Bella D Production/Drum Mastermind Charlie Zeleny Discusses ‘The Crystal Ceiling’ Drum Rig with Drum! Magazine

Listen to New Track “There’s No Room For You”

BELLA D’s Dystopian Concept Album The Crystal Ceiling is Out Friday, May 13, 2016

Optional Companion Comic Book Available

Operatic songstress Christie Oakes is recognized as the voice and soul behind her new conceptual symphonic rock venture BELLA D, but her musical teammate Charlie Zeleny (otherwise known by his alter-ego DRMAGDN and for his work with Dream Theater‘s Jordan Rudess, Blotted Science, Behold the Arctopus and others) has been a driving force in production, engineering and overall development since the inception of the project. Although Oakes and Zeleny originally forged their musical friendship back in their high school and college days, BELLA D marks their official emergence as a team after years of honing their respective crafts.

By now, BELLA D followers have heard a wide selection of tracks cut from the new album The Crystal Ceiling, out May 13, 2016, including “Invincible” (which premiered this past weekend on Long Island’s 94.3 FM The Shark), “End of The World” and “The Crystal Ceiling”. Today marks the first chance to hear one of the earliest-penned tracks from the album, entitled “There’s No Room For You”.

Listen to “There’s No Room For You” and check out an interview/drum rig overview with Zeleny now via Drum! Magazine: http://www.drummagazine.com/features/post/10989/

Pre-orders for The Crystal Ceiling and the first comic book are available here. You can secure pre-sale tickets for her upcoming Carroll Place NYC CD release party on May 19^th here.

In a recent interview with MediaMikes.com, Christie Oakes discusses how she and Charlie Zeleny came together for The Crystal Ceiling, “I knew I really needed a partner to help me with [the album]. It was one of these things where the album became so big that there was no way I was going to be able to do this by myself… We sat down and wrote one song which went very quickly. From there we tried another and so on. All of a sudden things just exploded and the album literally started to take on a life of its own.”

Zeleny adds, “Christie and I originally reconnected when I needed female models to be featured in my Drumageddon Manhattan Drum Solo Video, in which I played a non-stop one-take solo all across Times Square NYC with people presenting me items to drum on between drum sets. She and I have had a long friendship since high school and college, so were able to get some pretty deep and emotional places a lot quicker than most.The Crystal Ceiling was an intense project for me personally, because aside from producing, engineering and co-penning lyrics, I worked very intensely with Christie on the overall concept and storyline, in addition to her artist development. It was very important for us to fuse the Steampunk elements of BELLA D with my alter-ego, DRMAGDN: Cyborg Drummer/DJ, so making sure we excelled as a team was important to me.”

In addition to Oakes and Zeleny, The Crystal Ceiling features session musicians known for working with multi-platinum artists such as (but not limited to) Taylor Swift, Blondie, Avril Lavigne, Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and David Guetta. Impressively, not one of the musicians on the album aside from Oakes and Zeleny recorded in the same room – this entire album is a true product of the future, utilizing the great power of the internet to craft it. The Crystal Ceiling is chock full of unforgettable, top-notch rock tracks featuring superior production and unmatched musical execution, sure to impress even the most discerning of palates.

Zeleny continues, “In tune with wanting to take The Crystal Ceiling to the top level, I decided to utilize some of the long-term relationships I’ve made throughout the years as a session drummer, producer and music director in NYC. I brought on all of the top session musicians who performed on the album so we could really rock it hard. It was badass to have so many killer musicians on the album together – and all recorded virtually which was a cool futuristic thing to do.”

BELLA D weaves gripping storytelling throughout The Crystal Ceiling, which fashions itself as a dystopian/steampunk-themed concept album. The Crystal Ceiling tells the autobiographical story of a female automaton whose main purpose for construction was companionship. Beautiful, smart and charming, BELLA D‘s will was too strong for captivity. Transported by portal to a dark, futuristic New York City, BELLA D overcomes numerous adversities, holding her own in a new world filled with unfamiliar challenges and plagued by imminent doom.

The Crystal Ceiling is more than just a concept album – it is born of real life inspiration. The theme of escape from terrible circumstances, surmounting impossible obstacles and overcoming tragedy as a victorious hero is not just a fairy-tale – it’s Christie Oakes’ life story. Midway through the album recording process, Oakes received the terrible news that she had BRCA positive aggressive breast cancer and needed to not only endure grueling high dose chemotherapy, but also have massive surgery to remove both breasts and her ovaries, similar to Angelina Jolie. Since then, her music has taken on a higher stakes/real life-and-death meaning.