In an exclusive interview with Roughstock, Curb’s newest duo Bomshel (Kristy Osmonson and Kelley Shephard) talked about their career and how they came to pick out the group's name. Also, Kelley and Kristy discuss their Top 40 single "Fight Like A Girl" and how interaction with fans has meant everything to them and their career.
Matt: Bomshel is a unique name, how did you come up with that?
Kristy O: Bomshel is a mission statement for life. I was a fat kid growing up…
Kelley: As was I...
Kristy: ...I got picked on a lot and I felt, as I moved to Nashville, (it's human nature that) we constantly compare ourselves to everybody else and growing up I looked at Britney Spears and thought; "I don’t know if can I look like that?" So we just decided that Bomshel’s about being yourself and embracing who you are…
Kelley: Whether you’re a size 2 or a 22; as long as you’re happy and healthy, that’s what matters. Everybody is beautiful.
Matt: So Kristy, you’ve been working in Bomshel for a while now, how has working with Kelley solidified your sound?
Kristy: Oh man, it is our sound. We’re best friends, we’re roommates and we’re constantly working together. We wake up and drink coffee and write songs. I think “Fight Like A Girl,” it’s kind of like that, when you have a conflict of any sort, I think it’s not about how you don’t resolve it but how you work things out. You know by saying “I love you, but we gotta work this out.” We rarely disagree on things but, when we do, we work it out and talk it out and it makes for a healthy relationship.
Kelley: It really is like a relationship in that we see each other almost 24 hours a day and there are times where we get upset at each other but she really is like my family as she took me in when I moved here and knew nobody.
Matt: It’s like what Jamey Johnson said about his songwriting friends, with that sense of family here in Nashville...
Kristy: It really is like that.
Matt: How would you describe your single?
Kristy: Oh, this song means more to me than anything I’ve ever done. It’s incredible to say that our single is the best thing we’ve ever done. I really had a great friend named Jenny, who really inspired me. She was diagnosed with breast cancer at 27 and kicked it once and had a little girl and had gotten it again and she used her illness to change her life, as far as waking up every morning and being grateful. She once said that cancer was the best thing that ever happened to her, which blew my mind. We went and played a benefit for her last April and she couldn’t be there but she had two live dates circled in red on her calendar, one was her daughter’s 5th birthday and the other was in August which was a show we had in her area but unfortunately she had passed away in June.
Kelley: We definitely wrote the song with Jenny in mind but we also wrote it to change such a negative phrase (don’t be such a girl) and turned it into something positive for any girl who, no matter what they do for a living, will take the song and relate to it and be strong and just fight. Women have an amazing ability to fight without their knuckles, and have such hope. We really wrote it for the women in our lives, our mothers our friends who showed us that hope. When I was a little girl, I would’ve loved to have heard this song.
Kristy: When the song came to us, the first verse is about us and our lives and the second verse came from our co-writer Bob Regan as he discussed the glass ceiling that happens in business, particularly in this business where women have to work just as hard to get ahead, just look at the charts, it’s there. The last verse was about Jenny and the first time we played the song live was at the show she had hoped to live to see and Jenny’s sister and Jenny’s husband and daughter were there with an empty seat and it was a tough performance to get through.
Matt: What can fans expect from one of your shows?
Kelley: It’s very high energy and over the top and I’m sure you’ve noticed from talking with us that we’re very hyper and we’re here and there. We are very high energy with a lot of rockin’ country and we really hope they expect to their money out of it…
Kristy: It’s a great show that is fun to do, it’s like our cardio workout.
Matt: I’m gonna ask you about “Cheater, Cheater” because there is one fan in California that likes to say how he loved your version more than Joey + Rory’s version and was sad that you didn’t get it out first…
Kristy: We were set to release it and I knew they were doing the CMT show but we didn’t know they were going to do it. In fact, the day we’d gotten out of a meeting with our label about the single getting released in October, we got a call from a friend in radio that said “They’re releasing it.” I was like oops, oh wel…
Kelley: It was really a blessing in disguise…
Kristy: It really was…
Matt: It gave you some exposure too…
Kristy: It did and they had a great time with it and we love to play it live and it’s going on our album and then it allowed for us to release our favorite song as a single…
Matt: Serendipity…
Kristy and Kelley: Exactly, everything worked out for us and them.
Matt: How has the internet helped your career?
Kristy: That is our career. It’s weird to say that but our website and our myspace have been everything to us. It’s like MySpace how they can put their pictures to our site to share with other fans and stuff.
Kelley: It’s like how we chose the single; we asked the fans their opinions about what they liked the best.
Matt: What would you like to say to a fan that may be learning about Bomshel for the first time from this interview or from the single?
Kristy: Come out to a show and you’ll get the best opinion of who we are. It is the best representation of us and it really is what we do the best. It is the most important part of what we do. Hope to see you there!
You can support Bomshel by purchasing their "Fight Like A Girl" EP at iTunes | Amazon.
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