Meet Lucia Fasano

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucia Fasano.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in the ’90s in LA– my dad and mom were screenwriters, directors, poets, artists, and raised me as a Witch. My parents took every opportunity in my upbringing to turn something into an ingenuitive, magical art project, whether it was a Halloween ceremony to invoke dearly departed ancestors, introducing my pre-school “take the classroom bear home” to a giant Godzilla doll, to dancing around the Maypole, to making short films with costuming and makeup effects and satirical narration, to writing songs about anything a song could be written about. I valued, and still do, creative expression, over most things.

It made it hard for me to decide on a path in college. By the time I was out of high school, I was fronting my indie rock band Shady Characters, and I hoped and wished that I could turn my love of music, comedy, writing, comics, and acting, into a career, and that it would connect with people like me who needed it. There were lots of reasons I doubted I could– my face, my body type, couldn’t play an instrument, economic and social reasons, etc. etc. Self-doubt and imposter syndrome and comparing myself to others. For day jobs I’ve been an extra on Glee, I’ve been a nanny, a pre-school teacher, an ice cream scooper, a fro-yo….squirter? As I got my bachelor’s degree and began doing stand up comedy, improv, and solo shows in Los Angeles and then Portland, Oregon. I still thought that wanting to do so many of the things I loved was just out of the question– some people are writers, some people are actors, etc., etc. But throughout my 20’s, I found how interconnected these could be, and following my friendships and collaborations, and my stomach (seriously met my comics partner in a deli!) kept leading me toward experiences I had thought I didn’t deserve. I moved to Portland to play music and go to school, and be in a city that isn’t so film business obsessed.

My pursuit of music, co-founding a feminist music/comedy fest in Portland, Oregon, lead me to the stand-up comedy scene. The stand-up comedy scene led me to writing rooms and improv. I got booked on Portlandia as the nerdy “Lasik Girl”– I had moved *away* from Hollywood, yet got to act on TV! I got that opportunity just from being myself! Wtf! As a comedian, I did shows like the All Jane Comedy Festival, comedy wrestling on my partner’s podcast Spec Script, and performed in basements, attics, dive bars with loud slot machines and loud drunks, and public parks that we were told to vacate.

I taught songwriting at the Rock’ N’ Roll Camp for Girls, worked on my mandolin/guitar/ukulele, and recorded my first solo album, “Radio Silence.” I released it through Kickstarter (like I am with my second one this summer!) and went on tour with my dear friends, feminist nerd-folk band, The Doubleclicks. I got a taste of supporting myself as an artist, people actually wanting what I was making, connecting with my saddest songs like “F” or my cuter, funnier ones like “Nerd Boy.” I got a taste of true friendship and mutual respect as I collaborated with Laser of The Doubleclicks on my Kickstarter campaign and our web series Catty B’s. I wasn’t following anyone clear career path, not even the ones of my personal heroes, but I’ve been building the artistic career that I want, the only one I can do.

My passion for the local comic book scene and presence as a songwriter/cartoonist got me my first comic book writing gig, for Image Comics’ Eisner Nominated book “Where We Live.” It’s a fantastic charity anthology about gun violence that features some of my heroes like Neil Gaiman and Kelly Sue DeConnick, as well as survivors of the Vegas Shooting, telling their stories. I wrote about my dad, who passed away while I was in Portland, and our relationship around guns, politics, and growing apart. This lead to more comics work, and within months of the book coming out, I moved back to LA to keep pursuing acting (and all the other things I love!). I’ve become part of the UCB community, which makes me feel the way childhood me always pictured college to feel, like in the movies. I put together a live band for my solo act, and am releasing my second album, “Best Friend Forever,” at the end of this summer. The album, co-produced by Jessica Boudreaux of Summer Cannibals, details my time in Portland, including the heated heartbreaks that came with being part of the turbulent stand-up comedy scene and falling deep into friend dynamics that scarred and shaped me.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I like to remind my friends that I receive plenty of rejection but just don’t post it online. I still only post my best selfies/angles, too. I get my hopes up constantly; I get jealous, I mess up during something really important or have huge wardrobe malfunctions during VERY IMPORTANT THINGS. Or maybe they weren’t so important, in the long run, and maybe I’m mostly over it. MOSTLY. I used to take stand up comedy so seriously, which is part of stand up culture. They act like the one true art form, the superior mode of comedy, and each stand-up culture has its own tacit (and not so tacit) set of rules to live by. I was barely 20 and idolized a bunch of drunken idiots (and some really amazing, nice comedians as well!). I got paid often in drink tickets I wasn’t allowed to use until I turned 21 legally, I took their word as gospel, took their rejection as a full report on my worth, and on top of that, was so dang frustrated that things weren’t moving faster for me, instead of enjoying the individual shows. I always felt like I needed to top myself. It’s what drives us as artists to keep creating, but also makes everything we do never good enough. I’m really glad that I’ve grown more self-assured as an artist, but still get that feeling as I wait to hear back about an audition or refresh twitter.

I struggle with hating my body sometimes, which I thought would keep me from being a performer, but I’ve watched the times change thanks to creators diverse in gender and body type, making their own things and finding their own audience their way. Each time more of us are lifted up, another person like me feels more okay with their body.

I struggle with grief and anxiety, missing my dad, and afraid of losing everyone else I love. A common thing when you grow up with a sick parent is future anxiety– one reason I feel so driven creatively is that fear of dying before doing everything I want to do. It’s a pointless anxiety. So I try to make art about these things, and they come out in songs of mine like “Radio Silence” and “When My Eyes are Closed” or my Sci-Fi comic “The Inventor’s Daughter” from the book “All We Ever Wanted.” The inventor is a lauded public figure whose body has been taken away without her daughter’s permission, and she goes to reclaim it in a quest for closure (along with her talking cat buddy). I struggle with losing my dad, but I handle it the way he would– by writing, by singing, and by being with the people I love.

Tell us more about the business.
I’m a writer (of music, comedy, comics, really whatever I want), I sing my own music, I act, and I tell jokes. You can watch me in Portlandia’s episode TADA (and more shows to air soon!), you can listen to my music on Spotify and everywhere else, and get my comics online/in stores. I perform locally in Los Angeles and tell jokes on Twitter and Instagram (@lucia_fasano). You can search my name in the podcast app and hear my appearances like on Lady to Lady or doing wacky voices on Gosh Darn Fiasco and Spec Script!

I am really proud when people say my song made them feel something (that isn’t hatred). That makes me want to cry. I can’t stop blushing when people quote my comedy back to me. It makes me feel like I have a catchphrase — like, I have a joke about licking the bus, and people will mention it to me in conversation, and it’s like, what? Then, wait a minute; I entertained you? Enough for you to REFERENCE IT LATER? Ah, it’s the best.
I hope my art connects with people because it’s all coming from the same place (me– my brain, my mouth). I put a lot of love and passion for it. I’m really nice but also a very fierce defender of what I believe in, which means some of my music is angry as hell, some of my stand-up is ironic and critical. I don’t feel like I’m just a quirky, nerdy feminist goth cutesy adorable folky punky radical adorkable hairy chubby mousey shrill ukulele girl curvy dorky riot grrrl chanteuse whatever. I’ve been trying on lots of hats, and I’ve been called lots of those things, but I think what is reflected in the work I make is that of course sometimes I’m feeling really nerdy about something, or of course I’m going in-depth about ghosts or dressed like Wednesday Addams, and of course I’m a feminist, but whatever brand I’m seen as isn’t what informs the art I make. So I think that makes me reliably unreliable and makes my art more connectable.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I’m super lucky and privileged. Throughout all this cool stuff I’ve been saying, I’ve had a romantic partner, Kyle, who has played music with me this whole time, who SOMETIMES makes me breakfast, who is my best friend, who drives me to auditions, who I adopted our perfect cat with (#PennyPumpkinSpice), who helped me through the loss of my dad, it’s the luckiest. My grandparents worked in the NYC and FDNY (my grandma being a badass detective, Lady Tiger!!) and used their savings to help me go to college (Bachelors in Liberal Studies, baybeeee — don’t tell them that. Well, they aren’t with us anymore. But still). My mom and dad supported every single thing I did or wanted to do. I’m so grateful. I even got a few solos in jazz choir in high school! I remember when that was life or death to me!

I got to introduce Weird Al at his concert in Oregon, and then he sang my name to me, and also he hugged me. Does it get any more lucky? I THINK NOT.

And I’ve suffered tremendous trauma, of course. And I’ve dealt with creeps, and I’ve been scared, and I had a really rough childhood at times that made me a mess. But all of that is entangled with what I value today when I make stuff or take on jobs.

When I’m feeling inadequate and comparing myself to others, I remember that I don’t actually want their life. I want mine– my friends, my family, my career (wherever it is). Some gig isn’t more important than the love I have in my life, and my ability to express myself.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mailchi.mp/38f0d143315e/luciafasano
• Email: [email protected]
• Other: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/luciafasano/best-friend-forever-lucia-fasanos-second-album

Image Credit:
Comic “The Inventor’s Daughter”: line art- Tess Fowler, colors- Gab Contreras, letters- Taylor Esposito,
Photographers: Aaron Michael Walker, Alex Ell, Joy Newell

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