Aussie Preacher's Daughter Turns to Rock

[Key Guy]

From The Age online, Entertainment section

http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainm...1894089078.html

Quote:

The preacher's daughter has found her voice in Royal Treatment Plant, says Andrew Murfett.

WHEN Paula Steel left Australia, she did not play guitar and had no dream of being in a band.

Five years on, she remains in London. Her plans to study contemporary dance, however, were long ago jettisoned.

She now fronts a buzz-worthy guitar-pop band, Royal Treatment Plant. The rocking quartet release their debut Hope Is Not Enough this week.

Steel was born in Newcastle, to parents who were missionaries for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. As a child, she moved with her family to Papua New Guinea; dad was a high school principal, mum a nurse.

Her family had a deep affinity for PNG that stretches back to her grandfather, who served there as a medic in World War II.

"I didn't think much of it until we came back and I'd tell people about growing up there," she says. "They'd think it's really unusual. To me, that's just what happened. I'm still friends with a lot of the kids I grew up with there."

Steel describes her parents as "soul searchers". As she grew up, their seemingly inexorable pursuit of religious providence for themselves led to more extreme Christian groups and her strict religious upbringing inspired her to begin writing music.

She flinches as she recalls her father at one of her gigs. "He couldn't cope with it," she says. "He asked me why I had to shake my head and play a loud guitar. They associate it with satanic forces. They don't really see a divide between me and Black Sabbath."

Now based in Dubbo, her parents flew to London to see Royal Treatment Plant in the band's formative stages. They were shocked that she was playing guitar, and in a band. Formerly, Steel had been focused on piano and flute in the Christian school band.

In fact, her father had a singing group called the Praise Singers, into which she was recruited.

"It was a massive shock for them, and so far out of their world," she says.

"But it was my way out of a very small and narrow world where you were taught to be terrified of anybody with a beer in their hand or who wasn't playing Christian or classical music, because somehow your soul would be damaged."

Now categorically an atheist, Steel says religion has been expunged from her life. "I'm completely removed from it. I find I don't really broach it when I come home. My father still preaches and they are very strong in their faith, and that works for them. For me, it either is or it isn't. Even my friends, who have an easy, convenient relationship with religion, I find it difficult to relate to...

(more text/photo online)

[Twilight]

From The Age online, Entertainment section

http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainm...1894089078.html

Quote:

The preacher's daughter has found her voice in Royal Treatment Plant, says Andrew Murfett.

WHEN Paula Steel left Australia, she did not play guitar and had no dream of being in a band.

Five years on, she remains in London. Her plans to study contemporary dance, however, were long ago jettisoned.

She now fronts a buzz-worthy guitar-pop band, Royal Treatment Plant. The rocking quartet release their debut Hope Is Not Enough this week.

Steel was born in Newcastle, to parents who were missionaries for the Seventh-day Adventist Church. As a child, she moved with her family to Papua New Guinea; dad was a high school principal, mum a nurse.

Her family had a deep affinity for PNG that stretches back to her grandfather, who served there as a medic in World War II.

"I didn't think much of it until we came back and I'd tell people about growing up there," she says. "They'd think it's really unusual. To me, that's just what happened. I'm still friends with a lot of the kids I grew up with there."

Steel describes her parents as "soul searchers". As she grew up, their seemingly inexorable pursuit of religious providence for themselves led to more extreme Christian groups and her strict religious upbringing inspired her to begin writing music.

She flinches as she recalls her father at one of her gigs. "He couldn't cope with it," she says. "He asked me why I had to shake my head and play a loud guitar. They associate it with satanic forces. They don't really see a divide between me and Black Sabbath."

Now based in Dubbo, her parents flew to London to see Royal Treatment Plant in the band's formative stages. They were shocked that she was playing guitar, and in a band. Formerly, Steel had been focused on piano and flute in the Christian school band.

In fact, her father had a singing group called the Praise Singers, into which she was recruited.

"It was a massive shock for them, and so far out of their world," she says.

"But it was my way out of a very small and narrow world where you were taught to be terrified of anybody with a beer in their hand or who wasn't playing Christian or classical music, because somehow your soul would be damaged."

Now categorically an atheist, Steel says religion has been expunged from her life. "I'm completely removed from it. I find I don't really broach it when I come home. My father still preaches and they are very strong in their faith, and that works for them. For me, it either is or it isn't. Even my friends, who have an easy, convenient relationship with religion, I find it difficult to relate to...

(more text/photo online)

And some would like us to believe that music has no influence over us...

Mark