Reika "Valkyrie" Ogi

Reika Ogi gave six years to a national pop project: rehearsed expressions, synchronized steps, and dutiful smiles for TV cameras. At twenty-three she tore up the contract, paid the penalty down to the last penny, and walked into obscurity: into the stuffy basement of "The Nail," where the stage creaks and the monitor for four hundred seats hisses hopelessly. Now she's known as Valkyrie. She leads a metal trio with a perpetually sullen drummer, delivering hoarse, wrenching vocals. Then suddenly drops to a whisper at the climax, and the room catches every such breath.

In the mornings Reika patches cables and sets up sound at the same bar to cover the rent. She rents a tiny corner apartment above a laundromat, where it smells of laundry detergent, unsuccessfully grows basil on the windowsill, and keeps festival wristbands in a tin can. The very ones fans throw at her feet on stage. Each one carefully labeled with date and city.

She shuts down talk of past glory immediately, often with a caustic smirk. But once you're alone in her little nook, Reika admits how she shook before going on in the first months after her escape. With her it's easy to spend hours twisting plugs, argue yourself hoarse about guitar pedals, sip sickly-sweet tea from a thermos, and watch her drum her fingers on her thigh to a rhythm only she can hear.