“As a music fan, I love all genres of music… My cousin’s cheerleading mixes are actually how I discovered EDM, and Alice Deejay just became my thing,” says Melissa Brooks, who we know best as the founder and frontwoman of SoCal surf rock/”sunshine punk” outfit The Aquadolls (I last caught up with Brooks in March of 2022, prior to The Aquadolls double-headlining The Lounge at World Café Live with Sitting on Stacy… before they actually opened Camden for Incubus that summer.) However, Melissa has actually been a major player in the Los Angles EDM/hyperpop scene for the better part of a decade now. “I play Subculture Party, which started in 2018 when I was just playing Spotify music with my friends at a Mexican Restaurant that we’d turn into a rave at night,” she explains of the history of one of her regular gigs during a recent phone chat.
Melissa Brooks has long been a fan of doing it herself, telling me that she actually made The Aquadolls’ 2018 LP The Dream and the Deception on GarageBand, inspired by Visions, for which Grimes did the same (although Melissa admits that Grimes can be a little cooky). “All you really need is a laptop. I went to Sweetwater, which is like a Guitar Center place to buy stuff to make music, and I got a Scarlett Focusrite, which is a space to record,” she tells me, explaining, “All you need is music, an interface, and GarageBand. There are actually a lot of other things you can use, too, but GarageBand is free,” before further emphasizing, “All you need is a microphone, an interface, and a dream!”
In addition to Subculture Party, Melissa also frequently DJs Shrek Rave (although hasn’t played any of our local editions), which she tells me she absolutely loves: “It’s a giant room of thousands of drunk people who love Shrek and love pop culture and grew up when I did!” However, alongside rave and EDM classics, Melissa tells me she also likes to drop some of her own songs into her DJ sets: “I always like to sprinkle in a few of my originals, which is kind of nerve-wracking, but also really fun!”
Bratitude, Melissa Brooks’ debut solo LP, showcasing her affections for hyperpop and EDM, dropped three years ago last month. Earlier this year she put out singles “Milk Hole” and “Touch the Sky,” which also features Stessie and BLOOD CODE, and she just announced the release of her Alien Princess EP, which is out August 29th, opening night of the BiG PiNK ENERGY Tour, which will have Melissa supporting PiNKII alongside Cecilia Gault, both of whom are longtime friends: “PiNKII is on my solo album, Bratitude, on ‘Cartoon Romance,’ a super cute love song about cartoon characters… We were talking about a tour earlier this year, so I’m so excited that it’s happening… and I met Cecilia Gault through Subculture Party!” “It’ll be a really badass girl power lineup!” she tells me of the evening.
Although the BiG PiNK ENERGY Tour isn’t massive in scale, it does include overseas dates in London, Paris, and Berlin. It also features a stop at our very own Dolphin Tavern on September 5th. “I’m excited to be back in Philly! It’s been a while!” Melissa tells me. She says that her set will be a mix of her own music, including “Touch the Sky” and some tracks off of Alien Princess, along with some of her favorite dance club tracks: “It’s a little bit of both! It’ll be the best of both worlds, like Hannah Montana! I’ll be playing dance party bangers and also performing some of my solo music!” And Melissa says there’s a lot more in the works for the near future, including an Aquadolls show TONIGHT!
“I want to finish my solo album, which I’m doing with Maymung and crapface and a bunch of other cool underground hyperpop and hyperpop-adjacent producers. The album will be out maybe in the fall, like October, but I’m not totally sure… With The Aquadolls, we’re working on new music, as well. We’ll have a cover out soon that will be aquatic-themed, but we are definitely cooking right now, and we have a headlining show at The Paramount in LA on August 25th, and then we’ve got Corona Capital in Mexico City in November, and we’re hoping to have new music around Corona Capital.”
*Get your tickets here.
