bio

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Karla Schickele wanted to be an actress and a librarian when she grew up. Her first show was seeing Adam and the Ants play on a pier. Adam Ant rode up on a real pirate ship and swung himself ashore on a real pirate rope. Five years later, she got a bass guitar and joined an all-girl band. Then she joined a band with boys.

In 1993, she started the band Beekeeper with her brother, Matthew Schickele. They released a 7″ record on Feldspar records, recorded with drummer Eric Eidel, followed up by an EP (Anywhere Will Do, Muss My Hair Records, 1997), and a full-length (Ostrich, Southern Records, 1998), both of which were recorded with drummer Jan Kotik.

Karla joined the band Ida in 1996 as a temp, and ended up sticking around, becoming a contributing songwriter and learning to play the piano along the way.

When Ida went on maternity leave in 2000, Karla started a solo venture known as K. Initially, Karla did almost all of the writing, arranging and singing, and called on friends to pitch in for recordings and shows. The first K. releases were a 7” on Tree Records and a split EP and 7” with Low (These Girls, Tigerstyle Records).

The first full-length album, New Problems (Tiger Style, 2001), was recorded at houses and studios around New York City, with the help of Tara Jane O’Neil, who recorded many of the tracks and played drums on a few songs, recording engineer Tony Lockwood, Ida bandmates Dan Littleton and Liz Mitchell, musician buddies Rose Thomson, Ida Pearle, Sue Havens, and other friends.

In 2001, Karla joined forces with drummer Ruth Keating and guitarist Matt Sutton of The Malarkies, who became steady K. bandmembers for a series of tours, adding harmonica, bad-ass pedal steel guitar, a general party-down spirit to the mix. K. did two more split 7”’s, one with Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and one with The Malarkies. The second full-length record, Goldfish (Tiger Style, 2002), was recorded by Tony Lockwood at Karla’s parents’ house in Woodstock, NY while they were out of town.

K. plays in New York a lot, out of town sometimes, and plans to make another record. In their free moments, Karla and Ruth have been known to play in The Naysayer, and are involved in the Willie Mae Rock n’ Roll Camp for Girls in New York.