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Brash and Sassy

There’s something about Brash and Sassy that reminds me of lightening in a jar. The girls have a similar electric presence and you’re never quite sure what you’ll get from the trio but you’re guaranteed to be a little shocked. Ava Loverock, Ho Sek Fun (a.k.a. Miriam) and Gennaia Febbraia make up Brash and Sassy, a trio of electro pop shoulder-padded singers who are whipping Perth into a frenzy.

I met the girls at a strange little Asian dessert hut called Icee Ice. A giant penguin was propped behind us and Asian pop magazines scattered around, and I immediately knew this wasn’t going to be a normal interview. Ava, Miriam/Ho Sek Fun and Gennaia are the alter-egos of Leanne Cole, Sarah Beltran and Rebecca Brennan, three Perth musician who came together to create a fictional trio specializing in electro-pop music. However, for my interview, Leanne, Sarah and Rebecca where nowhere to be found, instead I confronted the brash shoulders and sassy pouts of their underground pop aliases.

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When asked what makes someone brash and sassy, Ava Loverock takes a break from nursing her large soybean on ice dessert, ‘It’s a belief I would say, in Brash and Sassiness. It’s about being fresh and with it.’

And in a world saturated with pop princes and electro divas, just who is brash and who is sassy? According to Miriam, Britney Spears is Brash, as is Hillary Clinton ‘because she knows how to wear a power suit and do the power smile.’

‘She’s definitely Brash and Sassy,’ adds Ava. ‘We actually went to the same deportment school as Hillary. She’s like the fourth member.’

‘I think if you got David Beckham in a nice shoulder-padded blouse and mini skirt he could work,’ Gennaia chimes in. ‘But he is a bit of a slut. Completely. And he doesn’t have the brains to carry it off.’

Fidel Castro I ask. ‘I don’t think so. He was a very cruel man.’ Gennaia says.

‘But can’t you be cruel Gennaia?’ Ava argues.

‘Not like that. I can be cruel to the stage, but not to my fans.’

Just what makes someone Brash and Sassy is a mysterious formula, much of which remains unknown, even to the girls. But one thing is certain, good music requires good fashion.

While Gennaia plots to bring back the feminine turban, Miriam lives by the motto, ‘everyone needs a blazer.’

Of course, musical stardom rests on more than style, and Brash and Sassy add to their threads some rhythm, some hooks, some harmony and some beats.

‘It’s a challenge to write electronic music for anyone,’ Gennaia says, ‘We weren’t born with lap tops attached to our placentas. It’s something we had to learn in our mid to late twenties.’

And learn they have. Brash and Sassy’s first hit is bound to be ‘No Milk For You’, a bold electro pop song with delicious harmonies and wicked lyrics. ‘It’s about a person but it’s not dedicated to them. Once I dedicated it to my Mum but it’s not about my Mum,’ says Gennaia.

Around the Perth electro scene, the girls have picked up the tag of ‘the grand-daughters of ital-disco’. Ava explains, ‘It might have been the result of a fling, but don’t put that in the press.’ (Don’t worry, I wouldn’t dream of it…)

Perhaps, the group’s next fling will be Greek, as they are keen to collaborate with Yanni. In the meantime, they have contented themselves by collaborating with the Voltaire Twins and Jeff Baker, while The Transients have expressed interest in the track ‘Men in Leather.

‘There are a few people around who are keen to get a bite out of the Brash and Sassy pavlova,’ says Ava.

While there are plenty of acts looking to sink their teeth into Brash and Sassy, who do the girls have playing on their iPod?

‘You mean my walkman?,’ Ava asks. Turns out their old school media devices deliver the sounds of Donna Summer, Rick Ashley, Giorgio Marorda, Love Candy, La Baiode and Whitney Houston, ‘before the crack but we’re praying for her.’

These days, Brash and Sassy have little time to sip champagne in a yacht on the foreshore, and instead they are busy working the tour circuit. After dressing to impress at Big Day Out and Summadayze, they now have regular sets at Modular and are finalists in the Triple J unearthed competition.

As the giant Icee Ice penguin, the girls and I go our separate ways, I wonder where they are off to and wish I could follow the bouncing shoulder pads of Brash and Sassy around Perth for just a little while longer.

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