Journalism professor rocks out off campus

By day, she is an Austin Community College journalism professor, but at night, she is a rock star. Jessie Torrisi is the lead singer in Jessie Torrisi and the Please, Please Me. She has played in about a dozen bands since her college days.

Now that South by Southwest Music Festival is over, her band will start recording a follow-up to the previous album Brûler Brûler. It was recorded in 2009.

"It'll be both more rocking and more indie than the last album. I'm using my own band which'll give it a cohesive sound, more like a band and less like a singer-songwriter. Also, I'll be playing the drums," said Torrisi.

Torrisi started playing the drums at 14. She played other instruments, but drums were her calling. While in New York for school, she played in dozens of bands.

After the end of these bands, she decided to move from her comfort zone behind the drums, to leading the band and writing the songs.

"Sometimes I'd write it three times before I'm like this is it, this is it," said Torrisi. "You just somehow know and sometimes, you get to this point, and you realize this is going to make people feel something."

The band name Please, Please Me get a big kick from Torrisi's publicist who was into another band with a name that rhymed.

"I was totally smitten with the fact that it rhymed. So, I started messing around with what would rhyme. Please, Please Me beamed into my head. I felt like it fit, because all our songs are about the chase, they're about the desire, they're about going for it," said Torrisi.

At the beginning of 2009, she left New Orleans to head to Austin. She realized at a past SXSW that she liked Austin.

"This is a town where things are really accessible, and people can do amazing things. It's sunny, and it's friendly," said Torrisi.

Jessie Torrisi and the Please, Please Me is a four piece band, and can easily be described as a "carnival band" with a very non-traditional style. On stage, the members are move to different instruments: cellos, guitar, trumpet, and keyboards.

"The experience about going to a live show should be an experience. We pull the audience on stage. We switch places. I hand out kazoos. I sing a song while sitting on a table in the middle of the club. We try really to make it more of an experience and something different than you could even imagine by listening to the album, a little bit like a carnival playhouse," said Torrisi.

Torrisi even beatboxes, a skill she learned through online videos.

"I typed in to YouTube ‘How to beatbox,' and then you start watching the videos. I am a drummer, so I do understand the beats," said Torrisi. "It's given me some street cred with my little brother."