SXSW 2012

Music comes not from lesson or rote but the open soul. Celeste Griffin, Monarchs' lead singer, began her music education in the piano at age eight. It lasted less than a year. With little to no formal training, it was on a sultry Birmingham, Alabama day in June, 2007 when Celeste again laid hands on her mother’s old piano and stumbled upon her first song, Notes of Disease. The pot began to boil and Celeste yielded to the flame. Three years later Griffin’s recognized ability to whisper southern family secrets and belt the grief of lost love has landed her at the biggest venues in Austin, the “Live Music Capital of the World.”