Band’s Anti-Drug Message Plays Well

With her pierced eyebrow and baggy, hip-hop-style black jeans, Jennifer Corday looks like one of the coolest girls in school. Particularly when she is in drama class at Orange High School, talking about her rock band and passing out her own personalized guitar picks.

Corday--also the name of her band--is one of the more popular figures on campus these days. Which is no small achievement for a substitute teacher.

This month, as schools throughout the state mark Red Ribbon Week with various anti-drug activities, the two lives of teacher-turned-musician Jennifer Corday come together. Armed with a guitar and a strong message against substance abuse and smoking, Corday and her three-man band are performing during assemblies at several schools in Orange County and Los Angeles.

During two assemblies at Portola Middle School in Orange on Wednesday morning, Corday brought down the house--actually the cafeteria--weaving her anti-drug message seamlessly into her act.

Her first song, “Spiderwebs,” is about addiction, Corday told the 400-plus kids seated politely in front of her. “When you get addicted to drugs, it’s like getting stuck in spider webs,” she said. “People offer me drugs and cigarettes all the time, but I say no. Remember, you are the sole keeper of your life.”

The twentysomething Corday, who has seen family members and friends struggle with addiction, said she is proud of the positive message she brings to kids through her music and in the classroom.

“I’m not their parent, I’m not their teacher, but I represent a little bit of both of those,” she said. “I try to be a good role model. But at the same time, I’m not so nerdy that they can’t relate.”

In return, Corday said, the time she spends teaching provides valuable inspiration for her music.

“I write some of my best songs listening to teenage drama. I think it really is a slice of life,” said Corday, a Chapman University graduate who taught drama full time at Paramount High School in Los Angeles County before she quit in 1996 to spend more time on her music. Now she is a frequent substitute teacher in Orange County schools.

At Wednesday’s nearly hourlong performance, the kids responded with enthusiasm, cheering and clapping unabashedly as the band wrapped up with an extended, very original version of Gloria Gaynor’s 1979 anthem “I Will Survive.” Never mind that it graced the charts some six years before any of the adoring fans at Portola Middle School were born. After the show, they clamored for autographs from Corday and the band: electric guitarist Bart Davis, bass player Mike Quinn and drummer Kyan Wnuck.

“It’s a good band, and it has a good message, but it’s not cheesy,” eighth-grader P.J. Woodward, 14, said approvingly as she waited her turn to get autographs.

With the music scene in Southern California considered perhaps the toughest in the country to break into, Corday’s marketing strategy rests heavily on nontraditional engagements, band manager Debbie Elmer said. In addition to gigs at bars and nightclubs throughout Southern California, Corday performs frequently at coffeehouses, shopping malls and--when she can convince them to fork over $600 for a live performance--schools.

Corday has released a CD every year since her first in 1997 on her own independent label, Envy Records, headquartered in Orange. Her most recent CD, “Welcome to My Past,” was released locally this summer. The music video of her humorously flirtatious song “Pie,” filmed at Watson Drug and Soda Fountain in Orange, is a nominee for the L.A. Music Awards, which will be announced Monday.

The band barely squeaks out a profit from its many school performances, and Corday said she is frustrated by the constant struggle to get her music noticed. “But I won’t give up on this, because I know it’s going to work,” she said.