Mariela Zechter - Aspires to be a lot of things

Early life

Me and music? Oh, we go waaaaaay back. Back to Disney sing-along VHS tapes and clumsily singing karaoke and your parents treating you like their little star. Well, all little stars grow up, I suppose. When I was in elementary school, I started playing the violin, but by age 11, I knew that it wasn't the right set of strings for me. I started playing with my mom's old acoustic guitar and I asked my parents if I could learn electric guitar.

My initiation into Rock Music

My parents bought me a beginner stratocaster guitar for my 12th birthday, which got me super excited. Looking back, it was a cheap, crappy guitar. But that didn't stop me from wanting to play; it just made me self-conscious of how my playing sounded. I still have the tiny crappy amp that came with it. Never could bring myself part with it.

After listening to Santana's "Corazon Espinado", I was inspired to make my guitar sound as melodic and rich as Santana did. But that would take practice. And practice, I did. In fact, I managed to learn the opening riff to "Corazon Espinado" eventually, after the blisters and callouses hardened my fingers. What they never tell you about playing guitar is the torture that you put your fingertips through, especially if you stop playing for awhile and you have to work your hands back up to that point again.

Eventually, I got good enough that my parents bought me my beloved cherry-red Epiphone G-400, Blazer, pictured on the left.

My dad was a huge Eric Clapton fan and I would listen to "Layla" whenever it came on the radio. That opening riff sounded like sweet rock perfection and suddenly I decided that if I could learn to play that riff, then I could play anything I wanted. One day in high school after a particularly stressful week, I just sat in my basement, trying to pull my fingers off the strings and then hammer back down, as Clapton. I don't know how long I was playing before I heard it.

The moment.

I had played the riff. So I played it again. And again. And again. When my dad came home from work, I proudly showed off my [what seems now a small] accomplishment and he was ecstatic.

I continued to play rock music and learn new songs, but I felt like something was missing. Soon, I realized that it was because I didn't have many female guitarists to look up to and to learn from.

Enter The Runaways

When I first learned about The Runaways, it was like I had properly experienced my initiation into the world of rock 'n roll that seemed exclusively comprised of men. More importantly, I had learned about them when I was a teenager; the age that they would have been when they were on tour and recording in the studio.

I downloaded all of their albums, read their biographies, and bought the 2010 film The Runaways on DVD as soon as it came out. I was in rock 'n roll heaven. I rocked out to their music, laughed at their jokes in interviews, and cried at the sad stories in their biographies. I had found the sisters I needed to look up to in rock music.

Cherie Currie taught me to embrace my differences. Joan Jett showed me that you could do anything if you kept trying. Lita Ford taught me that practice makes perfect (seriously, have you heard her guitar solos?). Jackie Fox showed me that you can be rock 'n roll and be smart. And as for Sandy West, she showed me that rock 'n roll is about having a good time.