Ivy fail English? That's unpossible

People might have noticed so just wanted to give some background on my... occasionally weird pronunciation/mangling of words on some of our songs. 

So basically, English isn't my first language. I grew up in Southwest Detroit, and in our house we primarily spoke Spanish. My parents were rightly very proud of our Mexican heritage, and so that was reflected in our home life. Not in a bad way, it's not like we were ONLY allowed to speak Spanish, and I was obviously taught English as well, it's just Spanish was the default.

Once I went to school I obviously started speaking English a lot more, and eventually became properly bilingual, but even now it's still like my brain is hardwired to Spanish? 

So what happens is, sometimes when I'm singing, even when it is the very words that I myself have written with my own cold, dead hands, it's like my brain momentarily just totally malfunctions, trips over itself, and quickly gets back up only to find itself suddenly wearing a poncho and big sombrero. Yes, it's a very lazy stereotype, but that's honestly the best way I can visualize what it feels like.

I think throwing being ADHD as fuck and whatever else into the mix probably has a lot to do with it too. I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until much more recently in life and so didn't get any support or acknowledgement around that growing up, which I think definitely affected things developmentally. I'm pretty smart and could do well at school, but I was also a little shit. Being that as it may, times when I was playing up as a result of ADHD issues will have just been lumped in with me being an absolute fucker. 

Anyways, where was I...

Yeah so basically I think from combination of even though I speak English, my brain is Spanish, and said brain is also a hot mess of ADHD and a dazzling array of other neuroses. It's not just singing either, I randomly do it while talking too. My siblings don't have any kind of language issues, so maybe I was dropped on my head and my mom never told me? 

I mean take Lars Ulrich though. He's lived in the US most of his life but he still has a really distinctive accent that's not totally, for the want of a better word, "American", and he still has a real twang on the way he pronounces words. If it's good enough for Lars, then it's good enough for old Ivy fucking Fernandez. Also, my English-speaking accent is as American as fucking apple pie, so I got that going for me at least 💅🏻🥧

Whatever the hell is happening up there in that brain of mine, I just do the best with what I got. Fuck me, it sure ain't easy sometimes, but I try 🤣

So after this long-ass explanation, you may still be wondering "but why oh why do you leave all those goofy pronunciations on the recordings, Ivy?". Sometimes, no matter how many takes, I just cannot for the fucking life of me say the damn thing right - once I've done it wrong, 2/3 of the time it's game over. Bless her, Suze has the patience of a god damned saint but even she needs to go home and sleep at night! Other times... we just think it's funny so leave it in. 

Either way, we've never cared about being perfect, and we wear things like this as a bit of a badge of pride that, past being Detroit's Baddest Bitches, we're an authentic set of goofballs ☺️

Anyways, thanks so much for coming to my Ted Talk! I hope you found it very informative and remember, the answers were inside you all along!

Ivy x 🖤