THE NEW TRANSSEXUALS

Jordana LeSense

DJ & Producer

Photo courtesy of Jordana LeSense

George Petros: WE’RE TALKING TO JORDANA LESESNE — JORDANA, WHAT IS DRUM & BASS?

Jordana LeSense: Well, Drum & Bass is best described as a form of Electronic Dance Music that brings together Techno, Reggae, Jazz, and a lot of other elements as well. It can go in any direction. It’s a pretty fast tempo, around one-hundred-eighty beats per minute, give or take ten in either direction. It became really popular in the Nineties.

AMONG THE THINGS THAT DISTINGUISHES IT FROM OTHER ELECTRONIC MUSIC IS THE INVERSE USE OF THE BASS AND THE DRUMS, WHICH I GUESS IS WHERE IT GOT ITS NAME. THEY CARRY THE MELODY, IS THAT NOT THE CASE?

Jordana LeSense: That is the case. The bass actually carries the melody. Even the drums can be processed in such a way that rather than sounding like just percussion, they can actually become part of the melody.

IS THIS SAMPLED, OR IS THIS LIVE, OR IS IT A COMBINATION?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. Jungle and Drum & Bass — many people now consider them pretty much the same thing, synonymous. It started out more as a Reggae influence, and that’s what’s called Jungle, and then there was more of a Techno-Ambient offshoot that became known as Drum & Bass — but it’s pretty much considered the same stuff now.

IT’S GENERALLY VERY BEAUTIFUL MUSIC.

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, it certainly can be. I always describe it in my mind as being like a soundscape of a future that hasn’t happened yet. Where a lot of its beauty comes from is in looking at the music as sort of a canvas, and the soundscape — the drums and bass — are all the various paints.

INTERESTING. YOU WORKED WITH CARLOS SOULSLINGER’S LABEL JUNGLE SKY —

Jordana LeSense: That’s correct, yeah. I recorded three albums for Jungle Sky. I was on a lot of their compilations and had a couple of videos on MTV Amp. It was pretty cool.

JUNGLE SKY WAS SORT OF A CREW. IT WAS DJ DARA AND SOULSLINGER AND WALLY —

Jordana LeSense: Yes, all of them. Also, I don’t know if you know of David Barrett — he went by DJ Yellownote. The American Spacetravellers and DJ Odi were also other Jungle Sky DJs & producers.

DID YOU SUBMIT STUFF TO THEM, OR DID THEY FIND YOU?

Jordana LeSense: I think what happened was, I was performing at a Rave in Ohio, and Soulslinger was one of the headliners, and so he became familiar with me because I had a keyboard — and there weren’t many DJs or producers at that time who were playing live Drum & Bass. I think he took note of it, and then I sent a demo and they signed me for a single — and that’s how it took off.

JUNGLE SKY RELEASED SOME WILD STUFF — IT HADN’T QUITE SMOOTHED OUT INTO DRUM & BASS YET. IS THAT A FAIR CHARACTERIZATION?

Jordana LeSense: I would say that it’s pretty fair. We’re Americans, so we have to put our own spin on things. There was a lot of experimentation. They were trying to make it New York; to make it its own sound. It didn’t sound like London Drum & Bass or Bristol Drum & Bass.

THOSE WERE MUCH SMOOTHER, RIGHT?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, English Drum & Bass was kinda more refined. There were more rules that they set — and with Soulslinger and that crew, I remember they were opposed to those rules. “Let’s make new ones —” that was kinda how it was with Jungle Sky.

PRIOR TO YOU DOING JUNGLE, WHAT WERE YOU DOING? WHAT KIND OF STUFF WERE YOU LISTENING TO AND SPINNING?

Jordana LeSense: I was listening to a lot of what I call Midwest Acid Techno. The stuff from Detroit, and Richie Hawtin and Kevin Saunderson, Juan Atkins — just a lot of Midwest Techno.

DID YOU LIVE IN THE MIDWEST AT THAT TIME?

Jordana LeSense: Well, I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, and it’s sort of a border town between the Midwest and the East Coast — it has elements of both. The Techno scene and, at that time, the Dance Music scene was way more influenced by Industrial Music and Detroit Techno than anything else.

I SEE. AND WHAT OTHER KINDS OF MUSIC WERE YOU INTERESTED IN BACK IN THOSE DAYS?

Jordana LeSense: I listened to New Wave stuff like The Cure, but I hung out with the Alternative crowd, I guess you could say. So, a lot of Punk, a bit of Metal — pretty much anything that wasn’t like the normal stuff you’d flip on the Pop station and hear. My circle of high school friends, we were kinda the weirdos and stuff. I hung out and listened to weirdo music.

AND IT SEEMS LIKE YOU’RE RETURNING TO THOSE WEIRDO ROOTS.

Jordana LeSense: Yes, absolutely. Well, I’m not actually going back to Punk — but even when I was in a Punk band, they always said that I played more Metal. I have a project now, here in Seattle, and it’s a Goth Metal band which I am fronting. Kinda like melodic Goth Metal, similar to Lacuna Coil, Flowing Tears — stuff like that.

THE METAL AND THE GOTH OF TODAY — HOW IS THAT DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU GREW UP ON?

Jordana LeSense: Well, I think everything is an evolution — and I also believe that technology has played a part. Perhaps not so much in Metal as much as in Electronic Music forms. Even in Metal, there are things that sound a lot more technical, a lot more tight, I would say, than in the Eighties —

DID YOU HAVE A GOTH PHASE WHEN YOU WERE YOUNGER?

Jordana LeSense: Didn’t we all? No, I’m just joking. Yeah, actually I did. I had a very good friend — her name was Jen — and I have to credit her for taking me to a club in Pittsburgh called Metropol, and it was primarily an Industrial New Wave club, but because it was kind of a small city, you’d have Goths, you’d have Punks at a lot of these shows — especially if a really big band came through. It was at one of those shows that I heard a DJ before the band — the first time I’d heard Techno in a club environment. So, yeah, I was in my Goth phase when I knew her and when we hung out and stuff —

REGARDING THE NEW GOTH-ISH MUSIC THAT YOU’RE DOING — HAVE YOU RETURNED TO ITS FASHION ROOTS?

Jordana LeSense: I don’t know — at my age, I’m not shopping at Hot Topic for my day-to-day wear. I’ve always had a penchant for black. So, that’s pretty good.

COULD YOU TELL ME A BIT ABOUT GROWING UP IN PITTSBURGH, AND WHAT YOUR LIFE WAS LIKE —

Jordana LeSense: Well, here’s the full story from the very beginning: I grew up in Pittsburgh. I was one of five children, and I was the youngest — the baby of the family. My parents were very hardworking working-class people. My mom was a secretary and my dad was working as a heating-and-air-conditioning repairman for the city. I guess I had a working-class, middle-class upbringing. We lived in a decent neighborhood, with a fairly decent school. My early childhood was not fun, for obvious reasons. I got beat up in elementary school. Looking back on it, maybe it wasn’t as frequent as I thought — but it seemed like every other day I was being harassed or beaten up.

AND WHAT TRANSGRESSION HAD YOU ALLEGEDLY COMMITTED?

Jordana LeSense: Well, in kindergarten I started saying I was a girl — and at the time people thought I was a boy. In those days, people weren’t as enlightened as they are now. I took a lot of abuse, especially in first and second grade. I joined the school chorus just as an outlet — and then I got harassed about that because I sang like a girl. So, I guess that’s what happens —

DID THAT CONTINUE ON THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, it did — but when I got older I learned to keep out of the way of the bullies. I found ways to try and avoid being targeted — but I still got targeted. So, it wasn’t fun. I wouldn’t fight back, and that just caused more trouble. It was almost like sharks with blood in the water. “So, here’s a target for abuse!” Yeah.

BULLYING MIGHT BE THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN AMERICA.

Jordana LeSense: I believe it is. I truly believe it is. Sometimes I’ll tell people it’s amazing that I survived the bullying that I took — because I know a lot of people that were not able to hold it together. They suffered trauma and internalized it — but yeah, it was pretty bad all the way up through high school. That’s why I support the It Gets Better Project, which gives support to kids who are like I was, and who are targets of bullying for who they are. The best part of high school was, I found the Punks. I found the nerds, and together we had a bit more strength. It’s not a bad thing if you’re weird or Queer or something if you’re at the Queer table at the high school in the lunch room —

WAS THIS A MIXED-RACE SCHOOL?

Jordana LeSense: Yes, pretty much. My sisters and my brother — all four of them went to the same high school. We were only the second family of color, and they sort of fought the battle for integration for me, way before I was anywhere close to high school. So, it was pretty well integrated by the time I was there.

SO IT WOULD BE PUNK ROCKERS OF ALL COLORS.

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, there were the people who fit in and the people who didn’t, of all colors. If you were part of the weird burnout Punk New Wave crowd, it didn’t really matter what color you were. That was its own breed in and of itself. You were all in the same boat.

DID YOU TELL YOUR PARENTS ABOUT THE BULLIES?

Jordana LeSense: Yes. I did. I had to. The principal would call them to the school and say. “It happened again.” My dad — he was the stereotypical dad. He tried to tell me, “Hey, here’s how to fight back. Here, you gotta be tough. Don’t be such a sissy. Blah, blah, bah. They’ll leave you alone.” But they didn’t. One time I did try to fight back. I actually got beat up worse. Like I said, it wasn’t my thing — I wasn’t into fighting.

IS IT ANY CONSOLATION TO REALIZE THAT THOSE BULLIES ARE PROBABLY OCCUPYING THE LOWEST SOCIO-ECONOMIC RUNG OF SOCIETY TODAY, WHILE YOU’RE SPINNING AND HAVING A GOOD TIME?

Jordana LeSense: It is, I guess, but I don’t look at it that way because we all end up where we are based upon choices. I was fortunate enough to have talent that afforded me the ability to do something else. Once, when I was in Pittsburgh visiting my family for the holidays, I went to this Gay club and I ran into one of the bullies. He was the chief bully in my elementary school who gave me hell, and I saw him and I recognized him and he didn’t recognize me — for obvious reasons. So I went over to him and I said, “You know, you used to give me hell every other day in elementary school,” and he’s like, “Huh, who are you?” I told him, and it turns out he was actually on an Ecstasy pill — and he just started crying. He was apologizing profusely about it. So, I figure people like that — at a certain point they’ve got to reconcile what they did. I’m not going to judge them. That’s not my role.

WHEN PEOPLE HAVE AN EXPERIENCE LIKE THAT ON ECSTASY, IT USUALLY GOES PRETTY DEEP INTO THEIR PSYCHE — SO THAT GUY PROBABLY STILL FEELS BAD.

Jordana LeSense: Oh yeah. He told me so. He wrote me after that, and he said that he bullied me because he didn’t want to be bullied — because he knew he was different and it was kinda like, let’s pick on the even weaker so that there was not as much focus on him. That’s how he explained it to me.

VERY INTERESTING. SO, YOU SAID THAT WHEN YOU WERE LITTLE YOU IDENTIFIED AS A GIRL —

Jordana LeSense: I knew that I was a girl for as long as I can remember. I have my sisters who have told me that. I used to call myself Shelly — I would basically go and grab a cover off a bed and wear it like a dress, and it was just something that I guess was natural for me. Once you get reprimanded for certain things, you start thinking, “What’s wrong with me?” I must have been only three or four. I knew then, so it wasn’t much of a stretch that I’d have problems in kindergarten.

HOW ABOUT YOUR EARLY DATING EXPERIENCES?

Jordana LeSense: See, this is the thing: I tried to avoid all that. I certainly avoided it when I was in middle school, because when you grow up like that, you’re not really looking to cause further problems. You know? And so, like, that was like the last thing I wanted to start to do, was dating anyone. But I guess my earliest dating experiences weren’t really much to talk about. I can tell you my first boyfriend — I was fifteen, and he knew; I told him all about me and stuff. It was when I had run away from home for a brief period of time. When you grow up this way, it seems to be a common denominator that that’s just another layer of complications that you don’t want to have to deal with. You aren’t necessarily in a position to do anything.

WHAT ABOUT AFTER HIGH SCHOOL? WHAT DID YOU DO WHEN YOU GRADUATED?

Jordana LeSense: Well, I didn’t go straight to college. I knew that I had to get out from under my parents, obviously. At the same time, they really couldn’t afford college. So, I decided to start working, in order to save up money to complete my transition. I think one thing I left out of this was that I actually hormonally started my transition at thirteen. Then my mother found out, and she raised hell. So, I had to stop — but from thirteen until about fifteen, I had basically found me a doctor who would write me prescriptions. I had a sister who helped me find this gender-identity center. Being fifteen, I was underage — and anything that I wanted, I would have had to get my parents’ permission. Even the hormones — I had to go under the table for them. Basically, I had a slightly older Trans friend — who was seventeen — who said, “Here’s a shady doctor who’ll write the prescriptions.” So I did that, and my mom found out, and she raised hell. I came back from a field trip to New York — I was in high school — I came back looking not too different than I look now. I kinda used that field trip to say, “Okay, this is my statement.” I got my ears pierced. I got my hair done. I decided: okay, this is it. And, like I said, all hell broke loose in the house. It was hard. I had to stop my transition for a couple of years.

WHEN YOU STOPPED TAKING THE HORMONES, WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT WAS YOUR PHYSIOLOGICAL REACTION TO STOPPING?

Jordana LeSense: There wasn’t a huge physiological reaction, because I’d already started developing — and I was told by the endocrinologists, years later, that it was actually good that I started when I did because the pathways or something had already been opened up or whatever —

GOTCHA.

Jordana LeSense: One reaction I did have was that I got depressed because I felt like my one chance to live a normal, decent life was being taken away. I didn’t understand it. I thought, “If my parents love me, why are they doing this?” It was mainly my mom. My dad, I must say, has been cool throughout the whole thing. He’s been the most supportive throughout the whole thing — and my mom came around later. She was trying to protect me, and she did it the only way she knew how. They were parents from a totally different generation. They were born in the 1920s; they were Depression-era children who grew up to become my parents. What did they know about gender identity and things of that nature? Not a whole lot. Once I was able to move out of my parents’ house, I continued my transition — which was difficult, because I was working at a factory in Pittsburgh that assembled notebook binders. I had a hard time there. I got sexually harassed in an elevator by my supervisor — it was just so much weirdness —

A MALE SUPERVISOR, I BET —

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, a male supervisor — and I couldn’t say anything because back then, that was a good way to get fired. I didn’t want worse to happen from it. It’s a factory. You know the kind of people that work in factories — maybe not the most open-minded people in the world —

OKAY — YOU WERE WORKING IN THIS FACTORY — WHAT STEPS DID YOU TAKE TO RESTART THE TRANSITIONING?

Jordana LeSense: By that time I was old enough; I could do it on my own. I was in a support group for other girls and women like myself — and they pointed me in the right direction, to the right support within Pittsburgh. I decided to go about things legally, and so it was tough — and expensive on a minimum wage. At the same time, I still had to hide things from my parents and from my family. It was an odd time of my life. It was almost like I had to pretend to be one thing for the family — you shouldn’t ever have to pretend to be something for your family. Those are the people you should be most real with. But my close friends knew what was going on with me.

HOW DID YOU DRESS WHEN YOU WERE WORKING AT THE FACTORY?

Jordana LeSense: Very Androgynous. I mean, honestly, very Androgynous. The thing that was the hardest was with the Rave scene, at first. I was going to Raves to get away from the sort of bleak existence I had. This was during the time that my mother had a freak-out. She basically put all of my girl clothes in a huge garbage bag and put them in the trash. I had to plead with her and my dad: “I think I’ve been a good kid. I don’t steal. I don’t rob. I don’t cuss or anything that I think I would deserve this for —” I needed to be honest. I worked hard. I was working a summer job when I was sixteen, and I bought all those clothes. “I bought everything — and you throw it out? What’s that telling me? That hard work isn’t worth anything? Or that I should lie about who I am?” One day I came home from school and everything was on my bed. She gave everything back — but it was very uncomfortable. It was kinda like at that point, she didn’t want to know. We didn’t talk about it any further, and because of that I felt I had to hide it from her as best as I could — and it was really a difficult time. I’d go to Raves or clubs and I’d look like a girl — and then by the time I would get home, my mother would be home, and I didn’t want to catch hell from her. So as a result of that, in the Rave scene there were people that knew me one way, and others who didn’t know me that way. It became more of an issue later. But at a certain point I told my mother, “I’ve got to actually get out there and be who I am — and whatever may come, may come.” My mom was in denial, and I don’t know if she actually heard me when I told her. I guess I kind of started to get popular. When I played the gig where Soulslinger saw me, I did not look like a girl — but I wasn’t the most masculine-looking boy, either; I did what I could to not cause a problem. I would be Androgynous up to a point, and then I’d be like, “Okay, you have to do this for your mom.” There was a point where I was both who I was and who my mom wanted me to be.

I SEE.

Jordana LeSense: When I was fifteen, I was really depressed about what was going on with my mom. I had a very good friend, and I let her know that I was going to kill myself — I left my friend a suicide letter. She took it to the school principal. Then, after another attempt where I took a bunch of pills, I got sick on the living room floor — and that’s when my parents decided to send me to a psychologist. He was not very good. He was like a normal psychologist who didn’t know anything about gender identity or anything like that. Every time I would try and steer the conversation in that direction, he would take it somewhere else. So I said, “Okay, this is just a waste of time. I could be studying. I could be doing other things.” So, I convinced him that I was better, and I wasn’t going to kill myself, and that I didn’t need him anymore. Around that time I told one of my sisters what was going on and she referred me to Persad, a gender-identity and sexual-identity center in Pittsburgh.

OKAY — YOU’VE STARTED YOUR TRANSITIONING AND YOU’RE GOING TO RAVES TO DISTRACT YOURSELF FROM WHAT YOU DESCRIBED AS A BLEAK TIME IN YOUR LIFE. WERE YOU GETTING HIGH ON ANYTHING IN THOSE DAYS?

Jordana LeSense: Well, let’s just say that I did partake. I did inhale. Some people said that a lot of what I did then was self-medication. I’ll tell you flat out: I took Ecstasy. I smoked Weed. I think I dropped Acid a couple of times. I didn’t do large quantities of any of it — just experimentation. Acid was trippy and sort of went with the Techno; Marijuana was relaxing to the point of making me sleepy. I saw very little of personal value in Weed or Acid. Out of all three of those drugs, the only one that I could actually say anything good about was Ecstasy, because at one point — I think it was the first time I took it — I saw, in front of me, my life — and I felt like I knew absolutely who I was to become and, without question, what I needed to do. I always knew who I was, but people will try to persuade you to change who you are — but at that point I said, “Okay, this is it.” I’m not saying this to advocate drugs. Far from it; don’t do drugs. They’re bad, but I credit them as part of something that helped me realize that my dream was achievable — it was therapeutic. Ecstasy was used as a therapeutic drug in the 80s.

IT STILL IS, ACTUALLY.

Jordana LeSense: It helped me open up to my family.

I THINK DRUGS ARE A GREAT THING. PEOPLE SHOULD BE PROUD OF IT IF THEY DO THEM. THEY CAN BE EASILY ABUSED AND THEY CAN HURT YOU IF YOU’RE NOT CAREFUL — BUT YOU’RE TELLING A STORY ABOUT A VERY POSITIVE EXPERIENCE THAT CAME OUT OF IT —

Jordana LeSense: I won’t say that I’m ashamed of my drug use. I will say that there are friends that I no longer have, who were part of that scene, who definitely went too far and abused them — but for me and the little group of friends that I had within the scene, we kinda looked at our drug use like it was something we would do and then we would write down our experiences. A lot of us kept notebooks and were like, ”Okay, what did I learn from this?”

COOL.

Jordana LeSense: ABC or CBS would do something on Raves, and they’d look at it and they would say “drugged-out kids” — but I would have to say that we were probably one of the most intelligent groups of drugged-out kids because we totally would analyze our drug use after the fact, and evaluate it. This was at the time where the Internet was finally starting to really become popular. There was a site called HyperReal and it was almost like a repository for Rave information as well as drug information. One of the things that they would say was, the best way to use drugs was to be informed about them. We weren’t unintelligently using them — you know, “Hey, here’s a pill, let’s pop it!” It was more like, “Okay, this is what I know about this drug, before I even take it. This is what I should expect, and I’m going to write about it afterwards and see if I can get anything good from it.” So, the first time I did Ecstasy, afterwards, I got out my diary — I used to keep a diary when I was little. I hadn’t written in it in years because it was kind of depressing looking at it, but I got it out and I saw the dreams and stuff I’d had and who I thought I would be, and I realized all those dreams were still possible — and that was the morning after the first time I took Ecstasy. That was when I said, “Regardless of what happens, I’m going to continue my transition and whatever may come, will come. I have to do this.”

ANOTHER POSITIVE ECSTASY STORY THERE. IT’S HARD TO BELIEVE THE STUFF’S ILLEGAL, ISN’T IT?

Jordana LeSense: Absolutely — and I think some of the most anti-social drugs are legal, unfortunately. I know Ecstasy was one thing that broke down barriers. It broke down barriers between races, between different social classes — everything. We were all partying together — and I truly believe that had to have done some good.

IT WAS THE LOVE DRUG — THAT’S WHAT WE CALLED IT.

Photo courtesy of Jordana LeSense

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, it was a love drug — but I think that it was even more than that. I think it was more a get-to-know-you drug. It would make you very talkative. It wasn’t sexual, but social. Everybody would want to share a little bit of their life with each other at a Rave. So, you learn to appreciate different perspectives. You learned a lot about other people when they didn’t have their barriers up.

YES, YES. SO, ON ECSTASY YOU SAID “I’M GONNA GO THROUGH WITH MY TRANSITION.” YOU’RE IN PITTSBURGH —

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, and I saw no future there at all. I knew that if I was going to do this and make it work — you know, actually be able to get on with life — I had to at some point leave the city, because it was such a small town. I was thinking, “Okay, how am I going to do that? I’ve got no college education —” I dropped out from the 9-to-5 world. I didn’t want to do anything illegal. I promised myself that I would never prostitute myself or anything of that nature. Then I looked at the DJs, and I’m thinking, “Hmm — I see these guys and a couple of girls come through. They’re making decent money. I can do that. My brother was a DJ. I think I can learn to do that —”

DID YOU HAVE A VINYL COLLECTION?

Jordana LeSense: I did, but it wasn’t anything I could spin at a Rave. It was like 80s New Wave, Punk records, some Metal, the occasional Hip Hop record handed down from an older sibling — but no, I didn’t really have much of a Dance Music record collection. However, when I told my brother that I was going to start DJing, he was very helpful. He gave me his turntable, his sound system, everything that was still in my parents’ basement. Then, it was just about me going to buy records. Luckily, that wasn’t hard because in Pittsburgh there was one popular underground alternative record store, Eides Records. I was already very familiar with it because it was where all the Punks and Metalheads and Hip Hop heads had to buy records. And, there was Industrial stuff. I came across Lords Of Acid, and I recognized some of the music from a couple of the clubs that I had frequented. There was another section called Techno. So I just started buying up — every week they’d get a new record and I’d buy it. I started learning how to mix from that, and so I guess I sorta became pretty good at it.

I’D SAY SO.

Jordana LeSense: I sold my guitar. I sold my amp. I bought a keyboard. I said to myself, “I’ll try and make one of these records —” and my first attempts were just laughable, but at a certain point I got good enough. I posted something online at a group that was called alt.rave — it was an early Internet Rave discussion group. Because somebody was talking about Blondie, I said, “Well, my brother has ‘Heart Of Glass’” and I said I would love to make a Drum & Bass remix of that. This was like in ’94. A guy from EMI Chrysalis came across my message. He sent me an email saying, “Well, we’ve already got somebody who’s going to do ‘Heart Of Glass.’ But I have another Blondie song you can re-mix if you want,” and so I said yeah — of course. That actually became my very first vinyl record.

SO, YOU REMIXED “ATOMIC” — AND THEN WHAT HAPPENED?

Jordana LeSense: Not much happened at first. A whole year or so went by — ’94 to ’96 — but I just kept perfecting the beats, trying to make things better. Working with them. Learning how to use all of this technology. It wasn’t easy, especially back then. I kinda sorta just confined myself — when I wasn’t working, I was studying music, studying DJing, studying Dance music, learning more about the history, learning more about different artists, figuring out how to put it all together and how to make my own sound. In 1996, I put out my first record with Jungle Sky.

WAS THAT ROCK STONE FOUNDATION?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, exactly — and that was with a local Reggae MC. He went by MC Soy Sauce.

AND MAY I REMIND YOU THAT THE VILLAGE VOICE CALLED YOU “WIDELY REGARDED AS THE TOP U.S. DRUM & BASS PRODUCER.”

Jordana LeSense: I’ve seen that stuff. I don’t know if I really agree with it because I know so many other people who should probably share that honor — but I will say that at the time, there weren’t that many of us. Even years later, there still weren’t a whole lot. So, I’ll accept the praise — but there were other people I traded samples with — we sent floppy disks through the mail to each other. They were equally good. I think I just became popular.

WELL, YOU ARE REGARDED AS THE TOP U.S. DRUM & BASS PRODUCER AND WHETHER YOU AGREE WITH IT OR NOT, THE VILLAGE VOICE SAYS IT’S TRUE — SO, WHAT CAN I TELL YOU?

Jordana LeSense: I accept it.

I THINK IT’S PRETTY COOL.

Jordana LeSense: I think it’s cool too. I just know that there are people out there who, if I don’t give props to, they will hate on me — but whatever. I trust them and if they believe I’m on the top, I accept it.

TELL US ABOUT WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE —

Jordana LeSense: When Worlds Collide was my first album, and it was a theme album. The whole idea was pretty simple. It was imaging the soundscape of first contact between the Earth and an alien species.

WOW.

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. It starts with this landing of a craft, and there’s samples and stuff for that. It basically sets the tone for the rest of the album.

VERY INTERESTING. YOU HAVE A SCI-FI ELEMENT IN YOUR STYLE.

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, I guess I always have. At least with the Drum & Bass, I’ve definitely always had a Sci-fi element. Mainly because it was futuristic music. The whole Rave movement was about the future: Let’s create a future we can imagine, now. Let’s live the future today. Let’s party like it’s 1999, even though it’s 1992. So, I decided, “Well, this is my first album on a pretty decent record label. I want it to have some kind of coherence, some kind of overarching theme. Okay, here’s where my underground world collides with the actual record industry.”

INTERESTING. LET ME COME BACK TO THE STORY OF YOUR TRANSITIONING, IF I MAY. NOT TO BELABOR THE POINT —

Jordana LeSense: No, that’s okay.

WHERE DID YOUR TRANSITION TAKE PLACE?

Jordana LeSense: I moved to Philadelphia, and that was where it took place mostly. I prefer to call it my re-transitioning because I started my transitioning when I was younger, then I had to stop and de-transition — but my re-transition took place in Philadelphia. It was great. I didn’t really have a whole lot of problems other than a couple of friends who — well, this one promoter in Philadelphia, he just totally turned on me afterwards — but for the most part, I think I did okay. I think I had a fairly uneventful transition.

I SEE. TELL ME WHAT YOU WENT THROUGH — THE SURGERY, THE RUN UP TO IT, THE THERAPY —

Jordana LeSense: There’s what’s called the real-life test. Usually when someone goes through a transition, if they go by the book they go through psychological evaluations first, then they may be put on hormone therapy, and then they decide, “Okay, this is who I am.” They come to the realization that, “I can go further now into the world as who I am” — and that’s when what’s called the real-life test begins. When I went to the psychologist, she evaluated me over the course of a month or two. I told her how I tried to transition earlier and what happened with my mom, and she said, “Well, obviously you’re taking hormones now. Let me refer you to an endocrinologist so they can take your blood work and see that you’re healthy and can continue.” I did that, and then I told her that ultimately I wanted to get surgery and she said, “Okay, we’ll start the real-life test, and what that involves basically is that you live and you work as who you are. Can you function in society on your job? Will this cause you any ill effects?” Surgery’s not right for everyone — and some people decide on surgery for the wrong reason. They usually at that point, during the real-life test, come to the conclusion that maybe it’s not the best path or choice for them. So, it’s kind of a filter. If you’re not in this for the right reasons, you’re gonna know during your real-life test.

YOU OBVIOUSLY PASSED WITH FLYING COLORS —

Jordana LeSense: Yeah — and I couldn’t be happier for the choice that I made.

DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF YOUR TRANSITION? I DON’T WANT TO ASK YOU ANY PERSONAL QUESTIONS THAT ARE OFF LIMITS —

Jordana LeSense: Sure. I look at this as educational. If there’s a girl like me who happens to come across this — since the world found out about me, I’ve helped plenty of younger girls who’ve sought me out for one reason or another, and this stuff can be scary if you don’t know a whole lot about it. So, ask away. What do you want to know?

I HOPE THIS ISN’T TOO TACKY OF A QUESTION, BUT HOW ABOUT THE FIRST TIME YOU HAD SEX WITH FEMALE GENITALIA IN PLACE? DO YOU RECALL THAT?

Jordana LeSense: Absolutely. I recall it like it was yesterday. I can tell you that it was the best experience that I ever had, sexually. Let me put it this way: when I had boy parts, they didn’t do anything for me. I tried not to even think of them. Then, well after I healed from the surgery and had my first sexual experience, it was like, “This is what I should have had from the beginning!” Imagine living your life in a black-and-white movie — and then, after surgery, it’s in color!

THAT’S A VERY NICE METAPHOR. BACK TO THE SURGERY ITSELF — WAS IT NERVE-WRACKING WAITING FOR IT TO HEAL, HOPING EVERYTHING WAS GOING TO TURN OUT OKAY?

Jordana LeSense: I am a Buddhist. I practice meditation. It was the one thing that calmed me through a lot of the anxiety. I may have done drugs in the Rave scene, but once I started doing Raves professionally, I stopped — because it’s not conducive to making your flight on time. So, I took up meditation, being able to put myself in an almost pseudo-hypnotic trance to the point where I might even disassociate from my body itself. After surgery, I would say that it might have been painful in just the few days afterwards — I don’t know that I experienced severe pain from it because I was pretty good at meditating. But at the same time, if you need painkillers, take them. In this case, drugs are good. I knew that there would be pain involved — but I looked at this like, what would be more painful, trying to live a life that wasn’t mine, or the short-term pain involved with finally completing the process to live the full life I’ve had?

SO, WHATEVER PAIN THERE WAS, PHYSICALLY SPEAKING, YOU WERE ABLE TO DEAL WITH IT THROUGH YOUR MEDITATION.

Jordana LeSense: Whatever pain I had physically after surgery did not equal the emotional pain that I had when I was younger. I looked at it as a trade-off. “There’ll be pain for a short period of time after surgery — but think of all those years that you were in pain from being beaten up physically, or had pain inside for being forced to live a life that isn’t yours.” That little bit of pain — I looked at it as a trade-off that was well worth it. It wasn’t severe in my case. Everyone goes, “Well, did it hurt?” Of course it hurt. All surgery hurts!

DO YOU RECOMMEND IT FOR OTHERS?

Jordana LeSense: I would recommend it — but it has to be right for you. There are many people who’ve had surgery and are successful after surgery — but there’s a small minority that had surgery for the wrong reasons, and it’s not going to make their life better — and in some rare cases, it’s made it worse. So, I would say that if you are considering this path, please, please, please don’t skip any step. Make sure that you have a great psychologist. Make sure that you complete your real-life test. Make sure you’re okay with you, and make sure that you’re doing it for the right reasons. Ultimately, once you’ve done it, you’ve done it — so, you have to be happy with it and happy with you.

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO HEAL?

Jordana LeSense: I was in the hospital for ten days, which is kind of a long stay by today’s standards. Back then they kept you under observation for ten days just to make sure that there were no complications. After that point, you’re starting to heal — and the actual soreness took probably a month to go away. You might have some numbness — but then that goes away, too. Then it’s more about the internal stuff. I don’t want to make it seem like it’s this huge painful thing — I can’t remember much pain after the second week.

OKAY. HOW DO THE ORGASMS COMPARE? YOU SAID THAT WHEN YOU HAD THE BOY PARTS THEY DIDN’T REALLY WORK FOR YOU —

Jordana LeSense: I didn’t get much use out of the boy parts. I can’t really compare, because it wasn’t something I had much of a desire to do. Okay, everyone pleasures themselves — even if you lie about it. Prior to surgery, on the rare occasion that I tried, it didn’t do much for me. I didn’t like to think much about those parts prior to surgery. Like I said: night and day. It’s not comparable. They’re totally different feelings. To me, it’s just a much more full thing. I’m comfortable with my body now.

HOW DID YOU GET THE FUNDS TO DO ALL THIS?

Jordana LeSense: Well, let me just put it this way: At the peak of my career, I got paid two-thousand dollars an hour.

NOT BAD.

Jordana LeSense: Roughly about fifteen hours of DJing.

OKAY. DID YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND DURING THAT TRANSITIONAL TIME?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, there was a guy I had met. I actually met a number of guys when I was living in Philadelphia before surgery. But, I only had one boyfriend, and he was awesome. He knew about my past. I met him during my real-life test, but he never knew me as anything different than who I am. He was also big into Japanese anime, and I guess a theme in anime is transformation — so he was okay with it. He was pretty cool. He completely accepted the whole thing. He was my boyfriend after the surgery as well. He had quite a lot of patience because you really can’t — it’s not advisable that you have sex like for months after surgery, during the healing process. But yeah, that was how that went. We sorta grew apart. I was getting a lot more bookings and I wasn’t able to be around so much, so we kind of mutually sort of split. That’s kinda how that went.

HOW LONG AFTERWARDS DID YOU SPLIT WITH HIM?

Jordana LeSense: Probably about a year-and-a-half later.

HOW ABOUT THE FIRST TIME YOU SAW YOUR PARENTS AFTER THE OPERATION?

Jordana LeSense: My mom gave me this huge hug. They were all expecting me. They had a welcome-home banner. It was awesome; the mood was like one-hundred-and-eighty degrees from where it had been when I left. She gave me a hug and said, “Oh my gosh, you look so beautiful.” By that point, she had come to accept everything — and it was great. My dad was always cool. When he first called me — after I had written him a letter to tell him I was scheduled for surgery which said, “Dad, I’m going to go through with this” — he was like, “Yeah, I got your message.” I was anxious about how he felt, and had left him an answering-machine message several days after mailing the letter. He called me back and said, “Yeah, I got your message. I just wanted to say: cool. Just be careful and I trust that you know what’s best for you.” So, my parents were great. My family was great. My brother was great. My sisters were all great, as they always were — and it was awesome. I felt like, “Okay, all the hell I went through all during my childhood — everything’s finally turned out well. Even my mom is welcoming me. This is awesome.” We grew closer as a family as well.

WHAT ABOUT THE MUSIC COMMUNITY?

Jordana LeSense: I would say that it was mostly supportive with a couple of exceptions. For the most part, most of the music community was okay. I did have an encounter, though, that you probably know about —

IS THIS IN OHIO?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. You know about that —

I DIDN’T KNOW WHETHER TO BRING IT UP —

Jordana LeSense: No, it’s okay — because, ultimately, where I am today might be totally different had that not happened.

THIS IS IN THE YEAR 2000.

Jordana LeSense: Yes, this is the year 2000. I was touring on my third album, titled The Cities Collection. It was another themed album. Every song was named after a city. So, I was touring. One of those gigs took me to Kent, Ohio. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was sick with the flu. I had wanted to stay in San Francisco — that was where I had played the night before. A very nice guy had brought me a bottle of wine and a note and left it at my hotel. I kinda wanted to get to know him but I said, “Nope, I must go on. I’m a professional. I will suffer through this flu and see how I do, right?” The next night, the Kent gig was bad. The sound system was bad. My flu was bad. Everything about it was just bad. It was like one of my worst gigs ever. But, I was a professional; I got through it. People were dancing. They had fun. It didn’t seem like they cared so much, and when I was being led from the venue back to the car for my hotel, this group of guys attacked me.

WHAT HAPPENED?

Jordana LeSense: I was knocked out. I was unconscious. A married couple saw them beating me. They stopped them, and I ended up being taken back to the hotel. We probably should have gone to the hospital, but I had a flight that I had to catch in the morning. I filed a police report — and that’s a whole other saga. They knew who the guy was. They had a hard time arresting him. Years later, they still hadn’t served an arrest warrant. So —

I DON’T WANT TO GIVE THIS GUY ANY PRESS HERE — IS THIS MATTHEW GOSTLIN?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. He wasn’t the only one. Things happened after that. I received email from somebody who knew him that said that if he ever saw me again he’d finish the job. You can imagine how I felt. That area wasn’t far from Pittsburgh, where my family lives. I was afraid. I didn’t want to go out much because I thought, “That guy is out there. He’s still out there.”

WHAT WAS HIS BEEF WITH YOU?

Jordana LeSense: It was a hate crime. A pure Transphobic hate crime. That’s what happened. He was associated with a group that threw a party that I had played, but I didn’t know him. I didn’t know who he was. I’d never heard of him before. As the couple that rescued me said, he had hate in his eyes.

BEING YOURSELF IS A CRIME TO SOME PEOPLE, I GUESS.

Jordana LeSense: Well, yeah, I guess so. I don’t want to say anything about the area, but some of the people who lived there weren’t the most open-minded people — and at the same time, I had a bad set that night. I didn’t play my best because A, I had the flu and B, the sound system was sub-par. Things were going wrong. I don’t know. Who knows? Maybe he was drunk, maybe he was on drugs. None of that’s any excuse for what he did. The stuff that he said during the attack, while I was unconscious and afterwards — using male pronouns to refer to me! That pretty much says all you need to know about his motivation. There’s been cases like that since, and they’ve been prosecuted as hate crimes. Unfortunately, back then Ohio didn’t have a hate crime law that would have covered me.

WHAT EVENTUALLY HAPPENED?

Jordana LeSense: You’ll have to ask the Portage County prosecutor’s office, because as far as I know, for some reason, they never arrested him, I heard that they tried to serve the warrant. By now, it doesn’t even matter. They didn’t even put it down as a felony. It was a simple assault in their eyes. So, it’s a misdemeanor. What do they care?

BEING A TRANSSEXUAL CAN BE A VERY DANGEROUS THING.

Jordana LeSense: I don’t want anybody to get the idea that if you’re Trans then you’re in danger because, honestly, today most people who are Trans get on with their life, and they’re okay. I could have not been Trans and some crazy person could have attacked me. That happens. This guy’s motivation was definitely because of me being Trans. That happened — and he should have been prosecuted under a hate-crime law.

WAS THERE A RACIAL COMPONENT TO IT, POSSIBLY?

Jordana LeSense: There could have been, but I don’t know. I don’t know if he used racial terms. I was unconscious, and the couple that saved me was an interracial couple. But I do know that I felt like I got no justice. At that point, I was really upset. Around that time, I got a call from Liquid Sky’s lawyer, and he said that he had something for me if I wanted it. It was licensing my music to Paramount Pictures —

FOR A MOVIE?

Jordana LeSense: Absolutely. It was for Zoolander.

THAT WAS A GREAT MOVIE.

Jordana LeSense: I’m not going to give the amount of money because it’s tacky, but it was five figures — and it was enough so that I could move. At the time I had had an on-line radio show. It was on a server with a bunch of other Dance Music shows. So, I was like, “Well, these guys are over in England running this thing and DJing a sort of related genre to Drum & Bass called UK Garage, or Two-Step —”

IS THIS WHEN YOU USED THE MONIKER 1.8.7.?

Jordana LeSense: No, that was when I was doing Drum & Bass. Back when I first began, at one of the gigs that I did in Pittsburgh, the keyboard blew out one of the speakers and the sound guy said, “You just murdered one of my speakers with that low note,” and I said, “Really?” He said, “Yeah, you 187ed it.” I didn’t have a DJ name then. I was like, “Hmm, 187 — that’s kind of like cool. It doesn’t have a gender associated with it.” I remember reading an interview with Drum & Bass pioneer DJ Rap, and she said she had picked her DJ name because it didn’t have a gender. So, for Drum & Bass I used 1.8.7. — but my UK Garage and Two-Step moniker was Lady J. It was common for women in the UK Garage world to use a such a name — there was Lady Destiny, Lady G, Lady Sovereign et cetera. Everything that I produced under that name — Lady J — was mostly in the world of UK Garage, Two-Step and maybe New School Breakbeat.

UH-HUH.

Jordana LeSense: J-DNA was my Techno moniker. I didn’t release much on it —

J-DNA.

Jordana LeSense: Yeah, like some of the letters from Jordana. You know, genetics and things like that. Now you’re one of the few people who know about that.

LET’S HOPE EVERYBODY READS THIS AND FINDS OUT ABOUT IT.

Jordana LeSense: That would be awesome — but anyways, I moved to London. I thought, “I’m not going to get any justice, and as long as I live anywhere on the East Coast — even anywhere in America — this guy can come and get me.” So, I thought the best thing to do was pack up, take the money from Paramount and move to London. That’s exactly what I did. I have to say, it was probably one of the best decisions I ever made — because I got to start all over. When I say “start all over,” I mean Start All Over. I didn’t go over there using my name or using what I did — and to be honest, I don’t think many people would have cared. I started again, from the bottom. I started working at a pirate radio station called Flex FM 106.3, and I became involved with the guy who owned the station. He was pretty cool. He was a big fan of the stuff that I produced. He got me a couple of gigs — we even went over to Germany together for some — and I had a weekly time slot on his station.

NOW, YOU WENT OVER THERE AND NOBODY KNEW YOUR BACKGROUND —

Jordana LeSense: I liked it that way.

AND YOU’RE MEETING GUYS. YOUR IDENTITY AS A TRANSSEXUAL — IS THAT AN ISSUE IN DATING?

Jordana LeSense: The first thing to correct is that you said my “identity as a Transsexual” — I don’t have a Transsexual identity. My identity is as a woman. Transsexual is something that is part of my life. That’s how I got to where I am — but I don’t feel that that’s my identity. I don’t have a Transgender or Transsexual identity. I don’t identify myself as Trans. I don’t wave the Transgender flag. Please understand, I’m not ashamed of it, it just isn’t a big part of how I see myself nor is it how others who meet me without knowing my past see me. What does Transgender or Transsexual mean? The root meaning of “Trans” is to get from one place to another. I got from one place to another. At that stage in my life, in London, it didn’t really come up. The only time I brought it up was when a relationship got serious — and that only occurred twice. The first was with the station owner — but again, he had no clue. I wasn’t gonna tell him, and it wasn’t like everybody was Googling my name. I was just some Yank that came from the States. So, there was not that interest to really care. The guy that I spent most of my life with in London, the guy who became the love of my life for more than two years — I did tell him, but only after six months. I only did it because it became that serious. I was taking care of his kids from a previous marriage and I thought, “Okay, if he comes across this stuff on his own somehow, I don’t want it to be that I wasn’t honest with him —” and at the same time, he was talking marriage and things like that. It’s best that I tell him, “Okay, here’s where I come from; this is my past —” because he told me about women he had been with prior to us meeting, and things like that. I thought, “Well, okay, I’ve got to be honest with him.” And so I was — and he was okay with it.

HAD THERE ALREADY BEEN A SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP WHEN YOU TOLD HIM?

Jordana LeSense: It depends. A kiss is a sexual relationship, right? So in that respect yeah, there had been — but it wasn’t like we were having intercourse five times a day at the time that I told him. We were still sorta feeling each other out, figuring out “do I really want to be with this person long term?” — at one point we kinda both decided, “Yeah.” That was when I told him. And he said — I still remember — “It doesn’t really matter. You’re who you are, now. That’s all I know. That’s all that you should care about. All that stuff doesn’t mean a thing to me. I know who you are. You know who you are. The kids love you. Let’s not bring it up again.” That’s about it.

I SEE. WHEN DID YOU COME BACK TO THE STATES?

Jordana LeSense: I came back to the States in 2004 because I hadn’t seen my parents in over two years and I said, “Okay, I need to go back for Thanksgiving.” As it turned out, my big mistake post-9/11 was that I didn’t have a return ticket — when I went back to England after visiting my parents, I didn’t have a return ticket to the States. So, they deported me.

THEY DEPORTED YOU?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. They deported me because they said I was in danger of overstaying my visa. The kind of visa I was on was good for two years. I actually left a week before it was set to run out, so that I could renew it upon re-entry, as I had done when returning to the UK from Germany. Well, this woman pulls me aside. There’s a little holding area where they put people who are being deported. She comes to me and she says, “Listen, it’s nothing personal — it’s just that your government is doing it to our people, so we’ve got to do it to you. We know you paid tax and you do everything that you’re supposed to. You didn’t overstay your visa — but it’s just that everything has become more strict now because of 9/11.” So, I got deported back to the States. All my life was in London. I had a nice flat in South London with my boyfriend. The kids — I got them up for breakfast. I got them off to school every day. I had become a part of their life in those years, right? But suddenly I wasn’t there. I was back in the U.S. Every time my boyfriend would call, he’d put them on to talk with me. One was seven and the other was eleven. They were like, “When are you coming back?” It just tore my heart apart. So, at one point my boyfriend came over to visit me. The idea was, we were going to decide: What are we going to do? We’d talked about marriage in the past — and that would have helped. We’d have to go through the British High Council in New York to get my deportation revoked. He at that point told me he had started seeing someone, and that he was over here to break it off. He said he tried to wait, but it was already too long — over a year and a half —

ANOTHER VICTIM OF THE WAR ON TERROR, THAT RELATIONSHIP —

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. I sit and I think what could have been. During that time, I was the most happiest I had been since the attack in Ohio. I wasn’t out gigging anymore. I had settled down. I was working. I had my 9-to-5 job. It was a joy for me to have to be there for him and his kids. His wife who he had split with was a crack addict; that’s why he got custody of the children. So they really had no mom. I was that for them. They latched on to me. So, all those things went through my mind: “Who’s going to get them up for school every day?” Then I realized, “Okay, well, he’s found someone else —” and when he told me, I kinda half expected it.

OH BOY.

Jordana LeSense: But things have changed. I’m engaged for real.

THAT’S WONDERFUL —

Jordana LeSense: He just this past summer proposed.

IS HE A FAN OF GOTH METAL?

Jordana LeSense: No, not really — but he doesn’t mind it. We listen to it in the car. He doesn’t mind it at all. This guy — we would have never met had it not been for being in the same place at the same time. We come from different worlds. He’s like a big sports fan. He’s like a jock. He’s like the kind of guy I would have been afraid of in high school. So, it’s kinda funny —

IT SEEMS THE WORLD COMES FULL CIRCLE, HUH?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. It does. It totally comes full circle. He didn’t know anything about my past, what I did or anything. I have to be honest. You asked about telling a guy about my past, right? How does that work with dating? One of the things about dating I will tell you — I had one guy that I met when in New York on record-label business during the Nineties. He was awesome. He was an investment banker. He worked in New York. But he told me, “Jordana, I’ve got no problem with you being Trans. My problem is the fact that you were in music, so the whole world knows about it.” I mean, if I met a guy and told him I was Trans and he didn’t really care for me after that, so be it. But with this guy, it was like, “My problem’s not that you’re Trans, it’s that the whole world knew about it because you were in music” — and he was an investment banker.

WE WOULDN’T WANT HIS STUFFY FUCKIN’ CLIENTS TO GET THE WRONG IDEA, HUH?

Jordana LeSense: Yeah. He had to look after his clients. You got it.

AND PROBABLY HIS CLIENTS WOULD HAVE BEEN DELIGHTED TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR SITUATION —

Jordana LeSense: Well, who knows?

HOW DID YOU WIND UP IN SEATTLE?

Jordana LeSense: After I was deported, I kinda got depressed. I got back in touch with a friend who had started out as a fan who wrote me an email. She was another girl who walked a similar path as me, and we became close friends through the Internet, by phone and whatnot. She’d moved to Seattle. She said, “As long as you’re back in the States, and as long as your attacker is still out there, why don’t you move to the West Coast and see how you like it?” I visited her in 2005, and in 2006 I moved. I’ve been here ever since. I joined my band; I met this guy and girl playing on the street. I tossed a twenty-dollar bill in their guitar case. They said they didn’t want it. I said, “Well, I used to be a musician and I know how hard it can be.” They’re like, “We don’t want it. We’re just out here practicing. What did you play?” I told them I DJed, I’ve made Electronic Music, and I played guitar and bass. She was like, “Well do you like Metal? We need a bass player for our band.” So I joined this girl’s band. Her name was Shelita and she was the lead vocalist. We became very good friends. I would not have gone into Goth Metal had it not been for that moment. Our band, Apparatus, eventually split due to personal differences with the guitarist, but Shelita and I remained good friends. She continued learning guitar — I gave her lessons — and she does the singer-songwriter coffeehouse thing now. I’ve continued developing my singing voice — she gave me lessons — and am now fronting a Goth Metal band. She was instrumental in starting me down that path — and the few people who know about my past in the Metal community have been nothing but supportive.

NOW THERE’S A HAPPY ENDING —

Jordana LeSense: Yes it is. Yes it is.

OKAY. WELL, I THINK THAT NAILS IT. THANK YOU SO MUCH —

Jordana LeSense: Thank you too. ~