'A Fine Frenzy' creates magic with music

by Hilary McNamara, entertainment editor

Follow the music down the rabbit hole to a world of sailors, lovers and trout.

Behind the music is A Fine Frenzy, and behind the name is Allison Sudol.

She grew up in Los Angeles with the Hollywood influence making a good impact on her.

“Growing up there was great, because I don’t have any illusions about it, and I know what it can do to people,” Sudol told the Plainsman Press during a recent interview. “I never wanted it to change me. I saw it change so many people.”

Sudol said that some of what she read as a child inspires her music.

“The whole “Alice in Wonderland” story by Lewis Carole really inspired me growing up, and so did basically anything Charles Dickens wrote, along with the Narnia series and the Wrinkle in Time series,” Sudol said. “When I was 9, those were all books that really influenced me. They took me away to a more beautiful, exotic place than the world I lived in.”

She graduated from high school at the age of 16. Because she was so young when she began her music career, Sudol said that she “got to see the world at a younger age than most people did, adding, “it definitely changed my life.”

Though her band name may be “A Fine Frenzy,” her goals are all in order. Sudol says with confidence that she wants to go “up.”

“Every time we play, the reactions are better and better, and more people know who we are,” Sudol says. “It’s just really exciting, really just growing and continuously moving up in the world as far as reaching more and more people.”

Though the fame has not quite hit her yet, Sudol says that sometimes people do not recognize her. But when they do, it is “overwhelming and weird at times when people are taking pictures of me doing normal things. I haven’t gotten used to that. I don’t know how you really get used to that. But for the most part it’s doing what I have always done, playing music, but for the bigger crowds.”

Sudol said that her family is also taking the fame in stride. Her grandparents have gone to seen her play a couple of times, and her mom, step dad and father are all really proud and supportive of her.

Sudol is currently touring and has been traveling all over the country.

“I always wanted to travel by making music,” Sudol says. “ That was what I was waiting for, and it’s so much better because I know I am there for a reason.”

Sudol has been performing in Texas before heading to Louisiana and then up the East Coast.

“It’s really all about making music,” Sudol says.  “Whenever I feel weird or overwhelmed, or I don’t know what’s going on, I try to find a piano or I am teaching myself guitar. Making music completely grounds me again.”

Sudol says she just did not decide to start writing music. It helped fill a void in her life.

“There was something that music gave to me that I was kind of missing in my life,” Sudol explains. “I was very shy and very lonely for most of my childhood. When I started making music, I felt I could really truly be myself and not have to hide. It was a place I belonged.”

It seems to be a good place for her. Sudol’s first CD titled “One Cell in the Sea,” is a haunting, but personal, CD about life, heartache and everything in between.

Sudol is not only a talented singer, but she is also an amazing piano player.

”I love the mood that a single piano can put you in,” Sudol says. “It has such power and beauty.”

One of Sudol’s favorite places to play is in Montreal, Canada.

“The audience was so incredibly receptive and warm and gave us a standing ovation,” Sudol says.” It was crazy.”

Sudol also has pursued a little acting, appearing on the hit TV show “CSI: NY.”

She is already planning the next CD, and a European tour is in the making. Sudol says she is never not thinking of a song.

“I don’t know what is ever really going to inspire a song, which is so exciting,” Sudol says. “It keeps me on my toes. There’s always lyrics in my head, and when they come together, it makes me feel alive.”