An Interview with Altira: On Conquering Fear, Starting A New Band, and Fireflight Memories.
I remember browsing the Flicker Records roster years ago and discovering bands like Pillar, Kids in the Way, and Fireflight. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to see Fireflight live multiple times. Their songs always had a way of getting you rocking while filling you with hope.
Now, Fireflight’s former lead singer, Dawn Michele, is starting an exciting new musical chapter with her brand-new band, Altira. They recently dropped their debut EP, Death of Fear, and we got the chance to sit down with the whole band. We talked about the new EP, what’s next for their music, and even reminisced with Dawn about some of her favorite Fireflight memories.
Altira is:
Dawn Michele: vocals
Gina “G” Osmar: drums
Ash Blair: guitar
Solid Rock Unplugged: Can you tell me a little bit about Altira and how this project came about?
Dawn: I joke that we’re a baby band, which is a term that Fireflight said after we’d been a band for like 20 years. Like, they’re a baby band, you know? Well now I’m back in a baby band! But it’s super fun. In some ways, everything is new even though it’s something that I did for so long in my life. I just feel really blessed to be able to have the opportunity again to continue to make music and release music and tour again and be able to go out and be with people. Just sharing the concert experience with people all over. We feel a little connected because we’re always on each other’s feeds and everything like that on the internet. But as far as coming together as a group, we don’t get those opportunities as much anymore.
My favorite thing about making music is being able to share that experience with others. I love going to concerts. Back when Fireflight was touring all the time, one of my favorite things to do was to go stand on the stage, while another band was playing, and watch the crowd. Just watch them experiencing the music and experience the power of the Holy Spirit working. As you know, when two or more are drawn together in God’s name.
So I had the opportunity to start working on music again. Fireflight wrapped up our touring in 2020 due to epic circumstances in the whole world. At that point, we had been a band for twenty years. That’s a long time for a band! So we thought, “We’ve had a good run. Everything’s kind of crazy. Maybe it’s time we don’t try to push so hard at traveling anymore.” After that, I’ve been at home with my family, just working day-to-day jobs.
Then, I got approached by a huge supporter of Fireflight. One of our mentors and someone who’d been with us for a long time, supporting us. He was like “Dawn, I know that everybody else is done with music, done with touring. But I feel like you might have more to share. Do you ever feel that way? If you would like to, I’d like to help you make more music.” I was like “I would love to make more music, I love making music!” I honestly never thought I would tour again. At the time, I had a little bitty baby and a little boy. I was like “I don’t see how I could ever do that touring again, especially on my own. Fireflight had a tour bus, but we got rid of everything when we settled down.
It turned into this big, long project of years and years trying to create this music. Then, once the music was done, it was trying to get it released. It just seemed like door after door after door just kept closing. Or the bottom would drop out of my personal life or something. Everything just kept getting pushed off. It’s been a crazy time, just everywhere for everyone.
Then suddenly, the doors just started opening at the end of last year. During that time, I felt like God was telling me that I might need to step back out and start doing shows again. I just had a hard time believing that. I felt pretty strongly that that’s what I was supposed to do. I started kind of opening myself up to the idea. Could I do a show here, a show there? That kind of thing. After I accepted that, suddenly doors really started opening.
In that time, some of my spiritual headship and leaders were like, “Dawn, have you ever thought about that you don’t have to do this by yourself? Have you ever thought about starting another band?” I was like, “No, it never occurred to me that I could do that.” I started praying about it and I thought, I would love to do that! I like community! So I prayed about it and then I felt that “Yes, this is exactly what I want to do.”
So I started looking around and I had connected with Ash a couple years before. She reached out online, as a Christian musical artist, as a guitarist, just asking for advice as a female, if I had any words of wisdom to give her. I remember talking to her and I thought, “I wonder what she’s doing?” Because the feeling that I had was, “Wouldn’t it be great to be able to use this band to have more female representation for young women and girls to look up to? And women to see themselves empowered in Christian rock music?
I found Ash online again and was like “Hey, what are you doing now?” She’s like “Well, I’ve started touring with some artists.” She was still going strong and it’s like “I feel like I’m going to start a band, do you want to be in my band?” We met for coffee and we really hit it off. I told her the vision for the music and for what we were doing this for and all that. It was just an instant connection.
Then I was like, “Man, what if I could get more female members?” So I started looking for a female drummer. At first I tried to turn to some people I’d known in the past and that didn’t go anywhere. I just started searching for “Nashville female drummer” on Instagram and I found a couple of girls. One of the girls I came across was Gina. She had just posted a series of videos telling the story of how she had just moved. She picked up, following what she felt God was telling her to do was she should leave where she was in Texas and move to Nashville to try to keep pursuing her career in music because she’s been having a career in music since she was a little girl, but felt like the next step was to move to Nashville.
I really liked her, so I was like “Let me just direct message her. We’ll see what happens.” I slid into her DM’s and I told her a little bit about everything here. I said “Would you want to meet for coffee and talk about this?” She’s like “Suire!” So we met for coffee and then the same thing, she was just obviously so awesome. Not just a great drummer, but also just a great spirit, great heart, great attitude. I was like “Wow!” Within just a couple of weeks, the band came together and it was all just God, because for years it was wall after wall after wall, keep trying. Give them a call, never hear back. Never hear back, never hear back. Nashville No, as we call it.
Anyways, then suddenly everything just started falling together. At first I just thought, “I’ll try to do some summer festivals. I can do that. I can go for the weekend, come back and get back to my kids.” Around Thanksgiving last year, Seventh Day Slumber reached out because we’re business partners too. They helped release my worship album. They’re like “Hey Dawn, do you want to do a tour next year with us? Maybe just two weeks?” I was like “Ah, I don’t know. When do you want to do that?” They’re like “We’re thinking March” and I was like “Oh, that’s when my songs come out.” Yeah, obviously that’s what I’m supposed to do.
Everything was just so up in the air and last minute. We didn’t even find Gina until after we already had the tour. At the time we thought we were gonna have Blaise play drums. Then I was like “Hey guys, guess what? I have a drummer now. Do you have room on the bus?” They’re like “Let’s move some stuff around!” So they did. The next thing we knew, in March we were touring, so it really has been such a God thing. I think that’s why I just feel so excited about everything. Even though there’s drawbacks, there’s goods and bads, highs and lows with music and touring and all that stuff. But I just really believe in what God’s doing. Because of that, I just have so much hope.
Solid Rock Unplugged: Ash and Gina, what were you guys doing prior to joining Dawn in Altira?
Ash: I had been touring with a country artist and her name is Tenille Arts. I’ve just been doing that, one of my first professional gigs where I was touring. I had been gigging locally for a long time. That’s what I’d been doing. I had been to school for guitar and all that. Lots and lots of playing for sure and just praying for an opportunity, specifically in Christian rock. So I’m feeling very blessed.
Gina: All I’ve ever done is music, kinda like Dawn tapped into a little bit. I was pretty fresh to Nashville, when she reached out. I had just hit my six month mark of being here. I pretty much started from scratch coming here. I was doing funk, country, and metal all back home in Texas, so a little personality change at least a couple times a week doing that. But when I came to town I just had to start from scratch and meet a bunch of other country and rock artists, so things were really falling into place pretty quickly.
I’ve also been very heavily involved in my church, back home in Texas, just kind of waiting for the right doors and stuff to open for getting back involved, whether it be a church or a Christian project out here in town. So she reached out pretty much at my six month mark and I was like “This is a hundred percent from the Lord,” because just the timing and everything was absolutely impeccable. It’s been such a blessing.
Solid Rock Unplugged: That’s amazing how doors started opening and everything started lining up. For you guys, what is the mission and vision of the band?
Dawn: From the beginning of my pursuit of music, my biggest goal, God spoke to me and said that we’re going out into the stage of the world to share the message of His love. That’s the overarching theme of my whole life and specifically in this season. We really feel called to step out, into the children of God and spread the message to battle fear.
I think that globally, we’ve been in bad shape since about 2020. I think everybody has been really struggling. I blame the loss of control that all of us felt on a basic gut level with the way that Covid hit and we all had to question. We suddenly had questions that we had never asked before. As a result, there was such a loss of control, even though we don’t really have control. We kind of thought we did for the most part. I compare it to the time I was in California and there was an earthquake. It was like a 5.4 or something. So a pretty decent earthquake. My whole word, pardon the pun, felt shaken. Because in my life every time I stepped down or fell down, the ground was always there. I really believed I could count on it. When I felt that earthquake, my place in the universe felt suddenly unstable.
I think for everyone, when the pandemic hit and people were dying and we didn’t know if it could mutate, if it could get worse or better. We didn’t know what was happening. Whole cities had huge impacts. Not every place had it as bad. But everyone questioned, at least for a time, “what is the future of the human race?” Those are really high stakes! That really shakes us to our core. With that loss of control, there’s a profound grieving. I think that’s why we’re seeing kind of the darker edges of humanity show up in ways we’ve never seen before. We see all of the aspects of grief. We see so much denial. So much bargaining. So much anger. Anger, anger, anger!
I know for me, I spent so many years angry, because we feel kind of connected. We turn on our televisions or the internet and we see everything all at once. Everything I was seeing was making me so angry. But through this process, I felt like God was speaking to me, “Guess what? They’re really all just afraid. They’re afraid. They’re trying desperately to fight that fear. Trying to be in control.” What we want for our music and for our interactions, our impact on the community and on the world at large, is to go out and pray with people that God would help us to break free of the mantle of fear that has just tied us all up in knots.
We’re being influenced and we don’t even realize it. We know that only God’s power is going to be able to lift this up off of ourselves. We’ve been trying to fight for peace for so long, it doesn’t get us anywhere. What we need is a fresh touch from the Holy Spirit. We need God to help us to break free from this. To help us to see each other, all of God’s children through his eyes. That’s when we can be the hands and feet of Jesus. That’s when we can be known for our love. We think there’s just a profound need and hunger for that. That’s the goal of our band, to just step out and help people reconnect with God in a fresh new way that will just knock the scales off of our eyes and break the power that fear has on us right now.
Ash: We’re out here, this is a ministry. We would appreciate your prayers as we go out and minister to those. We pray that those hearts would be receptive to what God’s trying to do.
Solid Rock Unplugged: With being an all female rock band, what’s it like carving out a space in the rock genre? How have people responded to that?
Dawn: Overall, it’s been really positive. Because we’re new, we don’t have huge social media channels and stuff like that. When I’m scrolling, it’s hard for me to even see all the people I know, because I can’t find them on my feed anymore, you know? People I already follow! So imagine how hard it is for someone new to be seen. We don’t have huge, huge amounts of people, but the majority of the people who have been very positive. We’ve had some people who are like [imitates snarl]! It’s funny because we don’t see ourselves as trying to shove that down into one’s throat or anything. I think it’s more the anger.
I really believe the enemy wants to divide us. The enemy, the powers in high places. I feel like the high places that are being revealed recently…I guess they’ve always been there and I just didn’t know, but things are coming to light. I know that what they benefit from is if all of the working class people are angry with each other. If the men are angry at the women, and if the white people are mad at the black people, you know? If everyone’s mad at the immigrants or really anything to turn us against each other. Because if we’re never like “Hey, wait a minute! Those guys aren’t paying us any money for all of this work. We’re starving!” They just want us distracted and I think that’s why we see so much stirring of the hatred and separation between people.
So I really think the little glimpses that we’ve seen of that, I truly believe it is just because of that spirit of division that is out there trying to keep us powerless. Because we can’t help each other, we can’t join together when we’re always pointing the finger at each other and putting each other down. No one does their best work when someone’s trying to put them down. So we don’t worry about that and our priority is to bring God’s love to the people who want it. As long as we’re doing that, we feel good.
Solid Rock Unplugged: It’s always special to see the uniqueness. It’s great because it teaches young girls, young women that “Hey, you can be a rock star too. You don’t have to limit yourselves to pop or whatever. You can rock out too!”
Dawn: I think we need all the genres of music. The human experience is so huge, the things we go through. It’s almost the same thing as the range of emotions. For a while, I think the church tried to push down certain emotions, like “Don’t ever be angry!” The problem is, those are all part of who we are and everything we smash down just explodes out later! So all the genres of music are in the same way, we have different emotions and they’re not all pretty, but then all need to have their say for us to be in balance.
On Facebook I’m in a couple of groups, all these rock groups or whatever, and someone posts the question “Who is the best hard rock singer that you’ve ever seen, not that they can only scream, but they’ve got great vocals.” People were like “Who’s your top five or your top ten?” So I start scrolling and there was not a single female singer. I was like “What about Lacey Sturm? What about…?” I couldn’t believe it, I guess it’s still this way. It’s still this way, but we’re hoping to be able to inspire and I just think that God’s going to work all things for good.
Solid Rock Unplugged: That makes me think of Magdalene Rose and the controversy back in the Spring.
Dawn: Not longer after we got off the road with them.
Solid Rock Unplugged: Fortunately that story ended on a positive note with the church leaders apologizing and they amended it. That was a beautiful testimony to the power of reconciliation.
Dawn: That’s one thing, people are always making mistakes. One thing I see more than ever is when people are obviously doing something kind of off and they just double down. They cannot accept that they’re wrong. They just need to prove to themselves that they’re right. It doesn’t get us anywhere. Even if one person is wrong, everybody needs to get more towards what’s right. When we double down and we just want to be right so badly that we’re not willing to accept any other perspectives, that’s not safe.
The older I get, the more I realize that I don’t know very much. I think that’s wisdom! Because it means that I don’t have the right to look down on anybody because I have not walked a mile in their shoes. I’ve been through stuff that probably I would have looked down on me when I was younger. I know that’s why I feel like I’ve gone through some trials and tribulations because I really needed to learn, mess around and find out. Find out what it’s like when you’re up against the wall. When you’ve got the hard choices to make, when you make a mistake. That’s part of learning how to love yourself and how to love others.
When we build up there’s walls and we’re like “I’ve got it figured out. I know what’s right every time. I know what this means and it means you’re going to hell!” It’s all this stuff and we build up our nice little house in our box, but no one wants to go visit you up on your high horse. They really don’t. No one wants to come and have tea on your soapbox. So you just end up more and more lonely. It’s my prayer that as you break off this mantle of fear, we won’t feel the need to fight so hard to be right instead of being loving.
Solid Rock Unplugged: A couple of weeks ago, you released Death of Fear, your debut EP. We had a chance to listen to it and review it. I thought it was great! The lyrics spoke of the concept of moving on from fear, not giving fear that power. What was the writing process like?
Dawn: For the song, “Death of Fear” What I was really trying to embody is a battle. A battle not between flesh and blood but against the spirit of fear. I don’t know if you want to think of it as a demon or what you would call it, but personified. Looking at so much of my life, I grew up with a lot of tragedy when I was young. It really shaped me into a person. As a little girl, my family went through a tragedy and I felt like I was trying to make everyone happy again. A lot of stuff just came up in me because of my fears. So I just lived my life according to those fears. “Make sure they’re not mad at you!” “Make sure they’re happy!” It became the soundtrack of my inner thought world.
Looking back at all that fear has stolen from me, and I gave it away! I let him take it. I let him move in. It just made me angry! The Bible says that God’s not given us a spirit of fear, you know. We know that. We just have to resist the enemy. So the goal for this song is that people when they hear it, when they sing it, they can find themselves rising up and resisting, knowing that they are not able to be defeated, because of the power of God’s love in their lives. That they can get sassy and combative with fear and be able to live the life that God wants them to live as being victorious over it.
Solid Rock Unplugged: Were Gina and Ash recorded on that EP as well? Did you do the instruments?
Dawn: No, not these songs. I was still in the journey at that time when the music was being made. I hadn’t found them yet. We’re really excited because tomorrow we go into the studio, all three of us together to write our next single and we’re really stoked to finally get to work together in the studio!
Solid Rock Unplugged: So you’re going back into the studio to record a single. Is that going to be part of a full length or another EP? Or are you just kind of feeling things out?
Dawn: We have some stuff in the works in regard to the EP, but that’s all TBA.
Solid Rock Unplugged: What’s been the response to Death of Fear, to the four songs?
Dawn: So far it’s been overwhelmingly good! The very first single to get released on radio was “Black Hole.” I just found out that we’re on the sixth week in a row of it being number one on the Christian rock radio! And we’ve already released all the other singles. In a couple of weeks, we’re going to push “Death of Fear” to radio and we’re hoping that it’ll have good success. For a while now, our radio guy is like “Well, it’s time to release the other songs to radio, but we shouldn’t try to take attention from “Black Hole,” right?” Just being number one. It’s a wonderful problem to have. All of the Fireflight fans that have given the music a chance have been so positive, which I feel thankful for. Some of them said “Wow, this is nothing like Fireflight.” Really, I don’t know how it couldn’t be! So I mean, I feel great.
Ash: Oh yeah, it’s just been amazing. People are really digging it and they’re so excited that Dawn is back with this new project. So it’s been really cool to see the overwhelming positive response.
Gina: It’s been so cool seeing, whether it is just comments on our post, every time we have a story or some update about it. A lot of fans will DM and be like “Oh my goodness! I cannot believe, like it’s getting better and now the whole thing is here and it’s just incredible.” They’re like “I have this on repeat all the time!” So it’s really cool. I know I like the songs a lot, so it’s good that the public is enjoying it just as much. There's been so much positive feedback. It’s been an incredible couple of months already. It feels so quick, but it’s also like riding the wave pretty well.
Solid Rock Unplugged: As musicians, what inspiration do you bring into the music?
Ash: As far as my inspiration, Slash from Guns N’ Roses is the reason I wanted to play. So you might hear a lot of pentatonic type things, because he’s really well known for that. That was one of my really big influences, Slash. I love 80’s rock, I love how prominent the guitar is. I love that these songs are really, really rocking and have some awesome riffs.
Gina: It’s super fun, high energetic music to play. Kind of like I mentioned, I’ve been involved in the church and have a lot of that background, but also did a lot of work with some metal bands. I was playing with this band before I moved here called BLAS. Whenever I talk to him, I’m like “You set me up, so I can be able to do this kind of style elsewhere!” It’s really been amazing, all of those styles being able to come into play in this project. It’s really fun because we get to add our own artiste to the whole thing. No complaints! It’s been so cool.
Solid Rock Unplugged: Awesome! I’m excited to hear some of those inspirations coming into the music. Dawn, I gotta ask, what are some of your favorite memories from the days of Fireflight?
Dawn: It was a whole lifetime, to be honest. I’m so thankful for the opportunities that we had with Fireflight. Getting to travel overseas and tour European countries. That’s a gift that I could never repay God for. Just being able to be in different cultures and things like that. It gives you this amazing perspective when you meet people who started somewhere different than you. And you see all God’s children in other countries that have a totally different culture, a totally different way of looking at things. You feel so small! It’s just amazing.
I think some of my favorite memories touring were prank nights, getting to go on long tours with other bands and get to really know everybody. That’s super fun. I love festivals, but when you go out on tour and you get to know the nitty-gritty of everybody, you’re on the side of the road and broken down, or having to shower in the same disgusting motels. That kind of thing, you get really close, especially the early days when you’re vanning it, you really get to know people. There’s just such a great feeling of Brotherhood.
Then you go to prank night. Everybody is messing with each other at the end and I will definitely never forget some of those pranks. One time I came out onto the stage and I was already there at my microphone, when I arrived. One of the sound techs was there, wearing a black and white wig! This is when I had black and white hair, in one of my dresses, from my suitcase that they stole out of the tour bus. He was holding a key-tar and he was pretending to play the opening riff to “Unbreakable!” I walk out there because it’s time for me to start the song and this is what I see! I’ll never forget it!
One time, I think this was the same tour, we did a prank on Kutless, where one of the Kutless wives was a dance teacher and she taught everyone else on tour how to do the Thriller dance. We came out during their set and did the Thriller dance in the background.
Solid Rock Unplugged: When I see there’s a show in the area when we’re close to the end of a tour, I know I want to go because of the pranks!
Dawn: That’s how I would be too! To be like, “Aw, they’re going to ruin the show, these people came to see your show,” like ‘Yeah, I think that’s good!”
Solid Rock Unplugged: You want to see the show and everything, but at the same time, the pranks are good!
Dawn: One time, this is when Adam was our drummer, they had one of the lighting guys put a big red spotlight against the back wall behind the drummer with like flash strobing. Through the red spotlight, you could see through the sheet and there was one of the guys doing a whole martial arts nunchuck routine behind the drummer. Hilarious!
Solid Rock Unplugged: So what’s next? You’re going into the studio tomorrow to start recording, but after that?
Dawn: Right now we’re just trying to get the word out that we exist! I was hoping we could do more festivals than we did this summer because we were born after all the summer festivals had booked all their shows! But we do have festivals coming up. In September we want to put together a fall dour, so we’re trying to build that right now. But you know, times are tough all over. So we’re trying to get things lined up and we’re praying that’s going to come together. Keep an eye out for that! We’ve already got shows lining up in September. We’re going to be at the Illumination Festival then we’re going to the AfterLife Club the day after that. That’s going to be the 19th and 20th, all in Ohio.
Then we’re looking at booking shows in Europe in March. We’ve got a show in Sweden and possibly Finland. We’re trying to build that out, so we’re just taking it as it comes and just praying that we’re about to start working on the “Death of Fear” release. We hope to be able to get that all just rolling. We’re just waiting to see what God’s going to do, I guess. We want to go in and work with some friends of ours. We’re trying to get in with Maggie, Magdalene Rose to work on writing. So we’re hoping to get in and write with friends too and work on music with them as well!
Solid Rock Unplugged: Any last shout outs you want to give?
Dawn: Well, I would just invite everybody to come check out our website, altiramusic.com, and check out our coming shows. We’re putting up new shows whenever we can. If you don’t follow us on Instagram or Facebook, come find us. We’re Altira Music, spread the word! Like I said, we’re a baby band and we need people to know we exist. So if you could share stuff or whatever online, we would really appreciate it. We’re trying to get the word out so that we can just keep trying to influence and spread the message of God’s love everywhere we can!
Go give Altira a follow on Facebook and Instagram! Check out their brand new EP, Death Of Fear on Spotify or go see them live on Saturday, June 27th with Disciple at The Junction Center!
