Melissa Ivey
She got her start in music at nine when a musician came to her school and inspired her to take violin lessons. “Music became my release. We were always moving. Music was a constant in my life.” At 13 she picked up her mother’s bass guitar and taught herself to play. At 14, it was the electric guitar. “I was grounded for most of two years, so I had a lot of time to learn how to play.” By 15, on one of her infrequent school visits (“I spent more time leaving school than in it.”), she stumbled across a pick-up band practicing in a storage room. They formed Manic Notion, a punk band based in San Jose. Then in 2002, at age 19, she moved to Denver and her did her share of solo acoustic gigs.
