Lisa and Jess, the “sweet poison” of Sovereign Council.
Although the music by Canadian Symphonic Metal band Sovereign Council is already professional and pleasant enough to draw the attention of any metalhead that loves listening to some good symphonic heavy music, two of their band members can be considered a huge plus to their live performances, especially to the eyes and hearts of all regular guys (and even some girls) attending the show. Given the fact that this session of the Headbanging Moose is called “Metal Chick of the Month”, I bet you have an idea of what I’m talking about. Thus, for the first time in this website we have not only one, but two metal chicks at the same time to our total delight: the beautiful singer Lisa Thompson, and the stunning keyboardist Jessica “Jess” Marsden.
I had the pleasure to see this Kingston-based band opening for German Power Metal icons Primal Fear in Toronto, in May this year, and I can say those girls are more than just pretty faces on the stage. They are truly talented musicians, which by the way is what really matters in the end, enhancing the overall performance of the band with their voices, instruments and moves. You can take a listen at their contribution to the musicality of Sovereign Council in their official ReverbNation and YouTube channels, but not before checking out the biographies below to know more interesting details about those two beauties.
LISA THOMPSON
Born and raised in Ottawa, the official capital of Canada, Lisa Thompson grew up surrounded by rock music, with her father being a musician playing lead electric guitar and organ in local rock bands. Lisa always sang as a child and, at the age of 10, her parents decided to start her up in singing and piano lessons. She trained for nine years vocally, two years piano and then became a vocal coach in 2003. Today she continues to coach full time from her studio in Ottawa and specializes in coaching recording artists, performing musicians and bands.
At the age of 16, Lisa was a hired as a vocalist for a local recording studio in Ottawa and had the opportunity to write a few songs of her own, which fueled her passion for song writing and studio work. Lisa started performing in rock cover bands in 2003, and over the years she has performed solo, in cover bands, tribute bands, original bands, and has had three albums produced between two different original bands.
Our gorgeous singer joined Sovereign Council in 2012 as the band’s female vocalist. She wasn’t looking to join a metal band at the time, but after one listen through the material of New Reign she was hooked to their music, and it was a welcomed challenge for Lisa contributing and writing vocal harmonies for the band. Moreover, performing along with lead singer Alex MacWilliam has been a true partnership feeding off of each other’s performance and vocals, giving their audience a performance of emotions and theatrics.
In regards to her musical interests and influences while growing up, they consist of a wide variety of artists, including names such as Evanescence, Disturbed, Silverchair, Led Zepplin, Eva Cassidy and Holly McNarland, just to name a few. You can see by this list that our charming female singer’s taste for music goes beyond metal, appreciating any artist that brings forth some high-quality material, especially in terms of singing and lyrics.
“There’s no better feeling than performing! Hearing your audience cheer you on and singing along with you. It’s surreal.” – Lisa Thompson
JESSICA MARSDEN
Born on January 15, 1991 in Burnley, a market town in Lancashire, England, located around 34km north of Manchester, keyboardist Jessica Marsden (or simply Jess) also has a longstanding relationship with music. Her parents encouraged her to follow that path from a very young age: Jess was given her first miniature keyboard when she was only three years old and her father, who had taken a few organ and cornet lessons when he was a child and was more musically inclined than the average person, would play quick little tunes on the little keyboard for her. She then listened to what her father was playing and started figuring out how to play the same thing immediately after. Needless to say, music lessons started up not too long after.
At the age of five, Jess began taking piano lessons. She was able to grasp the basic theory behind it all, but by no means did she enjoy it: all she wanted to do was play the songs that she had heard on the radio or on a CD that her parents listened to. That was “unacceptable”, and therefore she was pushed to read music she was given, but the problema is that she simply hated it. Jess spent a few more years with a different teacher, who trained her ear further and provided guitar and vocal lessons.
When our gorgeous keyboardist hit her senior years in high school, she stopped taking lessons altogether and began to pursue her own musical endeavours. This was around the time when her music taste started to broaden significantly, when she was listening to everything, from Rachmaninoff to Killswitch Engage and, of course, she loved it all. After finishing high school and being involved in several musicals, concerts and competitions, Jess went off to the University of Ottawa, taking classes ranging from Music Studies to Behavioural Psychology. She finished two years of the program and ran out of money, and not too long after returning to Kingston to live with her family and work for a while, a coworker informed her of a local metal band that was looking for a keyboardist. That was when Alex MacWilliam introduced her to Sovereign Council, and she has been there ever since.
According to Jess herself, working with such hard-working and creative individuals like the other members of sovereign Council has really pushed her to play further and further outside of her old comfort zone. She was used to playing softer and more melancholy pieces, although she had always secretly wanted to express her inner beast through heavier music. With that said, can we call Jess the “Beauty and the Beast” of the band?
“With every show, I am able to completely let loose, let my inner passions (love, sorrow and rage) build up, and let it out, turning it into something beautiful and expressive. Hopefully, this is something that many people can relate to and appreciate through our music.” – Jessica Marsden
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THE HEADBANGING MOOSE 