Growing up in sunny, affluent Orange County, California, Diana Meyer never felt like she fit in. All around her, kids were obsessed with grades, clothes, possessions: all Diana wanted to do was dye her hair crazy colors and ride around on her skateboard. Then two events occurred that would change her life forever: her mom gave her a journal, and a friend gave her a copy of MxPx’s Life in General. Diana was hooked.
School fell by the wayside as she spent hours, days, filling her journal with ...
Growing up in sunny, affluent Orange County, California, Diana Meyer never felt like she fit in. All around her, kids were obsessed with grades, clothes, possessions: all Diana wanted to do was dye her hair crazy colors and ride around on her skateboard. Then two events occurred that would change her life forever: her mom gave her a journal, and a friend gave her a copy of MxPx’s Life in General. Diana was hooked.
School fell by the wayside as she spent hours, days, filling her journal with her thoughts, ideas, hopes, and dreams. She scraped together enough money to buy a cheap guitar and taught herself to play. Before long, Diana began fashioning her experiences with heartbreak and uncertainty, with friendships forged and broken, into lyrics.
But the budding teen songstress felt increasingly out-of-place in the insular suburb in which she lived. In 2004, at the tender age of 19, Diana walked straight into the tiger’s maw, moving to the sleazy heart of Hollywood to play her songs to anyone who would listen. It was in the gritty clubs of Los Angeles that she met drummer Mike Land and bassist Derik Envy. The pair, from Texas and Montana, respectively, had met while gigging around in L.A.’s studios; both were hungry to escape the sterile confines of studio life and play in a full-blooded band, one whose members were ready to go for broke, to stand or fall playing together. They met their match in Diana Meyer.
The three rehearsed together for the first time in December 2008, and from that moment on, they were “a family,” exults Meyer. Taking their name from a song by Orange County hardcore stalwarts Eighteen Visions, the band began gigging as a trio; guitarist Dallas Patrick entered the fold in late 2009. Diana Gone Wrong quickly became a force on the L.A. scene with their soaring, anthemic, rock-tinged pop-punk and lyrics dealing with the confusion and heartache faced by many twentysomethings who must seek love, satisfaction, and themselves in a fast-paced world of diminishing jobs and increasingly alienating social-networking technology.
The band released their first, self-titled EP in spring of 2009 and were immediately met by a demand for more. Meyer’s innocent beauty and clear voice, set off by smeared eyeliner and occasional Joan Jett snarl, set her apart from her peers in the songwriting scene. Diana Gone Wrong’s distinctive layered choral harmonies and complex rumbling bass lines take them thundering ahead of the pop-punk pack. The songs lose none of their emotional punch when stripped down: Meyer has done several soul-baring acoustic performances to wildly enthusiastic reception.
Diana Gone Wrong find themselves at the start of a new decade with a new EP, A Piece of My Heart, available on iTunes, and big dreams. Says drummer Land, “We want to encourage young people to have a dream and follow it, and to never give up, no matter what challenges they face.” Stay tuned as Diana Gone Wrong do just that in 2010!
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