August 29, 2007
Locally World Famous: Kariann
Orange County acoustic pop artist Kariann is ready to rock.
By KELLI SKYE FADROSKI
SqueezeOC.com
Locally World Famous is an occasional feature profiling up-and-coming musical artists from Orange County and surrounding areas.
Twenty-year-old Kariann Deshler is a self-proclaimed "attention ham." She has experience in community theatre, she paints and draws, writes music and plays guitar.
Deshler has been performing her acoustic pop music around Orange County for the last three years. A relationship-gone-wrong took her writing to another level and gave her a muse for her first album, "It's What Matters," which was released in 2006 on her independent label, Squish Records.
"The whole album was basically about this guy, Matt, who was an almost-boyfriend," Deshler said. "I saw things going one way and he led me on and turned around and went another, so there are a lot of references to that situation and how I felt and dealt with it.
"I left a lot of the lyrics open and added things to them so that they could be more relatable."
Deshler's music and vocals are sweet, but the petite blonde performs her music like she would perform in a theater production – she has a dynamic that makes her easily watchable and listenable.
Now she's ready to give up a little bit of the glory and ditch her solo days to front the band Desh, which she is pulling together with friend and guitarist Aaron Dillon, drummer Tony Snow and keyboardist Andy Nash.
"I've always wanted to be in a full band," Deshler said. "I did the Coach House a few years ago and we hired a band to play my solo stuff with me on stage and I absolutely loved it.
"Plus, with a band, we can play actual music venues and not just smaller coffeehouses and we all work really well together."
The band is working on material and booking shows, but in the meantime, Deshler continues performing solo in local coffeehouses.
When she isn't playing music, Deshler is hitting the books at Cal State Fullerton, pursing a degree in communications with emphasis on entertainment studies, and working at a Yorba Linda Starbucks to pay her expenses.
In the beginning: Deshler was born in Whittier in 1987, and she and her family moved to Yorba Linda eight years later.
She knew at a young age that she wanted to be involved in the arts. She was in her first play at the age of 5, and she scored her first big role at age 11, playing the White Rabbit in Brea's Curtis Theaters' adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland."
"Of course I wanted to be Alice and I got so sad when I got the White Rabbit, but then it ended up being the best part I've ever played," Deshler said. "The role let me have this jazzy-bluesy solo and when I did it, a lot of people said I sounded like Christina Aguilera, and that was flattering."
When it came time to enroll in high school, she convinced her parents to enroll her at the Orange County High School of the Arts in Santa Ana, where she studied theater, music, and art.
Deshler started playing guitar and writing songs when she was a sophomore and even did a musical performance at her senior graduation in 2005.
See (and hear) Kariann & Desh
Friday, Aug. 31, 7 p.m.
Waterloo Station Coffeehouse, 23162 Los Alisos Blvd., Mission Viejo; 949-587-1363
Free show.
Friday, Sept. 7, 8 p.m.
It's a Grind, 1370 S. Beach Blvd., La Habra; 562-690-8711
Free show
More about Karianne Deshler
Hometown: Yorba Linda
Influences: Jimmy Eat World, Blue October, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Smiths, Pink Floyd.
Local hangouts: The Irvine Spectrum
Random fact: Kariann loves chickens; they are her favorite animal and ironically one of her favorite foods. She is also obsessed with actor Alan Rickman from "Dogma" and the "Harry Potter" movies.
On the web: kariann.net