A brand-new Conversations With Love is LIVE!
On this week’s brand-new episode of Conversations With Love, Spencer chats with a personal inspiration in MLW broadcaster and AMBY owner Alicia Atout! From pro wrestling stars like Cody Rhodes and the Young Bucks to music’s biggest bands, there are few better at the art of interviewing than the Interview Queen herself. Don’t miss out as she chats about her wide-ranging career to this point, including:
- First working for Smash Wrestling
- Her favourite show she’s been to lately
- Never being out to Edmonton
- Starting her own YouTube channel
- Getting her start interviewing musicians
- Whether interviewing was always her goal
- What inspired her to begin interviewing pro wrestlers
- Where her love of wrestling developed
- How she prepares differently for interviewing wrestlers and musicians
- Her favourite KISS song(s)
- Why she chose to sign with Major League Wrestling
- If she has any desire to step into the ring
- Where she got the early confidence to approach stars
- Her dream interview list
Conversations With Love is proudly brought to you by Beercade YEG.
Conversations With Love 52: A Conversation With Alicia Atout
Highlights:
If broadcasting + journalism was always what she wanted to do:
“This was, funny enough, never a goal of mine. When I grew up, I wanted to either be the lead singer in a band or I wanted to be a teacher. So I applied to a bunch of high schools - or high schools, universities - when I was in high school and I was accepted to a bunch, but it was also ‘broadcasty’ and news-based and I was like, ‘oh, I want to write more about the stuff I love,’ and so I decided to just start posting stuff online.”
“So, my site eventually got to a point where I was interviewing some of the top bands on radio and bands I’ve loved since I was a kid, and you could just like see and feel the popularity. You know, I was just hustling like crazy, and then my dad was like, ‘there’s a whole other market out there. There’s the celebrity market, there’s the athlete market, there’s the film, you know, actors and actress market. You like all this stuff, why don’t you venture into something else?’ So again, kind of like how he pushed me to do that Bombay (Bicycle Club) interview, you know, like threw me and without a life jacket to the pool, it was kind of happening again where he’s like, you know, you’re good at it now. Like, let’s really expand this.”
“So I did my first wrestling interview. I reached out and they told me yes, went down, knocked it out, I felt really positive. I was like, ‘Ooh, I like this.’ And then it just blossomed, and I started doing more and more wrestling than music really.”
What led to her signing with Major League Wrestling:
“It was really surreal for me when talks about a contract came my way because that’s something I feel a lot of people in wrestling really, really strive for, and it’s a very big thing when someone’s like, ‘Hey, we want you to be exclusive to us. We want you all in. We want to put time into having you and really make you a face of our brand.’ And so, when they approached me, I was like, ‘Oh, this is cool.’ Like, I watched the product, I’m friends with the locker room. It just felt right. I’d heard so many great things about Court, the owner, how he’s always hustling and has such a passion for it. Even if you look at his Twitter feed, he’s constantly on the move just trying to make new deals and better things for the brand.”
“So after some back and forth and doing my first event with them - our first tapings in New York I did with them - it just felt right and I was like, ‘oh shit, I’m about to lock it down, aren’t I.’ It was really emotional for me because I didn’t know if I would get signed because a lot of the stuff I did before, it was just I show up, I do my thing and I leave. A lot of fans speculated I was signed to other companies, but I never was, and I never said I was. So when I came to them approaching me, I was like, yeah, I’m going to do this because I just, I feel happy when I’m in that locker room or when I’m doing promos or working with their production team. Like it’s just a really, really good vibe with frickin’ awesome wrestling.”
“So it just all felt like - it is so cheesy, but it felt like it was meant to be in a sense. So I’m really glad that my first ever contract in professional wrestling was signed and it was with them!”
On preparing for a scripted promo vs an interview
“Well, when I walk into MLW to do promos, I go in with an attitude of like, ‘alright, awesome. I’m filming with some friends, this is going to be fun. Let’s see what happens.’ By no means am I saying we go in having no idea what we’re going to say. There’s always notes because you have to keep the storyline going. Everyone knows that. But they’ll give you the note and then you can kind of take it, run with it and improvise a little. Whereas when it was just scripted with a couple of other spots that I have been, whether indies or majors, there have been some times where it’s like, ‘okay, literally please try to get this word for word and run with it.’ I’m more nervous for those because I like the conversational tone, and I feel like that comes off more natural on camera.
“So one, in the back of my mind when it’s scripted, I’m thinking, ‘Oh God, am I going to come off like one of those robotic people? Oh, please don’t.’ And then two, I’m thinking of ways that I could really make the promo better. But, sometimes you have to know your place and you can’t sometimes say anything. One of the things I’ve really respected about being at MLW is if I have input or if I think ‘Oh I think the wording on this would be so good,’ or if I have something to say, they don’t think, like, ‘who’s this chick telling us stuff’ - they don’t act that way. They’ll take it into consideration and most of the time if it’s better for the promo or better for whatever they’ll use it. That makes me feel like I made the right choice in signing with them because they respect my input and what not only I but what the rest of the locker room brings to the table as well.”
If she has any desire to step inside the ring herself:
“Never! I am a baby. I bruise so, so easily. The only time you will see Alicia Atout in the ring is if she has a microphone in her hand doing a promo.”
Follow the Network!
Alicia on Twitter: @AliciaAtout
AMBY: A Music Blog, Yea?
Spencer on Twitter: @SpennyLove_WCS
The WCSN on Twitter: @WCSportsCA
The WCSN on Facebook: TheWCSNca
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