Stereo RV: Bringing the beatbox to TEDxSalem

For six years, Stereo RV has been a fix­ture on the Port­land music scene, but lead singer Myra Glea­son and vocal per­cus­sion­ist and hus­band Gabe Glea­son have been per­form­ing for even longer togeth­er, ever since their paths crossed on the stage at “Port­land Teen Idol.”

The duo, which hails from Keiz­er and Port­land, respec­tive­ly, recent­ly released their debut EP, “Human,” and will be per­form­ing live at our TEDx Salem event. We recent­ly caught up with Myra who spoke to us about the group, their inspi­ra­tions and their hopes for their TEDxSalem appear­ance.

TEDxSalem: Talk a lit­tle bit about the name — You both chose to live in an RV for some years. What was that expe­ri­ence like?

Myra Glea­son: Well, up until last Decem­ber, we were liv­ing in an RV. The expe­ri­ence… [laughs]

We bought the RV three years ago, so that we could down­size our life, that we would have more mon­ey avail­able for oppor­tu­ni­ty should it come with music, because we were liv­ing in Port­land at the time and Port­land it was just so expen­sive. So the RV was real­ly the best way that we could go to save funds and pur­sue music.

So that’s evi­dent­ly where our name came from… Stereo is dual, you have your left and your right, and we’re mar­ried, so we thought that fit in as a duo, and then the RV, because that’s where we lived for three years, and that’s where all the songs on our “Human” EP were cre­at­ed. But right now we are not liv­ing in the RV. I get to live in a fine town­house with my moth­er. So…

TxS: Where’s the best place to camp out? 

Myra: Uh, gosh, somebody’s dri­ve­way? [laughs] We nev­er got to take her camp­ing, to be hon­est with you, because we lived in her, and so she was just always stuck on a pad in one of the Port­land parks, so… We met a lot of inter­est­ing peo­ple, though.

TxS: Now you say “her…” Does this RV have a name?

Myra: Yeah, her name’s Beat­rice. She’s a beast, that’s why her name is Beat­rice.

TxS: Talk a lit­tle about how your part­ner­ship with Gabe formed. On your web site it says you met at a singing com­pe­ti­tion.

Myra: I was a spe­cial guest per­former that sang dur­ing the judges’ delib­er­a­tion, and Gabe was also a spe­cial per­former that did some beat­box­ing with anoth­er artist. I saw the beat­box­ing and the oth­er per­son play­ing, so it was quite cool cause I’d nev­er seen any­thing like that, and I want­ed to bring Gabe in for beat­box­ing on one of my songs, which we were solo artists at the time, so I had Gabe come in, and we put some beat­box­ing down on some of the songs I was doing at the time, and that led to him giv­ing me gui­tar lessons, and us start­ing to write togeth­er, and then we did Salem’s Got Tal­ent back in 2011, and we got fourth place on that, and so that was the first take that we did as a duo, to see if we had the chem­istry that it need­ed to be on stage.

Could we make this as a duo, could we do this as a work­ing rela­tion­ship? And from there we just liked each oth­er and here we are, mar­ried. [Laughs]

TxS: So it sounds like he won you over with his beat­box­ing.

Myra: Yeah, that was the start of it, and he was real­ly, real­ly fun­ny with it, so humor and beat­box­ing got me.

TxS: …must be some beat­box­ing.

Myra: [Laughs] Yeah.

TxS: For your song, “Human,” you say that a lot of your inspi­ra­tion comes from your time spent work­ing with fos­ter chil­dren. Tell us about that expe­ri­ence and how it informs the song.

Myra: For me, we build this rela­tion­ship, and at first, there’s noth­ing there. It’s like, “Okay, here’s anoth­er adult that’s forced to come and work with me, because my case work­er says so, or because I’m in this pro­gram,” and the foun­da­tion for any type of change is trust, and rela­tion­ship build­ing. Once I start work­ing with these indi­vid­u­als, you start to find com­mon­al­i­ties with them with­in our rela­tion­ship, and start to learn about trust. And in that trust they told me their sto­ry.

They’ve cried in my car, they’ve explained to me what real­ly affects them and a lot of it, is… One girl just broke down cry­ing, because she want­ed to be loved, and she doesn’t care who it’s by, as long as some­body loves her. I had anoth­er gal who self-harmed, and so she has all of these scars on her arms, and to get her to not wear a long-sleeved shirt in 90-degree weath­er was a big vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty for her to be exposed, to have those real­is­tic scars exposed, and the emo­tion­al ones. So, the first line of “Human” is “I’ve got scars / That show me just where my past has been.” It’s from a con­stant three years of telling her those scars don’t define you, and you don’t have to be afraid of them any­more. Because she had changed so much from who she was. So a lot of it what makes us human?

TxS: Have any of them heard your music? What have they said?

Myra: They have, actu­al­ly, and the first com­ment that I got was, “Myra, did you write this for me?” Every sin­gle youth that I have come in con­tact with, they’ve either asked to hear it, want to hear it, they actu­al­ly talk about the songs that I wrote, and it inspired a lot of them to actu­al­ly start writ­ing, and devel­op that cre­ative, musi­cal side of them. And a lot of them start with rap songs, but it’s been a real great plea­sure to watch how music is work­ing with­in fos­ter care. It’s real­ly cool, it’s real­ly cool to be able to expe­ri­ence that with them, and say, “Yes I did write that for you guys, so you guys could have a voice.” And that encour­ages them to say, “What else is in my voice?”

TxS: Head­ing into our new TEDxSalem event, how do you think Stereo RV fits with the theme, “Through the Look­ing Glass?”

Myra: Our music is based off sto­ries, of course, look­ing through the micro­scope of each per­son as an indi­vid­ual human, and what makes them their own indi­vid­ual per­son, and we tend to judge peo­ple by stereo­types or by assump­tions, or by their cir­cum­stances, and being able to find the com­mon­al­i­ties with­in us all. It’s some­thing our music is able to achieve in the sense of through the look­ing glass, through the eyes of some­body else.

TxS: What about your songs do you think will make them res­onate with our audi­ence?

Myra: I think in some way, we’ve all been at that point, where we’ve said, “well, gosh, I’m human. Stop beat­ing me up for mis­takes that I’ve made…” I think our songs will res­onate with the TED audi­ence because they’re hon­est, and trans­par­ent, and they’re melod­i­cal­ly made in a way that can bring inspi­ra­tion or just any­thing pos­i­tive to them as peo­ple who are in our com­mu­ni­ty com­ing to these events to be inspired, to learn some­thing.

TxS: Any­thing else the TEDx Salem audi­ence should know?

Myra: Well, I think we’re going to… [REDACTED: Hmmm, curi­ous? Join us at TEDxSalem “Through the Look­ing Glass” on Jan. 6 and find out.]

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