BY JULIA CIRIGNANO

Consisting of Dorian Maverick, Tanya Venom, Tia Mayhem, and Kat Dukeshire, Flight of Fire brought 110 percent to their performance at the “Opening Act Contest” which was hosted at the Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River Mass., on Sept. 8th. Every crazy thing they could think of doing on a stage, they did — and they did it extremely well.

Although there were many other talented acts, they were the clear winners of the contest before it was even announced. As a result, they will get to open for Limelight Magazine’s 10^th Anniversary Bash with Lita Ford at the Narrows Center on Nov. 1, 2016. This show is almost sold out. Remaining tickets can be purchased HERE.

In typical rock ‘n roll clothes, Flight of Fire entered the stage. The lights were dim, but the four women on stage had twinkles in their eyes. Only they knew what’s in store and it was truly something to be excited about.

Without any warning, lead singer Maverick spontaneously combusted into an acapella/screamo intro to their first song, “Rockstar Life.” Within seconds, Venom (lead guitar), Mayhem (bass) and Dukeshire (drums) joined into the chaos. During their nearly fifteen minutes on stage, the band unleashed every last drop of angst and emotion boiling within them — resulting in the pure eruption of everything the audience expected them to be and more.

Flight of Fire took the audience through hell and back. There wasn’t one moment where I was bored, since they put their all into every note they played. The band played as one organism — feeling each beat from their feet to their fingertips. With ear to ear smiles, each band member showed their true passion and love for what they were doing.

With bright red hair and empowering confidence, Maverick rocked the stage with charisma and attitude. She showed both strength and vulnerability. After rocking out during their first song, the band surprised the audience by toning it down. They played one acoustic song where all four girls laid out their emotions and love for folk music.

Venom and Mayhem also rocked the stage with an undeniable connection to both the music and each other. This was the result of being identical twins. Rocking different instruments and hair colors, their special bond was still evident, especially when they suddenly dropped their instruments and jumped onto the drum set together. Holding hands, and each holding one drum stick, the twins played the last half of “My Last Gamble” playing twin drums. During this, Dukeshire left the kit and casually picked up the bass and Maverick picked up the guitar, as it’s totally normal for rock bands to completely switch instruments during a song.

Flight of Fire left The Narrows stage a pile of ashes, frankly, making it difficult for the band’s playing after them.

As a judge for the contest and also a newfound Flight of Fire fan myself, I was given the opportunity to sit down with Maverick and Mayhem to talk about the contest, their thoughts about their careers, and their plans for the future.

“That was amazing,” said Maverick about winning the contest. “There were some really good musicians there that night and it was an honor to be a part of it at all. Then winning was just totally amazing.”

Flight of Fire shocked their audience at The Narrows with their performance and are also known for many other excellent shows. Maverick talked about the twin drumming they performed.

“The twin drumming was actually my idea,” she said. “The twins do so many amazing things together all the time. They seem to read each other’s minds basically and in practices they do this crazy stuff and I’m like ‘wow, that could be something really cool on stage’.”

“So we thought of doing the twin drumming and it was so easy for them. It was just ridiculous,” she continued. “We decided to work it into ‘My Last Gamble’ and have Kat take the bass there and do the whole switch off which is really fun for people to watch. We always get a good response.”

Mayhem talked about playing with her twin Tanya and the special bond they have.

“I love it honestly, playing with my sister,” she said. “We have such a unique bond. Like, not everyone is close to their siblings, but Tanya and I have always been close. We grew up together, we did almost everything together. Pretty much everything we could do together, we did.”

Mayhem goes on to explain that while their bond is exceptional in their day-to-day lives, they have also managed to use this connection to their advantage on stage.

“We don’t have that intense competition, we just have like, we build each other up and we work together,” she said. “I play bass, she plays guitar, and so we’re assisting each other in that way and playing off each other. It’s really fun. And yeah, we have this kind of connection. I just feel like we always know what each other’s kind of thinking. You know, you can sense what they’re feeling and kind of assume if you feel one way, she feels that way too. We kind of use that vibe while making music.”

Although Flight of Fire is purely a rock band, they have been inspired by folk and many other types of music.

“Our variety’s really important to us. When I met the twins at Berklee, they came from a pure classic rock background, and, at the time, I was actually coming from a singer/songwriter kind of background. So when we started collaborating together, we got a lot of different sub-genres in there,” Maverick said.

Maverick talked about one genre that has especially inspired the band.

“As far as folk artists that inspire Flight of Fire and me, I’m hugely inspired by Paul Simon and Simon & Garfunkel,” she said. “Also, Zeppelin has been a huge inspiration because they have so many acoustic and folk songs and I think that is where ‘My Last Gamble’ came out of. [It] was the combination of those two things. It’s got some of the southern, foot stompin’ thing going on.”

With Flight of Fire excelling at a rock and rock, what’s next? Surprisingly enough, all members of the band, except for Dukeshire, went to Berklee College of Music. They studied classical music and enjoyed their studies due to their natural love for gaining knowledge.

“Me and the twins are all classically trained,” said Maverick. “I played violin, Tia played bass clarinet, and Tanya played flute.”

While those instruments and classical sounds were incorporated into some of their earlier songs, Flight of Fire is now purely rock.

Maverick also talked about their majors at Berklee.

“The twins both majored in film scoring, writing music for movies and songs, and digital media,” she said. “Then, I double majored in songwriting and composition, composition being classical composition. I think that’s what definitely influenced us.”

Although Maverick makes it clear that they use the knowledge they gained from Berklee, she doesn’t believe that you need to go to Berklee to become a successful rock musician. She explained how she and the twins decided to go to Berklee not necessarily because they wanted to be rock stars, but because they wanted to learn as much as they could about their number one passion in life: music.

 “We all honestly love school. I don’t think many people who see us live would assume that we’re geeks, but we’re pretty much geeks,” Maverick admitted. “For us, it made sense because we’re all fascinated by every aspect of music on a technical scale, so we wanted to learn everything we could. But you certainly do not need to do that to play rock. We like to have a marriage of both worlds – the technical side and the pure passion side.”

Mayhem explained the band’s main message.

“The main message we want to send with our music is that no matter who you are, where you come from, or what you do, you can achieve whatever you want if you set your mind to it and you never give up,” she said.

Mayhem continued to say that they want to inspire people to, “do what they want to do in life, because that’s a good life.”

“If you’re doing what you want and you’re being who you what to be, then you’re not wasting time, you’re not wasting life. Even if you might not ever get there, just striving for that makes you feel more like yourself,” she said.

Flight of Fire’s favorite and so far biggest show they have every played was when they opened up for Bon Jovi at Ford Field Stadium in Detroit. Since then, they have become addicted to big stages. The band feels more comfortable the bigger the stage is because they can do so much more with their performances.

Maverick reminisced about the Bon Jovi football stadium stage.

“To hear our voices and instruments echoing off the back of the stadium…We love to run around and be crazy and do the exciting stuff that we do,” she said.

Flight of Fire plans to release their newest album titled Path of the Phoenix next weekend.

 “It’s going to be released on October 1st and the release party is at Olympia’s Zorba Music Hall (located at 439 Market St.) in Lowell, Mass. We are having a reunion show of the amazing ‘80’s, all female band Lizzie Borden and the Axes are playing with us that night. Very, very cool.”

 To purchase tickets to this show, click HERE.

“The album itself is a concept album. It tells the story of a woman who goes through tons of trials and horrible things, finds her own inner strength, and is re-born through the strength of that fire. It’s pretty cool,” said Maverick about Path of the Phoenix. “We have tons of concept art that we’re going to be releasing along with the album. Each song has a tarot card that was created by our amazing artist Lucas Seven.”

Produced by Liz Borden, the album will have seven tracks, two which have already been released: “Better Off Without You” and their newest single “My Last Gamble”.

Limelight Magazine is the first to premiere their newest music video for the song “My Last Gamble.” Please watch it below and spread the word about this amazing band!