Taking Life Seriously

“When I found out I was a D cup. That was the defining moment of my childhood.”

Terri-Lee is a siren. Not the loud wailing device fitted to emergency vehicles, but rather the mythical creature whose lilting singing lures innocent men into unforeseeable danger. Long bistre hair and matching Dior-framed eyes belies the singer-songwriter’s true nature, for behind the pretty face lies an uncanny wit and copious amounts of attitude.

“Back in Welkom I was a bit of a badass,” she asserts without a hint of sarcasm, “so when I got here I felt I needed to be true to myself so I could faithfully reconstruct myself.”

Perhaps her new silver Mini Cooper S is a manifestation of that desire. Terri doesn’t have a driver’s license, however that doesn’t stop her from driving around Grahamstown, Free State license plates proudly displayed (“People give Welkom a really bad rap, but it’s a solid place”) and mixtaped indie-folk blaring out the tinted windows. She’d probably be playing her own recordings if her own band, the Life of Riley, ever got the opportunity to record something.

At only 19, Terri has already had more musical experience than most artists a decade older than her. She’s an accomplished clarinetist who played in the Royal Orchestra for four years in her early teens, as well as picking up awards for Best Solo Clarinet at the High Steadford Speech and Music Festival.

“It was more like Nerd Festival,” she snidely remarks while waving her Peter Stuyvesant wildly in the air. “I also made it to the finals of that Yamaha Young Talent music thingy for self-composition with guitar, but that was all a show.”

Within two months of arriving at Rhodes University for her first year of Journalism and Media Studies, she had joined an indie-folk band, The Life of Riley, a band influenced by, as she claims, “chain-smoking, Laurika Rauch and Sufjan Stevens.”

“It’s the most honest musical thing I’ve ever done,” explaining with smoke drifting out with every word, “I feel really relaxed when we play and fuck around and write music.”

Despite practicing for months, their first show only came at the beginning of August this year, opening for local band 10 Points for the Dismount, and Port Elizabeth post-hardcore outfit Sick Day September. The half-an-hour set was played in front of a crowd of sixty.

“That first gig at the Old Gaol was such a moment for me. It was surreal for people to be listening and actually enjoying it.” Her incredulousness was shared by her bandmates, but for Terri, it meant a whole lot more than the crowds to her.

“I was worried that I would blend in too much here,” she says while readjusting her glasses, “but then I was singing live in front of a lot of people and being recognised in the street. I realised I was standing out a bit.”

Terri, like any first year, had real problems with the new balance of between university work and life and the difficulties of reasserting identity and image. (She feels she’s “a fat girl.”) She acknowledges, however, that it really hasn’t been so horrible in hindsight.

“Occasionally in life there are things that just pan out for you regardless, so knowing that, I probably shouldn’t have stressed out so much.” She extinguishes her cigarette, and pulls another Stuyvesant out of the box, lights it efficiently, and takes a long drag.

Surely then, it can’t only be cigarettes and music that take the stress away?

“No, it’s also the beer. I love alcohol so much. I just look at a tall glass of yeasty lovely and I just cry for joy a little each time.”

A pause. A chuckle. A drag.

“Wanna head down to Rat?”

(Terri's blog is at http://5inblindsight.blogspot.com)