Rock Star Mommy
By VALERIE NUTT
news@williamsonherald.com
At the age of 42, wife, mom and full-time employee Judy Davids did what most people only dream of: She became a rock star. In 2008, after spending six years as guitarist for Detroit, Mich.-based mom band The Mydols, she became an author.
Now, in promotion of her memoir, “Rock Star Mommy – My Life as a Rocker Mom,” she’s hitting the country on a rock ‘n’ roll book tour, promoting the rights of moms who rock every where.
Davids is bringing her unique, inspirational story, and words of wisdom to super moms who want to learn how to balance band practice with soccer practice, to a special author talk at the Williamson County Library in Franklin on May 10.
White hot inspiration
“When I was 42 I was the editor of my sons’ school PTA newsletter,” Davids said, explaining her introduction to writing for the public, and her inspiration to rock. “One of the kids in my son Dylan’s class, her uncle is Jack White of the White Strips. He came to my son’s school to talk to the kids.
“Everyone in the room wanted to be a rock star by the time he was done,” she said laughing, “including me. The very next day I went and signed up for guitar lessons.”
After a few months of sneaking off during her lunch break at work to learn how to work the strings, Davids started rounding up other Detroit moms. It was time, she decided, to rock.
“I knew right from the start I wanted it to be an all-mom band,” Davids said.
By the end of the summer Davids was joined by Kara Rasmussen, Paige Gilbert and Pat McGough, fellow moms and friends, none of whom had any more experience at playing instruments than Davids, to form The Mydols.
Walking the talk
By the end of the year the band had a name, a logo, a Web site, T-shirts, and some of its members had even taken a few lessons, but they weren’t any closer to being a band.
“Talking about it was easier than doing it,” Davids said. “It’s like that saying, ‘Everybody wants to be a champion but not everyone wants to do the work to be a champion.’”
They didn’t let a little thing like experience hold them back. Three months after practice started they hit the stage for a three-song set at The End of the Park, to a packed house of friends and fellow moms.
“When you’re in your 40s your friends are so supportive,” Davids said. “When we played our first show it was packed. What we lacked in talent we made up in passion. We were different.”
The band was a hit and practice became a priority, and another lesson Davids relates in her book occurred when the band’s children, all 10 of them, learned that practice meant their moms were busy.
“It was hard to find time to practice with the kids around,” Davids said. “They quickly learned that once we started practicing we couldn’t hear them.”
Despite the fact that one of their kitchen drawers full of silverware found its way down the toilet, the moms were undeterred. They kept playing, experiencing all the same pre-show jitters and financial problems of bands half their age, with their husbands and kids in tow.
“Everybody had to get jobs to afford being in a band,” Davids said. “I don’t think we ever really did it for the money.”
The band kept playing their instruments, and developed a simple, lively, punk sound, one that Davids calls “The Ramones meets The Shangri-Las,” singing original songs written by lead singer Rasmussen’s husband about the roller derby, hosting Super Bowl parties, spending their husbands’ pay checks, and being hot mamas.
Full steam ahead
“Once the local press got a hold of us, it was an avalanche,” Davids said. “Before we knew it we were in The Wall Street Journal.”
In the following deluge of radio spots, shows, and band battles, go-go boot bedecked Davids said she and her fellow moms had to take a step back and keep it all in perspective.
“We never forgot that mom-band is two words, and that mom is the first,” she said. “We didn’t want to be the mom band that leaves their kids.”
Rock’n’roll read
April Davids’ first book is a rock memoir of her career, as a mom, wife, working at an environmental consulting firm, and spearheading her mommy-rock brainchild, The Mydols.
“I’m so grateful that they took a chance on me,” Davids said of her publisher. “At first I was thinking of using a ghost writer, but my husband asked me why. I told him I didn’t know how to write, and he said, ‘Well you didn’t know how to play guitar either.’
“He totally convinced me,” she said. “I’m glad that I did write it myself.”
Now her bright blue and pink book can be found on bookshelves in the music section, rubbing shoulders with what Davids calls “some weirdo musicians.”
“I wanted to do it to say that I did it, and to tell the story,” Davids said. “It was my way of making sense of what happened. I’m no good at scrapbooking. My bloody office is a mess.”
The Mydols are still together, still playing shows and helping plan MamapaZOOza: Moms Gone Wild, which is part of Mamapalooza, but these days Davids is on the road with her brand new book, talking to whoever will listen to her, about living your dreams, and not letting a little thing like age hold you back.
“I’ve talked to everybody from fifth-grade elementary students to senior citizens,” she said. “I believe everybody has a book in them.
“It takes more guts than talent,” she said. “I’m not afraid to fail.”
Davids’ sister, Kim Hoover, lives in Franklin. The Rock Star Mommy lives in Royal Oaks, Mich., with her husband, John, and sons, Dylan and Willie, both of whom play multiple instruments.
Posted on: 5/1/2008
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