At twenty-one, I booked my jazzy trio a two month gig in the Virgin Islands. The adventures began … that trip taught me the thing that's driven every decision since: say yes first, figure out the rest on the way.

Not long after, I moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. For a few years, I played bass for loads of acts that came through town - The Coasters, The Drifters, The Temptations, Del Shannon… and then. I even landed a McDonald’s TV commercial! Eventually I landed the coveted bass gig for Australian pop star, Helen Reddy. She was a consummate professional and I learned a lot from her. It was the kind of job that could have been "the whole story" for a lot of musicians. For me it was the on-ramp.

I knew I needed to be part of something. A band. The posters on my teenage bedroom walls had been ALL bands. Not session players. That’s when I connected with Vixen. I stepped into a group that was about to become one of the defining acts of 80s hard rock — platinum records, arenas, the whole ride. It's still what most people know me for, and I understand why: it was loud, it was real, and it was mine. But it was never the end of the story, just the loudest chapter.

Along the way there was Contraband, sessions and side projects that let me stretch into different corners of what I could do — pop-rock, blues textures, heavier rock — because the whole time I was learning that versatility wasn't a compromise. It was the actual skill.

In 1991 I met Bam. He came out of the UK scene — The Dogs D'Amour, The Wildhearts — with his own decades of loud rooms and hard-won craft behind him. It was years before we fell in love … we started making music together almost immediately: Stinky Fingers (a band of 80’s rockers who were pissed off with their bands) … years later (around 1995) we became an ‘item’ and got serious. SubCool, three players building songs live off each other in a room, no safety net, same as the Virgin Islands all those years before. Then Bubble — three albums, a John Lennon Songwriting Award, years of writing and producing for other bands like The Ragged Hearts and The Midnight Devils. In 2018 we renamed ourselves Twin Flames Radio, because by then the name needed to say what was true: this isn't a solo act with a side project. It's two people who write and play as one thing.

Forty-plus years in, here's what I know: the chick who booked her own gig in the Virgin Islands never actually left. She's still the one making the call — whether that's saying yes to a new song with Bam, walking back into a studio, or deciding the music never stops just because the venue changed.

Let’s roll.