We recently connected with Chrissy Ras and have shared our conversation below.

Chrissy, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I have been a musician since I was 6 years old, classically trained on the piano. After college, I drifted away from playing music and focused more on dancing through my college years. I worked for Disney for several years and had a blast connecting with so many talented artists while I was there.

Once I started a family and a career in real estate development, my music and dance took a back seat while I focused on raising my children and my work. When my dad passed away, it jolted me out of my musical hibernation, and led me back to music, and the joy it brings me. I consider it the last gift my dad gave me.

I reconnected with some dance friends from Disney and told some of them about a crazy idea I had to start an all girl band. I wasn’t interested in playing the piano, though, and wanted to try learning the drums. A couple of the girls were interested in the concept, and we were on our way!
I found a drum teacher and started the task of learning a new instrument as I was putting the players together. I knew we had something special when the bookings started rolling in much faster than anyone had expected. It seems that people thought it was interesting to see all women on stage!

Chrissy, 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?

I founded a female owned entertainment company, CR Music Service. There are two major brands that we have. The first is Pulp Vixen – Female Fueled Music. At this time, our services include: Live music for corporate, private and public events

Themed tribute style shows to artists like Miley Cyrus, Van Halen and The Go-Go’s and decades like the 80’s, 90’s, and 00’s

DJ and MC services

Sound system and lighting rental for our live music shows

Musical lineups range from 2-8 piece band.
Our private and corporate event set lists can be customized

The second arm of our company is CR Music School. We offer private lessons in guitar, piano, bass guitar, drums, vocals, ukulele and we have a band development program to help young musicians connect with each other.

The underlying mission of our company is to help serve females in the music industry. We realized quickly when we started our all female band almost 15 years ago, that the music industry can be tricky to navigate for women. Specifically, finding stage opportunities for an all female band, and dealing with ageism, sexism, from both male and females in the industry, impacted finding reliable work and higher pay scales for our business and our musicians. As music teachers and school owners, our goals are to help young music students find confidence, gain skills, and continue their journey into the ranks of working musician. From a teaching perspective, We’ve witnessed an alarming rate of female students quitting music as they got older, while their male counterparts continued on. We weren’t sure why, but knew we wanted to help them continue their journey with music.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

We have a reputation for being the hardest working musicians in the business! We have been playing over 140 shows a year for almost a decade, many of those shows running our own sound.

We are known for our vibe-changing, positive energy that invites audiences to put their guard down and enjoy the moment with us. We care about the people we work with, and it shows in our performance.

Hard work and positive vibes are in demand and our clients know what they can expect from a Pulp Vixen produced show. Our client roster includes Disney, the LA Zoo, Amazon, the ABA, the City of Los Angeles, City of Ontario and many Southern California and Las Vegas area casinos. All of these top businesses know they can trust their customers with us
The entertainment business is a referral business at the heart of it. Musicians refer each other for bands. I pay my musicians well and respect their talent, so there are many talented female musicians that are interested in working with us.
Bands refer each other for venues to play for. We’ve met a lot of great bands over the years and have great working relationships with them. We refer each other business a lot! Venues partner with bands that bring customers, are reliable, and treat their venue with respect.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

The pandemic of 2020 caused us all to pause and learn the importance of the Pivot Party! Lol. If I learned anything, it was to embrace change, which allowed me to benefit from the many gifts I received during the lockdown. In mid-March 2020, every single one of my contracts cancelled, and the band was in crisis We quickly decided to live stream shows from home, effectively busking for work. We streamed from outdoors and neighbors would come set up chairs at safe distances to enjoy the music. We ended up gaining many fans and followers outside of our local area, booked live stream concerts, wrote original music, sold virtual singing telegrams, and stayed connected online, which everybody needed at that time.

The pandemic is when CR Music School took a big step with our online teaching platform. We went 100% online and temporarily suspended our in-person lesson program. We gained technology as a tool to grow our business and we connected with many students outside our typical area of influence. When we opened up in-person lessons again, we created protocols to enhance safety and keep everyone healthy. It was a real opportunity for growth and a valuable learning experience.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pulpvixenband.com & http://www.crmusicschool.com/
• Instagram: pulpvixenband
• Tiktok: Pulpvixenrocks
• Youtube: Pulpvixenband

Image Credits
IG@with_theband