Cobra Ramone was a teenager when she came to the conclusion that school just wasn’t for her.
“I never really did well in school,” she said. “I was never really a great student.”
For the New Jersey native it was all about becoming a musician.
“I don’t think I’ve had any other aspirations,” she said. “It’s just been music.”
So as soon as her 16th birthday passed, she had made up her mind.
“I dropped out of high school … just to make this my career,” she said.
Since then, Ramone has been working to establish herself in the Canadian rock scene.
“It has never been a question to me. This is what I was going to do,” she said.
On Friday (March 27) Ramone will be performing with her band at the Cambie.
“This is what I live for,” she said. “I am really really stoked.”
Ramone was born in Asbury Park, N.J. and moved to Alberta at a very young age.
After dropping out of high school, Ramone lived in Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto and immersed herself in the cities’ music scenes.
By 2007, Ramone was living in the Leslieville area of Toronto, where she began attending open mics, playing at various venues and ventured into the rock genre.
“I kind of started out in Toronto with this and wrote a rock record, which was my first foray into rock,” she said. “It was a bit of a learning curve for me. Just trying to get into that world.”
Ramone says being in Toronto taught her the importance of separating herself from the rest of the pack.
“I think it is really important to stand out and Toronto really helped with that because you’re always fighting tooth and nail to be noticed,” she said.
In 2009 Ramone released her first record, The Flood in 2009 and her second record, a self-titled EP in 2012. The latter included the song, Guns Blazing, which was featured in the movie All the Wrong Reasons, which starred Cory Monteith.
Ramone says that when it comes to writing music she pictures movie scenes.
“For every song I write I see a film in my head almost,” she said. “There is always a vision in my head and a film scene when I am writing.”
Last month Cobra Ramone released her newest EP, Bang Bang, which was recorded at Greenhouse Studios in Vancouver and features guitarist Trevor Snakedust and drummer Pat Steward.
“There is some straight up rock and roll and there is some stuff that is more deep and meaningful for me,” Ramone said.
When it comes to being a female in the rock genre, Ramone says it has its advantages and disadvantages.
“I think people take you a little bit less seriously,” she said. “I often hear the term ‘female-fronted,’ which kind of bothers me because why can’t it just be a band? But in a way it kind of helps because most of the shows we play, I am the only female and so I stand out a lot more that way.”
Being the female in a three-person rock band, Ramone says she has been treated differently and has had countless people assume that she is just the girlfriend to one of her bandmates.
“Sometimes the sound guys treat you differently,” she said. “But what I love about that is being underestimated because I can show them how big my balls are when I get on stage.”
Although Ramone has been treated differently by males in the industry, she hasn’t strayed away from the “dirty sexy rock” image.
“We don’t really shy away from the sexiness,” she said. “I had strippers in my last video and I am fine with that. That is part of what we do and that is what I love about rock. There is that kind of forbidden stuff involved.”
Cobra Ramone performs at the Cambie on March 27 at 10 p.m. Tickets are $10. For more information, visit www.cobraramone.com.
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