Regina Zernay Roberts - Personal Biography

L.A. musician Regina Zernay Roberts has played bass for 23 years. Since September 2010, she's been playing shows with Cee Lo Green and his all-girl band Scarlet Fever. Before that, she played for three and a half years with New Orleans rock band Cowboy Mouth.

When she started as a teenager, she was influenced by bands like Social Distortion, the Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, the Toy Dolls, The Ramones, and Duran Duran. Regina picked up the bass because friends heard she played guitar. They wondered if she'd switch instruments.

By the time she finished high school, she was ready to start playing out. It led to her first West Coast tour - two weeks with a band she just joined in a small pick up truck. In spite of cheap motels and strange living rooms, she was hooked.

When she got home, she started playing with every band who asked her. Before she knew it, she'd played almost all the small clubs in the city. From dive bars in Downey to The Whiskey on Sunset, she took every chance to play on stage.

Her influences grew. She discovered classic rock, and became a huge fan of John Paul Jones and Led Zeppelin. She also loved bands like Soundgarden and Nirvana, who were a breath of fresh air after years of toothless music on the radio.

The gigs got better and more high profile. Eventually, she found herself in a band getting lots of local attention. Inevitably, another band stole her and she got noticed on a larger scale. It led to her first shows at the House of Blues and The Troubadour.

As a listener, she finally became exposed to The Beatles. She spent a little time on the dance floors of L.A.'s underground clubs, listening to harder edged electronica and dance music. Beck, Garbage and Radiohead were in heavy rotation on her CD player.

She made new friends on the business side of things. She ended up on a list of female bass players set to audition for a well-known artist. The artist disbanded her group before completing auditions. But the list fell in the hands of a band from Boston who'd just signed a deal with Dreamworks/Megatronic. They needed a new bass player, and were given the list.

Regina got the gig. She found herself back on the road with a band called Halfcocked. They described themselves as "AC/DC and ABBA getting into a bar fight." The band was heavily promoted, featured in magazines like Hit Parader, Alternative Press, and L.A. Weekly. But, like most musicians signed to their first major label deal, things fell through.

Regina began recording her own material, fronting a band called "Mechant." She found the name in the book "Hit Men." She liked it because it described her favorite kind of humor. She thought it fit the polished power pop she was writing. Melodic, with heavy bass, loud guitars and a smart mouth attitude.

Her CD collection grew. She found herself listening to darker, noisier music. She also started craving 80s rock. It became a loud mish mosh. At any given moment, you might have heard BRMC, Primal Scream, Placebo, Beautiful Creatures, STP or even The Cult and Journey blasting from her stereo.

One day, while hanging out with a friend in Santa Monica, she heard a band playing on the boardwalk. She liked them. They didn't have a bass player.

They were a hip hop/rock band called Jam Balaya. They worked out an audition, and soon the band was playing every weekend in Santa Monica and Venice. They also ended up on the TV show "Half & Half."

This wasn't Regina's first experience on TV. Like most people in Los Angeles, she spent time doing background work and even got some acting spots. She hit it hard for about a year and a half, mostly because she'd always wanted to try it.

Soon, however, Regina went back to her own band. Good opportunities came up, like opening for Annabella Lwin from Bow Wow Wow. Most of all, it was the chance to work on her own material.

Her bandmates had different ideas. They wanted to concentrate on their day jobs. Nearly ready to give up, Regina found an ad on craigslist. It was for a national touring act with 12 albums under their belts and over 120 shows a year.

She called and found out it was a band called Cowboy Mouth. One thing led to another, and she auditioned and got the gig.

Regina played with Cowboy Mouth for nearly three and a half years. They played more than 200 shows annually, and traveled the U.S. a half dozen times while she was a member. They performed internationally, doing a USO tour of military bases in Kuwait and Iraq in 2009. They appeared twice on "Regis & Kelly." Other big shows included Jazzfest, Voodoofest, the Superdome, and House of Blues shows throughout the country.

Cowboy Mouth was also featured as a cartoon in the New Yorker (a huge personal highlight for a girl born in New York). The band released the live DVD "The Name of the Band is Cowboy Mouth," and the full-length CD "Fearless" during her time with them.

This June, Regina was invited to play bass with Cee Lo Green (Gnarls Barkley) and his all-girl band Scarlet Fever. They played the "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" and "George Lopez Tonight." The band performed Cee Lo's single "What Part of Forever," from the Twilight Eclipse movie soundtrack (footage is on the "Video" page).

In September 2010, Regina announced she was leaving Cowboy Mouth to focus on shows and rehearsals with Cee Lo. Since then, she's appeared on Saturday Night Live, David Letterman, Good Morning America, Ellen, The Colbert Report, AOL Sessions, Fuse, BET, ESPN, Later with Jools Holland, Radio One, and recorded at the legendary BBC Recording Studios.

In January 2011, German magazine Bass Quarterly interviewed Regina and featured her on the front cover. Most recently, the band has opened for Prince at Madison Square Garden, and the Foo Fighters at Wembley Arena.