I get the chant of "holy s**t" or "That is awesome!" out of it, or I have impressed one person in that ring, in that audience, on that roster, then I know I have done my job. I mean, sure it's dangerous, and not every woman should do it and if you can't do it, don't do it. If you can't climb that 20 foot ladder because you're afraid of heights, then don't, do something else. Me, I'm not afraid of heights so up that ladder I'll go. I'm not afraid of blood so I'll take that chair or baseball bat and put it to a person's temple or take it on mine. If it's my blood, all the more better. Like I say, respect is earned, never given.
K: Have you bled?
V: I have, many times over. Pain is only temporary and wounds will heal. In the end we are all going to die sometime, right? (She shrugs) That's not to say, I want to spill my blood, that I want to experience pain all the time but I know it comes with the territory. Someone else's blood is better, but if it's mine, I'm overjoyed because that's a fight worth fighting then. You don't see too many female wrestlers out there wanting to spill blood or bleeding during a match but the ones who do are the ones that get your attention as they are the ones who do whatever they can to win and don't care if they bleed or not and usually get the biggest audience reaction.
K: Is there a female wrestler that comes to mind?
V: Molly Holly and Victoria in WWF in a hardcore match. Victoria won but she was the one who bled first. Molly hit her with a trashcan but Victoria hit her with the lid and a chair. Afterwards Victoria was bleeding from the nose and the mouth but when they interviewed Victoria afterwards and when they asked her about the blood she said she was thrilled and that she had a really good match. Gail Kim, my friend, has bled a few times. It was never for WWE or TNA but before that when she was working the indies. Rae Rossi Black, my rival in VCW and my bandmate has bled a lot. Mostly at the hands of another female wrestler called Gold... or Silver.... depending on what mood Gold was in. Gold was this bodybuilder woman warrior who could bench 200lbs and was on the cover of "Lift" mag before she set her sights on VCW. She was a monster and she battled men mostly and almost every time she was in the ring, someone bleed. She was 3 for 3 with Rae Rossi. Rae loved it because she grew up in the streets. She was orphaned at an early age so she felt blood and scars were trophies to carry throughout life.
K: Do you feel that way too?
V: I grew up differently. I was a young rich bitch, your typical crazy all American Asian straight A honor roll student goodie two shoes from a very rich family. A delicate flower if you will. I did cheerleading and was in every social club you can think of in high school so my thoughts on blood and bleeding were different from hers. But now that I've been in the wrestling industry for a while, my thoughts have changed from "EWWWWW! Blood! " to "WOW! I'm bleeding! That is sooooo cool!" And I know that with every high impact, high risk, high flying move I do people are watching and either thinking "she is going to kill herself" or "WOW! I wish I could do that, that looks fun!" I was trained by the best I believe so when I do a high risk or high impact move I know how to land and where and how to make it look real. I was trained, Rae wasn't. Her training came from the streets and she didn't care if her opponent was a man or a woman, she would beat you to within an inch of your life regardless.
K: And Gold?
V: Gold was Gold. Gold was scary, mean and looked imposing because her arms were 20 inches but on the flip side she was one sided. She did the same moves every match. They were hard hitting and hurt like hell but after taking a few of them, you knew how to counter them depending on which side she was aiming for. She was one of those women who hit hard but got wore down very easily. Rae figured this out very early. It took me two times of getting my ass whupped before I finally figured it out too. On the other side of the dime, you have high flyers and risk takers like Christy Chaos and Angela Fortin, in EWE, a later fed of mine. While I'm extreme, I'm not hardcore, Christy is just your straight up hardcore shoot brawler. Angela on the other hand, is a different sort of monster. She was trained on the LAPD SWAT team before she joined up with EWE so you knew that when she came to the ring, you went against her with her LAPD and SWAT tactics training. She knew how to take you down and where and what places on your body, would give out first and what would take a while to wear down. She was your basic wrestling machine and was very good at what she did. She was at the top of her class, she claimed, when she was training for SWAT.
K: Of the men, are there any you look up to and idolize.
V: Jeff Hardy, Rey Misterio, Juventud Guerruera and Eddie Guerrero of course. Chris Benoit and Shawn Michaels on the technical side but they are all in WWE or TNA. In WCW, my first fed, it was Johnny Extreme. There was nothing that man could do that was wrong. Whatever he touched was gold, he was good at high flying, risk taking and technical based. I hated the bastard but if one could be compared to a wrestling god, it was him. In VCW it was Cody Black but also another man I feuded with that went by the name of Munchkin was more high flying than anything else. In my feud with him, we even got to be tag team champions.
K: I'm sorry. Did you say, Munchkin (Vespertine nods) What the- care to explain?
V: That was his ring name. I never knew his real name. The way I figure it, he was from London, England, not on the good side of the tracks but not on the bad side either and he wasn't from the cockney section. He just knew how to wrestle, brawl and adapt very well. He pushed me past my limits and almost broke me. I did the same to him almost as much. We had a love/hate relationship which upper management saw and liked so they quickly put us together. We lost our titles to Rae and Athena who were known as "The Beauty and the Beast."
K: Beauty and the Beast? Who was who?
V: Athena was supposed to be some kind of wrestling goddess with the looks that matched. A model type. Rae was...well.. Rae and came from the streets and her ring name was the Wolf. So she was the beast. Athena was the beauty. Her, Cody, Athena and a brother/sister duo named Zack and Sammy Zero composed the only stable in VCW called Rock and Roll Connection.
K: Fitting. And that's when you hooked up with them to form a real band!
V: No, it was few years after VCW closed. We never did figure out why, we knew something shady was going on when the fed closed and we were never given a reason or indication.
K: Were there any rivals or opponents that you couldn't wait to get in the ring with because you had fun wrestling with them. Is it said like that?
V: (laughing) Almost. When you get an opponent you really connect with, a rivalry starts. You always try to outdo what you did before but you always want to outdo them too. In a good rivalry, things are equal between the two of you. It creates good business. A bad one, well... it can be one sided. Thereby bad business. Sawyer, you remember, the Working Man JA Sawyer, right, from WCW? He was fun. He and I had a blast every time we stepped into the ring. He was a straight up shoot brawler but he knew how to counter, how to adapt, how to take a punch and how to land correctly. Plus his character was mostly for comedy. He did and said things in his promos and interviews that made me go "That was good. Why didn't I think of that?" He taught me many things in our rivalry. I still talk to him to this day but he is married with kids in Oregon. On the other side of the coin, Johnny Blaze was hard to work with because he was a hard hitter and never sold anything that was given him. He just didn't know how to sell it properly.
K: Sell it?
V: Yes, sorry, I mean, take the punch, kick or the suplex correctly. My rivalry with Working Man was by choice. With Blaze it wasn't by my choice. Management somehow saw that Blaze and I looked good together and that I could dish out as hard as I could take which is why we were in a falls count anywhere, a cage match and a buried alive match.
K: You were buried alive? What is that like?
V: That's a strange feeling especially when you "practice" being buried in promos just to figure out how the match works and try not to be afraid of actually being buried alive. I mean you are in casket under dirt, 6 feet under. Kind of smothering.... ooops I think I gave away a trade secret. Sorry. (they laugh)
K: It's cool. Any female wrestlers that were good or bad feuds.
V: Rae was a good feud. Angel of Darkness was an awesome feud. We started out on opposite sides in WCW, she was in Dark Alliance. She had been there a few years too and we had hit it off very well, our matches were magical. By my third run in WCW, I persuaded her to not only leave Dark Alliance but be co leader in a stable with me called AWW (Awesome Women Wrestlers) It was just me, Angel and Widow. (pauses) Nightelf, my mentor, was a good/bad rivalry, more bad than good. I think, its because she mentored me. In every match we had, feelings were always in play, mostly feelings of anger, and frustration. I never usually go into matches with feelings, I try to go in, do my job, get a few good moves in, wow the crowd and continue on, right. With her because I was so new in the business and because she was my mentor, she and I always fought tooth and nail because neither of us liked to lose, she to her protege in me and I because I felt I had to prove something to her. More often than not, it would end up being just a brawl which isn't really wrestling to me.
K: We'll be back in a minute after we take a music break. I'll start this set off with "Take Out the Gunman" by Chevelle."
(Camera cuts shot... then back to studio)
Kayla: Anything you want to say to you upcoming opponents in R1W.
V: Yes, just to Talia though: Don't talk. Just let your actions speak for themselves. And when we meet in the ring, you will find I AM your equal. In fact, I may be better than you. But we are ring veterans, ring warriors, you and I, both of us having titles and accolades under our belts so when we meet, you will face death by diva but all I ask of you is: PUSH me! Take me past my breaking point. Then push me past it. PUSH me. We have gotten into the ring twice now and obviously management sees something between us they like. So while I push you, you PUSH me! And together we will be epic. But in the end, I WILL win. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it, when all is said and done, I WILL win because you will make that one mistake and I WILL capitalize on it. Remember this though: respect is earned. Never given. See you in the ring, my sweet.
Kayla: Thank you Vespertine.
(Camera fades to black)
