I've had a lot more asks lately about and I figured instead of having to answer the same question over and over I should just put everything into one post. So I guess this is kind of like a beginner's guide to Liesel St. Claire.
Liesel grew up in Santa Monica. She’s said she was really good at school and she wanted to be a doctor, but then she went to a party and met Charlotte Froom and decided to form a band with her instead. Liesel has two younger sisters, Kaitlyn and Amelia. They all grew up playing music but her sisters only do it as a hobby. Her dad taught her a bunch of instruments but guitar was her favorite.
She is basically adorable. Sometimes she tries to act like she’s really cool, but she’s actually a giant loser.
And I say that with love.
She used to have brown hair but now she’s blonde.
She’s really good friends with Ariella Siego. I don’t know when they met, but there are a bunch of photos of them from 2008/2009 hanging out together.
They are both giant dorks.
There used to be a lot of fanfic about them. I wrote most of it.
They don’t hang out much anymore, but they do tweet each other sometimes and I think they were just hanging out together at Coachella. I always thought Liesel was kind of jealous of Ari, because they both front/fronted bands with three chicks, but Siego is like 500 million times more successful than Green Square was. Ari is super supportive of Liesel and she used to be at Liesel’s gigs all the time, but I don’t think Liesel’s ever been to that many of Ari’s.
Liesel’s first band was Green Square, with Charlotte Froom and Tennessee Thomas. They played a bunch of big festivals and toured with bands like Muse and Sons of Hazard and Phantom Planet even though their music wasn’t that good. Charlotte’s dad is a well-known producer, so maybe that had something to do with it and there were always rumors that Liesel did whatever (and whoever) it took to get opportunities.
Green Square’s first-ever show was at a Phantom Planet fan event. They played two songs. They got the gig because Alex Greenwald and Charlotte were really tight but Alex and Liesel started hanging out after that. More on him later.
Around this time Liesel dated Christian Hendree. It was kind of sketchy because she was barely legal but they were pretty cute together. I wonder if she regrets breaking up with him now he’s really successful.
I don’t know why they broke up but they stayed friends. His phone was hacked recently and there was a nude photo of Liesel and some sexts on it so I guess they stayed really close friends. I don’t keep shit like that when I break up with someone. I think Liesel met her future bandmate James Valentine through Christian, but basically they all used to hang out in a big group and it’s kind of hard to tell how anyone met anyone.
Charlotte left Green Square in 2009 right before they started recording their second album. Liesel was not impressed.
Alex actually ended up playing bass on their album because they suddenly didn’t have a bassist anymore. People wrote a lot of angsty fanfiction about Charlotte breaking Liesel’s heart and Liesel being caught in a love triangle between Charlotte and Alex. Some of it was pretty good. There was one where she got knocked up and Charlotte came back to help her raise the baby, but I digress.
Mark Ronson produced Release Me and it sounds a lot like a Mark Ronson-produced album. It’s very 60’s inspired. This is what Release Me era Green Square looks like:
As you can see they replaced Charlotte with two other girls (Laena Geronemo and Annie Monroe) and went on tour with the the Detectives. They also went to Australia to support the Strokes (I’m taking bets on which one of the Strokes Liesel slept with to get that gig). Liesel did a lot of interviews where she never outright said she hated their album but she made it pretty clear it wasn’t the kind of music she wanted to make.
"It’s a fun experiment. I think it’s good to try different things and stretch yourself creatively, even if you end up going back to what makes you comfortable."
So she formed a band with a bunch of dudes instead. They called their band Literary Tourist. They were probably high at the time.
Literary tourist was Liesel St. Claire (or Liesel Rosemont as she was then), Alex Greenwald (Phantom Planet), James Valentine (Radio Silence), Jason Boesel (Lion's Den) and Michael Runion ("solo" artist). It was basically an opportunity for Liesel to dance around in a short skirt and not play an instrument.
They released their self-titled album in 2012 and did a US tour. Liv Hart tweeted about their album a lot. Liesel started doing interviews talking about how great her band was and how much she loved the music they were making and how great her bandmates were and basically completely blew off her old band for her new one. By this point Green Square was on permanent hiatus.
Sometime between then and now everyone except James stopped doing other things. Radio Silence got really big again, I guess because Christian Hendree was on The Voice, so it’s basically all his fault that James had to leave Literary Tourist. I’m really hoping they’ll get to support Radio Silence at some point so James can be his own support act and play with both bands.
Anyway, so while Literary Tourist weren’t doing much, Liesel wrote a book and got married and changed her last name even though Liesel Rosemont sounds about a million times better than Liesel St. Claire.
I knew she’d written some short stories and I thought they were pretty good, but I didn’t know she was actually serious about writing. Apparently her book is “one of the hottest books by a debut author this year” or something, so I guess I was wrong. It’s called Barbara the Slut and Other People and it comes out later this year. It’s a collection of short stories (some old, some new) and you can read one of them here.
I will say it has the best title ever.
Her husband is Ryker St. Claire, frontman of Paradisiac. They look like this:
The first photos of them together were at Halloween in 2013 when Ryker supposedly already had a girlfriend who was tight with Liesel. So then after stealing her friend’s boyfriend she married him in May last year.
I’m the first to admit I really don’t like them together (so I'm not going to sully this post with photos of them together). I know Ryker’s rich and maybe that’s why she married him but he comes off as a total asshole and Liesel’s been bitchier to fans since she’s been with him. There are always rumors that one of them is cheating (mostly Rkyer although it’s been all about Liesel lately) or one of them isn’t wearing a wedding ring but as far as I know they’re still together. Liesel did an interview not long after they were married and talked about having an open marriage, but then other times they seem really creepy and obsessive about each other. There was a story last year where someone saw them at an airport with a really OTT display of PDA. And she always looks really unhappy when she’s on Ryker’s tour with him. Maybe I’m wrong and she’s really happy but I still hope they get divorced and she finds someone better.
Okay so after the marriage and book thing we get to now where Literary Tourist announce that they’ve changed their name to Calligraphy. They were talking about recording for like a year before it happened so nobody really took it seriously, but they’ve officially finished their album and they’ve just finished shooting the video to their first single. It’s called I’m In Love With My Life. They even have merch to go with it.
MERCH, YOU GUYS. LITERARY TOURIST NEVER DID SHIT LIKE THIS.
So far all their promo has been a lot more cleaned up and professional, probably because they’re signed to a major label now. I’m hoping this means their album is going to get pushed really heavily and we’ll see them playing all the summer festivals. I will stalk them if this happens. Feel free to join me.
They’re kind of trying to play it off like Calligraphy is this brand new band and Literary Tourist never existed. They deleted all their old social media posts and I’m wondering if they’re going to call this new album their debut even though technically it’s their sophomore album.
It all gets a little confusing but basically the timeline is something like:
2009 – Charlotte leaves Green Square, Release Me is recorded
Later in 2009 – Green Square tours with the Detectives and Liesel bitches a lot
Even later in 2009 – Literary Tourist is formed
2010 – Release Me is, well, released
2011 – Green Square announces hiatus and cancels all upcoming shows
2012 – Literary Tourist releases an album and tours
2013 – Green Square inexplicably plays a show in Japan
2014 – Liesel suddenly gets married to Ryker St. Claire
2015 – Liesel writes a book
2015 – Literary Tourist signs to Warner Bros, changes their name to Calligraphy and records a new album due for a summer release
2016 - ????
This is Liesel St. Claire.
Liesel grew up in Santa Monica. She’s said she was really good at school and she wanted to be a doctor, but then she went to a party and met Charlotte Froom and decided to form a band with her instead. Liesel has two younger sisters, Kaitlyn and Amelia. They all grew up playing music but her sisters only do it as a hobby. Her dad taught her a bunch of instruments but guitar was her favorite.
She is basically adorable. Sometimes she tries to act like she’s really cool, but she’s actually a giant loser.
And I say that with love.
She used to have brown hair but now she’s blonde.
She’s really good friends with Ariella Siego. I don’t know when they met, but there are a bunch of photos of them from 2008/2009 hanging out together.
They are both giant dorks.
There used to be a lot of fanfic about them. I wrote most of it.
They don’t hang out much anymore, but they do tweet each other sometimes and I think they were just hanging out together at Coachella. I always thought Liesel was kind of jealous of Ari, because they both front/fronted bands with three chicks, but Siego is like 500 million times more successful than Green Square was. Ari is super supportive of Liesel and she used to be at Liesel’s gigs all the time, but I don’t think Liesel’s ever been to that many of Ari’s.
Liesel’s first band was Green Square, with Charlotte Froom and Tennessee Thomas. They played a bunch of big festivals and toured with bands like Muse and Sons of Hazard and Phantom Planet even though their music wasn’t that good. Charlotte’s dad is a well-known producer, so maybe that had something to do with it and there were always rumors that Liesel did whatever (and whoever) it took to get opportunities.
Green Square’s first-ever show was at a Phantom Planet fan event. They played two songs. They got the gig because Alex Greenwald and Charlotte were really tight but Alex and Liesel started hanging out after that. More on him later.
Around this time Liesel dated Christian Hendree. It was kind of sketchy because she was barely legal but they were pretty cute together. I wonder if she regrets breaking up with him now he’s really successful.
I don’t know why they broke up but they stayed friends. His phone was hacked recently and there was a nude photo of Liesel and some sexts on it so I guess they stayed really close friends. I don’t keep shit like that when I break up with someone. I think Liesel met her future bandmate James Valentine through Christian, but basically they all used to hang out in a big group and it’s kind of hard to tell how anyone met anyone.
Charlotte left Green Square in 2009 right before they started recording their second album. Liesel was not impressed.
Alex actually ended up playing bass on their album because they suddenly didn’t have a bassist anymore. People wrote a lot of angsty fanfiction about Charlotte breaking Liesel’s heart and Liesel being caught in a love triangle between Charlotte and Alex. Some of it was pretty good. There was one where she got knocked up and Charlotte came back to help her raise the baby, but I digress.
Mark Ronson produced Release Me and it sounds a lot like a Mark Ronson-produced album. It’s very 60’s inspired. This is what Release Me era Green Square looks like:
As you can see they replaced Charlotte with two other girls (Laena Geronemo and Annie Monroe) and went on tour with the the Detectives. They also went to Australia to support the Strokes (I’m taking bets on which one of the Strokes Liesel slept with to get that gig). Liesel did a lot of interviews where she never outright said she hated their album but she made it pretty clear it wasn’t the kind of music she wanted to make.
"It’s a fun experiment. I think it’s good to try different things and stretch yourself creatively, even if you end up going back to what makes you comfortable."
So she formed a band with a bunch of dudes instead. They called their band Literary Tourist. They were probably high at the time.
Literary tourist was Liesel St. Claire (or Liesel Rosemont as she was then), Alex Greenwald (Phantom Planet), James Valentine (Radio Silence), Jason Boesel (Lion's Den) and Michael Runion ("solo" artist). It was basically an opportunity for Liesel to dance around in a short skirt and not play an instrument.
They released their self-titled album in 2012 and did a US tour. Liv Hart tweeted about their album a lot. Liesel started doing interviews talking about how great her band was and how much she loved the music they were making and how great her bandmates were and basically completely blew off her old band for her new one. By this point Green Square was on permanent hiatus.
Sometime between then and now everyone except James stopped doing other things. Radio Silence got really big again, I guess because Christian Hendree was on The Voice, so it’s basically all his fault that James had to leave Literary Tourist. I’m really hoping they’ll get to support Radio Silence at some point so James can be his own support act and play with both bands.
Anyway, so while Literary Tourist weren’t doing much, Liesel wrote a book and got married and changed her last name even though Liesel Rosemont sounds about a million times better than Liesel St. Claire.
I knew she’d written some short stories and I thought they were pretty good, but I didn’t know she was actually serious about writing. Apparently her book is “one of the hottest books by a debut author this year” or something, so I guess I was wrong. It’s called Barbara the Slut and Other People and it comes out later this year. It’s a collection of short stories (some old, some new) and you can read one of them here.
I will say it has the best title ever.
Her husband is Ryker St. Claire, frontman of Paradisiac. They look like this:
The first photos of them together were at Halloween in 2013 when Ryker supposedly already had a girlfriend who was tight with Liesel. So then after stealing her friend’s boyfriend she married him in May last year.
I’m the first to admit I really don’t like them together (so I'm not going to sully this post with photos of them together). I know Ryker’s rich and maybe that’s why she married him but he comes off as a total asshole and Liesel’s been bitchier to fans since she’s been with him. There are always rumors that one of them is cheating (mostly Rkyer although it’s been all about Liesel lately) or one of them isn’t wearing a wedding ring but as far as I know they’re still together. Liesel did an interview not long after they were married and talked about having an open marriage, but then other times they seem really creepy and obsessive about each other. There was a story last year where someone saw them at an airport with a really OTT display of PDA. And she always looks really unhappy when she’s on Ryker’s tour with him. Maybe I’m wrong and she’s really happy but I still hope they get divorced and she finds someone better.
Okay so after the marriage and book thing we get to now where Literary Tourist announce that they’ve changed their name to Calligraphy. They were talking about recording for like a year before it happened so nobody really took it seriously, but they’ve officially finished their album and they’ve just finished shooting the video to their first single. It’s called I’m In Love With My Life. They even have merch to go with it.
MERCH, YOU GUYS. LITERARY TOURIST NEVER DID SHIT LIKE THIS.
So far all their promo has been a lot more cleaned up and professional, probably because they’re signed to a major label now. I’m hoping this means their album is going to get pushed really heavily and we’ll see them playing all the summer festivals. I will stalk them if this happens. Feel free to join me.
They’re kind of trying to play it off like Calligraphy is this brand new band and Literary Tourist never existed. They deleted all their old social media posts and I’m wondering if they’re going to call this new album their debut even though technically it’s their sophomore album.
It all gets a little confusing but basically the timeline is something like:
2009 – Charlotte leaves Green Square, Release Me is recorded
Later in 2009 – Green Square tours with the Detectives and Liesel bitches a lot
Even later in 2009 – Literary Tourist is formed
2010 – Release Me is, well, released
2011 – Green Square announces hiatus and cancels all upcoming shows
2012 – Literary Tourist releases an album and tours
2013 – Green Square inexplicably plays a show in Japan
2014 – Liesel suddenly gets married to Ryker St. Claire
2015 – Liesel writes a book
2015 – Literary Tourist signs to Warner Bros, changes their name to Calligraphy and records a new album due for a summer release
2016 - ????