Cristal Snow
Drag artist Cristal Snow is a Finnish dance and electro singer. He is mainly known from his singles cristal clear, pump it up, scarred and can't save me which was one of the candidates to represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. His first studio album, the prophecy, was released in March 2008.
Snow's 2nd studio album, god you made me wicked, was released in May 2010. Singles released from the sophomore album are turn me up already in May 2009, killing me in April 2010 and wicked in May 2010, which is a collaboration with Chisu. Surrender serves as the 4th single and Surrender Wicked Remixed EP was released in October.
Cristal first took to the stage at the age of 10 when his hometown community theatre director spotted him on the street and asked him to join his latest production, a parody of the famous 80's primetime soap "DALLAS". He was to play J.R. and Sue Ellen's son John Ross, the role calling for John Ross to be caught secretly playing with Sue Ellen's make up. "That was it: I was doomed to play with make up all my life. If I had only known."
Ever since then he wanted nothing more than to become an actor. His 7th grade Finnish teacher noticed his skill for imaginative storytelling and motivated him to write short stories. "I always loved writing but I was a poor speller, so my teachers prior to the 7th grade weren't really supportive. They just looked at my twenty-five page stories lacking commas and periods as underpaid overtime work."
At the age of 20 he moved to New York City and enrolled in the theatre program at City College of New York. Staying focused on his writing, he won the Jacob A. Weisner Playwright Award two years in a row with his plays Death in Waiting and Valium. While in school Cristal attended several poetry workshops with poet Krysia Jopek, inspiring him to look into her teenage dream of writing songs.
After a few years in New York, he met party promoters Scott Hall and Wil Fisher from Snapdragon Productions who inspired Cristal to do Drag. "I began doing Drag as an extension of my acting. It's a curse to want to be the center of attention all the time, and when you do drag, you get that attention. So I got up on stage a few times to imitate some half-witted pop star or I lip-synched to a dead torch song artist. It just wasn't my thing but when I met Richard, it all just started falling into place."
After years of being friends with fellow NYC based singer/songwriter Richard Ogawa and after a cabaret show they wrote and performed together, Cristal finally dared to suggest working together on 12 songs he had written over the course of ten years. Richard was on the road at the time, but having fallen in love with the lyrics, he began composing the songs in hotel rooms on his guitar. Within a matter of months all 12 songs were completed on piano or guitar. "Distance has never been an issue with us. Here's one long distance relationship that actually works."
In 2002 Cristal met opera singer Chris Trakas, and began taking voice lessons. Chris and Cristal ended up writing two songs together. And just before things started looking good, Cristal had to return to Finland. "I was devastated because I had to leave New York in a state where I was really unsure of my music. What Richard and Chris had done was amazing but I was missing a sound. My demo was bare bone at this point, just me singing with a guitar or piano. I'm no Tori Amos, so there was no way I was gonna get away with it."
Coming back to Finland Cristal kept pressing on. He prepared a press kit, shot a self produced music video with his Dad and friends, and made anyone who was interested listen to his demo. "It wasn't enough. I knew that. I performed anywhere and to anyone who cared to listen."
Then New Years Eve 2003 Cristal booked a private party gig in Helsinki. Besides his 20 minute set being a hit with the crowd, he had the chance to hear Overflow-110 performing. "The sound I heard was really angry and hard and I loved it. I knew within 20 seconds into the set that I wanted that guy to do work on my demo, so I just emailed him to say I loved his stuff. Heikki Ritola, who answered, knew right away that I was ass kissing him into helping me with my demo."
And so he did. Cristal has combined her efforts with Richard Ogawa, Chris Trakas and with Heikki Ritola to polish and finish the demo entitled Glamour and Grit. “Making the demo is a dream come true. The days we work on music are honestly the best. The only thing is, that I am quite inpatient. Heikki on in the other hand has all the patience. I do believe in the long run it will pay off. I really want a record deal.”
2005 was a busy year due to several tv-projects being developed. “Yeah, well…Some of them are my own ideas and well, people are interested… I cannot really talk about them. We’ll see what happenes in 2006,” Cristal smirks.
November 2005 Cristal went back to his lip-synching roots and took part in Miss Drag Queen 2006 competition. He won. “When they called out my name, I just bursted in tears. Everyone thought it was hysterically funny. Little did they know that I was genuinly surprised and beyond happy. I had felt like the dark horse of the race. It was surreal to win. I felt like I was in an 80’s teen movie. I kept looking up if I was gonna be soaked in a bucket of cows blood.”
Whatever the thing is in the coming year, Cristal is ready to fight for it “I want a revolution in pop culture. I have worked all my life for something to happen. It is not only to see my name in the papers like It was when I was a snotty little teen. I have opinions and stories to share and… yeah..well.. I do wanna see my name in the papers. It looks so pretty in in print, I just wish they’d only spell my name right. There is no Y in Cristal, only an I.”
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