Straight from the pages of the new issue of RAGGED, enjoy an excerpt from our feature story with Dia Frampton here, and be sure to download your free PDF of the full issue here, for the rest of the article including additional photos from our shoot with The Voice beauty!
So without further ado, enjoy!
In addition to a major-label recording contract and a readymade fanbase, Dia Frampton got something else she never bargained for from NBC’s The Voice.
Following Frampton’s triumphant turn on the talent show, the 25-year-old who won America’s hearts and ears—and second place—has been launched into the pop music stratosphere, but not without some side effects. “I feel like I’ll never be able to look at chairs the same way again,” says Frampton on the eve of leaving on tour, where she will open for Voice mentor Blake Shelton. But what Frampton lost in the comfort of a certain piece of furniture, she gained in the experience of making Red, her solo debut featuring gorgeous vocals and collaborations with everyone from The White Stripes’ Meg White, Kid Cudi and members of Foster the People to another Meg—her own sister, with whom she has been playing music with for years.
Here, RAGGED talks to Dia about the surrealism and excitement of competing on The Voice, her songwriting methods on Red and what a girl’s to do while on tour.
What was the most surreal moment for you on The Voice?
Singing with Miranda Lambert on the second-to-last episode of the show. Everything was coming to a close, and spending the last performance on stage with her was really perfect for me because I am a big fan of hers. There was a moment when I looked at her—we were harmonizing together—and I was freaking out in my head.
We clued you in on the one-night-only showing of the Vans Warped Tour movie; “No Room For Rock Stars” back on March 1st and now, you can grab the film via iTunes.
With more than 300 hours of film shot during the 2010 tour, No Room For Rock Stars documents the true stories of modern era rock and roll from every possible angle. From the kids in the van playing parking lots to gain notice, to the veteran stage manager whose life was saved by the tour, to the musician who crosses over to mainstream success while on the road, No Room For Rock Stars is Cinema Vèritè story-telling at its finest. A historical retrospective or concert film this is not.
Not long ago, we introduced you to our new Girl on the Scene, Lenay Dunn, as your special source for all the behind-the-scenes action from photoshoots and music festivals throughout the year. Most recently, we took over Austin, TX as part of SXSW, and Lenay was there to get all the exclusive backstage highlights. Check out her personal blog and video below, and stay tuned for for the full interviews she scored there!
Straight from Lenay:
Aloha! Hi guys, I’m Lenay Dunn. I host ‘10 on Top’ on MTV, and I just became the new face of Macy’s American Rag! Which means I’ll be backstage all summer at festivals, bringing you all along for the ride through my blog & videos! So think of me as your backstage pass… ever since I was little I’ve carried a video camera around with me, and this last weekend at SXSW was no exception I just left Austin a few hours ago, so now I’m writing this on a plane going back home to Nashville. Here are some of my fav pics and highlights from my adventures!
It was a whirlwind of a trip to Austin, I got in 1am Saturday morning, and left today… Sunday. So much can happen in 35 hours though! (I just did that math; yay me!) Side note: last time I was in Austin my BFFs and I got matching star tattoos on our left feet. I still have that tattoo. Obviously. THIS time in Austin I got the chance to meet and interview some sweet artists, make new Twitter friends, and get some new music on my iPod… no new tattoos I hung out at FILTER Magazine’s Showdown at Cedar Street, presented by American Rag, all day Saturday, introducing artists on stage (Picture 7 in my collage below), dancing to their tunes, loving on caffeine to recover from my 1am flight, interviewing/hanging with bands backstage, and running my fingers over my new purse because it was shiny and felt cool. It was so fun!!
The first band I interviewed was Now, Now (Picture 11). They are from Minnesota like me so I was super excited to meet them! I love their latest music video (see it HERE). They told this crazy story about how they were in their touring van on a snowy mountainous cliff, and a semi-truck slid into them and was smashing them into a guard rail with the deadly drop-off on the other side! Then the semi driver got out and HE was mad at THEM. Which makes no sense dude.
Another fun band was Go Radio (Picture 10). We talked about their music video for one of my new favorite songs, “Goodnight Moon.” The song is seriously so cool, raw and heartfelt, but the music video is so random and funny, with two wedding parties tackling each other in a field with fake blood everywhere. It’s pretty great. Watch it HERE.
SXSW FASHION
Go Radio’s lead singer Jason’s earlobes have large holes in them because he said he used to have plugs but now he will probably have to get them sewn up! Plugs can be cool. Once I met a guy who could fit two cans of Red Bull in his ears as plugs. Of course, I made a VIDEO of it.
A lot of the bands with cool fashion said some of their favorite places to shop are thrift stores. They joked about it being because they are “poor musicians,” but also just because of the vintage and unique selection you can find there. When I asked Brad Oberhofer (Picture 2) where he got his clothes, he joked he wears his grandmothers’ blouses. Well I guess I thought he was joking. Maybe his grandma dresses like a rockstar, and he really does raid her closet.
Some other SXSW fashion trends I noticed were… 1. Anything green. (...it happened to be St. Patty’s day :p) 2. As many festival wrist-bands as you could cram on on hand… I think some peoples’ hands were turning purple from the trend (Picture 15. photo credit republicofaustin.com). 3. Red nail polish! (Girls admiring each others’ red nails in Picture 12.)
NIGHT LIFE
After a long, awesome day at SXSW, I went back to my hotel and took a long, awesome nap. My mom called and woke me up at 10:30pm or else I may have accidentally slept through the SXSW Night Life! Thanks for the wake up call, mom I ventured out to meet my friend Jazzy (@DJJazzy) at a Candlebox concert. I stopped to take a picture of the green street lasers lighting up the night clouds (Picture 3), and these random guys were like, “Take a picture of me too! Take a picture of me too!!” Hence Picture 13. lol. It was such a fun night! People were partying in the streets and every venue seemed to have live music. I heard Austin is the music capital of the world and now I know why. My night ended with some 2am spaghetti while dancing in my hotel room to my new fav tunes by Imagine Dragons who I heard for the first time at the festival, and who I am definitely jamming to right now a I write this.
We simply fell in love with Dev when we had her on the cover of RAGGED Issue #15 (free download here!), and we’re thrilled to feature her again in the form of a sweet contest opportunity for YOU! That’s right, we scored a sick pair of Skullcandy Headphones, autographed by Dev herself, and we’re giving them away to brighten the Spring outlook for one lucky reader! Get the details on entering below, and be sure to grab Dev‘s album, The Night the Sun Came Up, here on iTunes!
How do you enter, you ask? Easy! Just tell us your favorite Springtime record in the comments below!
Note: Please be sure to use your real e-mail address when commenting as that is how we will be contacting winners! Only admins will be able to access that information, and you will only be contacted if chosen as a winner. You have until Friday, April 13th to enter and can read the full, official rules here. Good luck!
As you know, we sat down with Circa Survive frontman, Anthony Green, earlier this year for a feature in the new issue of RAGGED. When his tour brought him back around to Los Angeles, we were thrilled to welcome him back to our Hollywood neighborhood for an intimate, acoustic performance of some of our favorite songs from his new record, Beautiful Things. Enjoy exclusive performances of “Moon Song” and “James’ Song” below, and be sure to download the new issue of RAGGED here for our full feature and photospread with Anthony!
I just left Austin a few hours ago, so now I’m writing this on a plane going back home to Nashville. Here are some of my fav pics and highlights from my adventures! 
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