Cheerleaders, melody, power growls, faith, and message. That has always been my perception of Christian Beautycore band, Gold, Frankincense, & Myrrh (fondly known as GFM). Reminiscent of their most recent album title, Framing My Perception, I recently had the opportunity to sit down and talk with GFM’s bassist to help me do exactly that.
Now this was not the first time I had encountered GFM, having reviewed their 2021 performance at Another Round Bar and Grill in Richmond, VA. In addition to insights into what makes GFM tick, it was also quite interesting to get a feel for what it takes to take a song from idea to stage.
Digital Beat Magazine
If you were to go up to somebody on the street and just start talking about who GFM is, what would you tell them? Give us a little bit about GFM, how you got started, how you got to where you are now and and anything else that our readers would need to know.
Maggie GFM
OK, so GFM started as a sister band and we were originally just doing it as a hobby. We got introduced to writing original music when we were really little and so then we started playing shows, doing more original content, and then started touring in 2017 and really honed in our image. We made it very much kawaii, like goth girl, like a power trio thing going on, and it’s very chaotic music. It’s heavy, but it’s also got pop elements to it, so the choruses will hopefully get stuck in your head. But there’s also breakdown, so you can still headbang as well. It just kind of snowballed after that first tour. We’ve been hitting it hard on the road ever since then, and so you know, we just got off a tour with Fozzie. We played shows with Static X. We played shows with the band called Seventh Day Slumber, a band called Islander. We’ve just been on the road all year this year, especially so definitely just trying to make some noise out there and hopefully get people’s attention.
DBM
So three sisters… tell me about the dynamics of three sisters working together to make music.
Maggie GFM
So it is definitely a lot of chaos, because though there’s three independent women like wanting their ideas, and we were raised to be very strong and strong minded. And so then you get to the point where it’s stubbornness. So if somebody wants an idea, but the other two don’t want it, then it becomes butting heads, but, for the most part, we’re pretty good about communicating and especially being sisters and stuff we’re usually on the same wavelength when it comes to ideas and stuff, and so we’re usually able to, you know, come to a consensus pretty fast on what we need to. You know, we need to do the music video like this or write songs like this, or let’s make the show performance. Let’s do this so there will be a bigger effect. While there may be some butting heads here and there, it definitely is just a very big family dynamic on stage. It makes it comfortable just performing because you know that your family is with you on the road and so you’re not missing that; it’s not an uncomfortable thing. It’s not an ‘Oh, I can only be so close to these people’ because there’s that part of me that feels it would be too weird for these people that handle it. It’s your family on stage like you know they don’t care because they know all the weird parts of you.
DBM
I’m just curious about the evolution from idea to stage, or idea, to music, to stage, to choreography, to performance. Can you give us a rundown on how that works? If you want, include the sisterly dynamics.
Maggie GFM
Yeah, so it definitely usually starts with the music side of things and how we’re gonna write it. What we want the song to feel like, what we want it to sound like, and about the message we want to push behind the song. Once we get the foundational ideas of it, then we definitely want to make sure we’re thinking about the performance because you’ve got to be able to play it live. You can’t write this super crazy breakdown with all these different singing parts and screaming parts going at the same time. You can do lots of things and get away with a lot of things in the studio that you can’t do live because it’s just not physically possible and so you gotta make sure you’re performing it and you can play it live and sing it live at the same time. You also want to make sure you have those big moments, having those big 808 drops or having the, ‘OK, this is going to be just where all the music is going to break out’, ‘There’s just going to be vocals here, so when the music comes back in we’re both going to be on risers and there’s gonna be big lights and the drums are going to come back in’. You want to make this big dynamic on stage. It even comes to the point where we’re throwing out ideas after the fact of songs being recorded. So we’re adjusting the songs to the live performance. We’re adding extended bridges or extended verses or adding extra breaks so we can interact with the audience and get them screaming and then go back into the song. It’s stuff like that that we didn’t think about when we started the band. It was just, ‘we’re going to write music and play it live’. Now it’s just very much OK. We’re writing music, but we also have to figure out how to make it come to life on stage. It definitely has lots of interesting conversations, especially when we were first talking about putting breaks into the song so we could get the crowd to interact. It was like, ‘we’re gonna just stop playing altogether, like in the middle of song? What are you talking about? That’s not gonna work’. Then we did it… We’re like, this is great! This sounds super cool and it definitely is just a lot of trust and trial and error… Definitely that comes with it.
DBM
When I look at GFM, I see many contrasts, cheerleader outfits, growling, Christianity, melodic instrumental, and themes. It’s an interesting combination. How does that all get put together?
Maggie GFM
We definitely love the shock factor that comes with a lot of things, and so because we were so young when we started the band our mom had was a very big part of getting us together, making sure we have stage outfits and it got to the point where it was just so frustrating because we didn’t want to wear the same outfits twice and nobody wanted to have the same outfit, but we had to make sure we were matching in some way. She was like, ‘You know what? We just need one stage uniform. That way everybody has the same costume. You’re all school age, so let’s just have you wear cheerleader uniforms. It’ll be cool.’, and we were like, ‘OK, that’s fine. It’ll be easier and then’. So that’s how that came to be. And it just kind of developed into the shock factor of having the contrast between ‘these look like cute little girls that are on stage, they’re going to sing the next pop single’. But then we’re going to be screaming at you because that’s the music we love playing, and we definitely do love the shock factor. We love the contrast and that’s why we always try to make… you know… even our album artwork and stuff like that be very girly and everything is pink and now it’s like neon greens and it’s very poppy… but then, when you sit down to listen to it, you’re like this is not what I was expecting at all.
DBM
When you’re doing the switch, growl over the melodic and vice versa, is there any significance to the growl versus the melodic?
Maggie GFM
There definitely is. It is the meaning of the song and the feeling of the song. If it’s something that we want to be a more aggressive statement or we want it to be something you really need to listen to or something that should really sink in, those are the lyrics we’re going to be screaming. If it’s a song that’s supposed to be portraying anger that’s behind it, or betrayal; something that’s a very deep rooted emotion, we tend to have a lot of screaming in those just to kind of have that expression because it’s not just going to be happy all the time but it’s also not going to be just when you’re sad or upset. It’s not going to be this quiet feeling… there are those strong emotions that sometimes… you just have to scream and that’s why we kind of incorporate the growling and the screaming that way. We want to encourage people to let those feelings out, because if you hold on to them, it can be such a dangerous thing and it can have not only effects on your mental health but also on your physical health.
Since we are Christians, we have grown up in an atmosphere where sometimes anger is looked down upon and you’re not supposed to be angry and you’re supposed to be a quiet and calm. Jesus was angry, like he just threw tables… that is a human emotion and it’s supposed to be expressed. If you are able to get that out, it prevents you from becoming bitter. It prevents you from becoming full of hatred. That’s why it is such an important thing for us to feel like we can let people know you know to express your anger and if you can just at least come to our shows or listen to our songs while you’re driving… and if you can scream along to them and feel better afterwards and have that release… that’s why we do it. That’s why we have the screaming in it.
DBM
Have any of the songs you’ve written been a means for you to outpour your emotion and express yourself? In other words, does it ever reflect how any of you feel in the song?
Maggie GFM
For sure, it definitely screaming has always been a catharsis for me, and you know, especially on stage you have that momentum and the adrenaline that comes with it. If there’s something that happens on tour or that’s just happening and you have to leave home to go on tour that stuff doesn’t just go away, it’s still there. So being able to perform and just be able to get that out and have that release every single night… it’s very much therapeutic. Even if it’s not something that happened with regard to that specific song, just the ability to be able to, get it out is a very freeing thing and it helps so much. When we go into the studio and write stuff we have that vulnerability because when we write it is very much a lot of personal experiences that we’re writing about. And to be able to just scream and get that emotion out there, whether it’s anger, or hurt, or sadness, or even songs that we have that are happy and you know they still have screaming in them. It’s just because the immense joy is there. You know it’s very much a catharsis for me. So definitely, not only for other people, but also for myself and for my sisters.
DBM
Let’s take a quick look at your new EP. I love the title, Framing My Perception. What does it mean? I’ve got my own perception of the meaning. I want you to tell us your perception.
Maggie GFM
Yeah, it definitely is all about having that perception and realizing, ‘OK, let’s take a step back and see the bigger picture of things because you can get so narrow minded and you can have such tunnel vision when you’re in the midst of your issue. When you’re in the midst of a crisis, when you’re in the midst of whatever is going on, it can be so difficult to see the bigger picture and what was really going on behind the scenes because you’re so focused on what’s going on in the here and now. We’ve realized if we can just take a take a second step back and evaluate what’s really going on, what it’s affecting outside of the context of just me, and you’re just taking a second to take a breather and realize there are a lot bigger things than just me right now, so let’s figure out what this is affecting. What this is meaning. ‘OK, this is. Difficult right now, but if I can grow through it instead of just getting stuck in it, that is going to be a process with so much more potential than just sitting here and being stuck and lost in the moment. It is really just about broadening your perspective of things and, yeah, that’s why we call it, Framing My Perception because it’s about figuring out a better way to frame this. Having an unhealthy mindset and being stuck in it… that’s not gonna solve anything… so let’s frame this. to be in a better light and just to have a more potential for growth and for progress.
Check out the title track from Framing My Perception
DBM
Which one of you is the engineer? In other words, which one analyzes everything? And which one analyzes everything and why do you say that?
Maggie GFM
I think it would probably be me because I have that kind of mindset when it comes to music. There has to be a meaning behind it and the instruments have to match that meaning and if it’s going to build here then the meaning needs to build here. The lyrics need to match that. Then we also have to think about the stage performance, so we need to figure out having the stage performance to match. But let’s also make sure the social media matches that and the artwork matches and conveys the same message.
When all of that is set aside, there’s also the books (business) and the book game and all of the analytics that come with running a band as a business and stuff like that. And I’ve been able to learn how to run a lot of that. It comes with a lot of analyzing, ‘OK, well if we do this this is gonna affect this and it’s gonna affect our cost and spending habits here for this.’ So it’s a lot of different things, but I think it’s kind of forced me to have that kind of thinking in order to juggle it all.
DBM
Is there any one question that you hate having to answer?
Maggie GFM
All we have definitely been asked the question who’s gold, who’s frankincense and who’s Myrrh a lot because that’s what GFM stands for.
Every single time we’re like ‘that’s not our names!’ I think it’s just because it’s three people and it’s a three name band and so it’s easy to get that confused. Since we started the band, we’ve been answering that question and every single time, it’s like ‘it’s not our names, it’s just a band name’. It doesn’t have anything to do with us personally like name wise.
DBM
OK, so which one is Gold?
Maggie GFM
<Laugh?>
DBM
Is there any one question that nobody or very few people have ever asked that you really wish somebody would ask so you could answer?
Maggie GFM
The last couple interviews, including this one that we’re doing right now, people have asked the process of writing, but also making it turn it into stage performance, and that’s not something that we’ve talked about a lot until literally the last few interviews. I feel like it’s such an interesting thing to talk about because a lot of fans that we’ve talked to, have even considered that. So when we say ‘oh, well, we’re recording it’, we also have to worry about what we’re going to do live. They’re like, ‘oh we figured you would just already know that or just play it the way you wrote it’. We gotta make sure that it fits the big moments on stage. We’re not just making those up, we’re planning those because we have a vision in our mind of what it needs to look like. And so I think it’s just an interesting thing for the listeners to get to know as well because you get to see an extra side of like the preparation that goes into making music and making a live show.
DBM
If you were in a room alone and no one was listening, what music would you be listening to?
Maggie GFM
Uhm well, I am heading to a Shrek rave tomorrow.
DBM
A what?
Maggie GFM
A Shrek rave. It is a rave, based on all the Shrek movies so I might be trying to listen to those; some soundtracks to try and get my memory back with all like the lyrics and stuff. That’s not a not a common thing, not a very common thing, but…
DBM
So now all of our readers know she’s remembering the Shrek soundtrack… Are you going to be green?
Maggie GFM
I am! I’m very excited about that.
DBM
So do you have anything for me? Anything else that we need to know?
Maggie GFM
I don’t think so. I think that is everything. We always try to promote the social medias for all the GFM band. Everything matches so it’s super easy to find us and we run all of our social medias so we can actually interact with our listeners. And people need somebody to talk to, they can message us. It’s not our management running it or a bot or something like that like it’s actually us. So if you ever want to talk to us, it’s really us, you’re messaging.
DBM
So anything else?
Maggie GFM
I think that should be everything.
DBM
OK, well I’ve had a wonderful time. And I thank you for making this pleasant.
Maggie GFM
Thank you for having me.
