We recently connected with Ariel Bellvalaire and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Ariel , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I knew I wanted to be an artist the second the song “Complicated” by Avril Lavigne came on the radio while I was on the balance beam in Gymnastics summer camp. Something about the song got my attention and I knew I was put on this earth to be an artist. I loved to sing and at 10 years old was the singer in a young band put together by Summit Studios, the local music studio where I took voice lessons. Shortly after performing a few shows as the singer, we needed a guitarist in the band and I had already began dabbling on electric guitar and took the position of lead singer and guitarist. While on myspace (yup myspace haha!) I had a random desire to hear metal music and the only artist I could think of was Ozzy Osbourne so I put on his song Crazy Train and my jaw dropped when I heard the opening guitar riff and solo. I HAD TO LEARN HOW TO PLAY THAT! So I did and brought it to my band to learn. The first time we played live and I played the solo on guitar the audience was silent and I was terrified that I had done something wrong. Then they started screaming OMG A LITTLE GIRL PLAYED THAT GUITAR SOLO! From that moment on, I was no longer a singer in a young band, I was the female lead electric guitarist and performer. I was hooked and knew I was meant for stage. There was no turning back!
Ariel , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Hi I’m Ariel Bellvalaire and I’m a lead electric guitarist, singer, performer and aerial gymnast. I love to combine my love for singing and guitar playing with my love of gymnastics and performing to put on a dynamic high energy stage performance with over the top tricks. I am so proud to releasing new original music soon that will really showcase power pop vocals with heavy rock guitar and of course over the top visuals and entertaining live performances.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
When I was 15 years old, I started posting videos of myself playing iconic guitar solos not knowing that I was one of the first teenage female guitarists to post to youtube. I had one video go viral and was literally attacked with hundreds of horrible comments daily telling me that women don’t play guitar ect. but my love for music kept me going. No matter what anyone said, I was going to still play, perform and get better at my craft. Even though I was a beginner at lead guitar and had a lot of resistance to my videos at first I kept going and was able to build a social media following. My biggest piece of advice is to just do it and post. There’s always the “what if it’s not good enough” thought when it comes to posting videos but it may never be good enough in our eyes and just needs to get out into the world so you can get more experience and learn! There’s no better way to learn and grow than to dive in headfirst and just do it.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
For me, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is seeing the audience react to my performances on stage and telling me after that they are inspired to either perform or pick up a guitar. I do my absolute best to give 100% to every live performance I give and love watching the audience rock out with me and appreciate the hard work that has been put into the performance. It’s the most incredible feeling seeing art, performance and passion bring people together in such a positive way and it’s the most rewarding thing being able to meet incredible people through it!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.arielbellvalaire.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/arielbellvalaire
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/arielbellvalaire
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/arielbellvalaire
Image Credits
Knocking Bird Creative and Kelli Hayden