By: Adam Grant

Click here to listen to Backstabber

Click here to listen to Drown

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 Sometimes a sign from above is what it takes for a band to get off on the right foot – or at least a sign gleaming from a Church property.  Now, this isn’t a story you’d often associate with a bad-ass metal band, but when attempting to tie down a name for this estrogen-based act, lead guitarist Cris stumbled upon the words “scarlet” and “sins” upon one of those billboards out front of a Holy house.  So after threats of naming the quartet Immortalica, and not being able to get the two aforementioned words out of her head, Scarlet Sins was subsequently born.

 Together with fellow founding member Karli (drums) for about 3 years now, it took the duo until April 2005 for them to track down blonde-bombshell vocalist Sylvia through an online advertisement.  Shortly thereafter, the three began writing some tunes, before eventually adding the final piece of the puzzle in July 2006 when Tanya came into the fold to permanently replace the group’s original bassist, Yvonne.

 However, throughout these early member shifts, Scarlet Sins managed to release a 2006 EP called Reborn, and recently finished laying down the tracks for a brand new, yet to be titled album that SS had the pleasure of recording with renowned producer Rich Chycki, who has worked with Aerosmith, Mick Jagger, and Rush – just to name a few.

“At first we were very intimidated,” says Tanya about the early stages of sharing a studio with Chycki.  “Rich came in for a rehearsal and we were all really nervous to play for him, but he said right away that he wanted to work with us and just getting to know him better, we felt totally at ease with him – that’s exactly how we felt in the studio with him too.

“The studio by nature can really be a stressful kind of time, but he made everything so much easier for everybody.”

 With the heavily metal/hard rock influenced album pretty well ready to go, Scarlet Sins’ work is seemingly just beginning.  The leather draped ladies intend on shopping their CD around to various record labels in order to see how much interest they can attract.  While there are no guarantees as to what will happen with that process, one thing is going to happen for sure – touring, and lots of it.

 After some local gigs around the greater Toronto region, SS will be heading over to Europe in May 2007 for shows in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, before coming back to potentially cover as much North American ground as possible.  Not only will this global trekking go toward getting Scarlet Sins some more name recognition, but it’ll also show the boys and girls in the audiences that women can rock just as hard as those with the Y chromosome intact.

“I think the reason females don’t play metal is because they can’t,” laughs Cris.  “It’s a genre of music that’s naturally more aggressive and testosterone based, and girls gravitate towards other types of music.

“There are some tomboys out there like us that like to wear skirts, but like heavy music too,” she continues.  “I think more and more girls are getting into it because it’s more acceptable to not stick to the society norms like ‘girls have to be gentle’ and ‘guys are the aggressors.’  It’s all mixed now – I’ve never seen this many women in metal before.”

For more information on Scarlet Sins, please visit www.scarletsinsonline.com