Emilie Autumn

This is an accepted version of this page Emilie Autumn Liddell[2] (born September 22, 1979) is an American singer-songwriter, poet, author, and violinist.

Performing with her all-female backup dancers The Bloody Crumpets, Autumn incorporates elements of classical music, cabaret, electronica, and glam rock with theatrics, and burlesque.

[3][4] Growing up in Malibu, California, Autumn began learning the violin at the age of four and left regular school five years later with the goal of becoming a world-class violinist; she practiced eight or nine hours a day and read a wide range of literature.

[9][13] She studied under various teachers and attended Indiana University in Bloomington, but left after two years there, because she disagreed with the prevailing views on individuality and classical music.

[12] While convinced that she would only play violin, eighteen-year-old Autumn decided to sing on one of her songs as a way of demonstrating to a major music producer, who wanted to sign her on a label, how it should sound.

[13][15][16] As part of a recording project, Autumn traveled to Chicago, Illinois, in 2001, and decided to stay because she enjoyed the public transportation system and music scene there.

Autumn labeled it as "fantasy rock", which dealt with "dreams and stories and ghosts and faeries who'll bite your head off if you dare to touch them".

[9] Her bandmates consisted of cellist Joey Harvey, drummer Heath Jansen, guitarist Ben Lehl, and bassist Jimmy Vanaria, who also worked on the electronics.

[9][note 4] On the night of the Enchant release party, Autumn learned that Courtney Love had invited her to record an album, America's Sweetheart, and embark on the tour to promote it.

[9] Contributing violin and vocals,[22] Autumn appeared in Love's backing band The Chelsea— along with Radio Sloan, Dvin Kirakosian, Samantha Maloney, and Lisa Leveridge—on the 2004 tour.

[3][23] Much of Autumn's violin work was ultimately not released on the album; she commented: "This had to do entirely with new producers taking over the project after our little vacation in France, and carefully discarding all of our sessions.

[9][26] On December 23, 2004, she appeared on the Chicago-based television station WGN as part of the string quartet backing up Billy Corgan and Dennis DeYoung's duet of "We Three Kings".

[43] Autumn released her instrumental album, Laced/Unlaced in March 2007; it consisted of two discs: Laced, the re-release of On a Day..., and Unlaced, new songs for the electric violin.

[44] She decided to re-release On a Day as Laced because she "felt that it made a nice contrast to the metal shredding fiddle album, "Unlaced", and [...] loved that it was the perfect representation of "then" versus "now".

[48] A year later, Autumn broke away from Trisol Music Group to join The End Records and re-release Opheliac in the United States on October 27, 2009; previously, it was only available there as an import.

She contributed backing vocals and violin to the track "Dry" by Die Warzau and made an appearance in the band's music video for "Born Again".

[28] The book combines Autumn's own real life journal entries, including those chronicling her time in a psych ward, and the diary of a fictional Victorian-era asylum inmate named "Emily".

[61] On April 16, 2012, Autumn announced her plans to debut a three-hour musical adaptation of her autobiographical novel on London's West End theatre in 2014.

[63] In late 2011, a twelve-minute teaser was released for Darren Lynn Bousman and Terrance Zdunich's project The Devil's Carnival, featuring Autumn as The Painted Doll, her first major acting role.

[54] Bloody Crumpets members Beth "The Blessed Contessa" Hinderliter and Maggie "Captain Maggot" Lally also appear in the film as “Woe-Maidens”.

[65] In 2014, it was announced that Autumn would be appearing at a handful of dates on the 2014 Vans Warped Tour with an installation called "The Asylum Experience", which will include music, burlesque, circus sideshow attractions and theater.

[9] The 2006 release Opheliac featured "cabaret, electronic, symphonic, new age, and good ol' rock & roll (and heavy on the theatrical bombast)".

[10] Autumn has variously described her music and style as "Psychotic Vaudeville Burlesque",[76] "Victoriandustrial'", a term she coined, and glam rock because of her use of glitter onstage.

[3] Her shows feature handmade costumes,[77] fire tricks, theatrics, and her all-female backing band, The Bloody Crumpets, a group whose members have variously included burlesque performer Veronica Varlow as The Naughty Veronica, performance artist Maggie Lally as Captain Maggot, Jill Evyn as Lady Amalthea (or Moth), actress and performer Beth Hinderliter as The Blessed Contessa, actress Aprella Godfrey Barule as Lady Aprella, German musician Lucina as Little Lucina, cellist Sarah Kim as Lady Joo Hee, German costume designer Vecona as Captain Vecona, Jesselynn Desmond as Little Miss Sugarless, and Ulorin Vex.

[3] Autumn became vegetarian at age eleven after being unable to rationalize why she should eat farm animals but not her pet dog; in her late-teens, she became vegan.

Autumn attributes her ability to write music in her mind to the fact that as a child, she played Pachelbel's Canon in D (pictured) mentally every night. [ 5 ]
The title of Opheliac is a reference to Shakespeare's character Ophelia (above) from the play Hamlet , whom Autumn felt a connection to, [ 28 ] and the archetype of the "self-destructive" woman. [ 29 ]
Autumn performs "Liar" in Manchester, England , April 2012
Autumn in Frankfurt, 2007