Bernice, better known for her stage name B, is the lead vocalist and founding member of Blodwen, a gothic symphonic rock band from the East. Born and raised in Jakarta, B became actively involved as a teenager in the local music scene; her first band, The Private Jokers evolved into Blodwen in 2009. Blodwen’s work merges symphonic rock, gothic timbre, melodic guitars and powerful versatile vocals to create music fueled by the band’s eclectic musical sound.
The history of Blodwen date back to 5 years ago where front-woman B formed the group together with her classmates. Initially, a five-piece line-up of Marcellus, Ronald, Evan, Michael and B, the band debuted as a J-Rock cover band and began to build up a modest reputation among the community by playing in local gigs. However, after foraying into European metal in 2007, the band took a drastic shift in their artistic direction. At that critical point of time, the band had to undergo a hiatus due to B’s departure to further her studies in Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts.
During this period of time, B continued to compose and record music, whilst working with her band through the Internet in an attempt to keep the band alive. The effort paid off, as in 2009 Blodwen landed a contract with an underground metal label based in Fukuoka, Japan - Red Rivet Records. After spending 1.5 years re-recording and re-editing the songs, Blodwen's debut album "Black Symphony" was finally released in 23 Sept 2010, coincidentally falling on B's 23rd birthday. With 12 songs in English, Indonesian and Japanese; the album aimed towards an international audience.
Bernice maintain that her artistic vision is to “show those Europeans that Asians can kick ass too in their own turf- symphonic metal.” Driven by the fact that the symphonic metal industry is dominated by Europeans and Americans, she is determined to prove that her own country can produce quality music of that genre. Bernice is also vehemently against stereotyping and strongly believes that her ethnicity does not prevent one from singing symphonic metal or classical opera. She further stresses that musicians should overstep cultural barriers and that in this age “Africans should be singing rock and maybe Italians dangdut,” purely because music is a universal language that everyone speaks.
