While most kids were hitting puberty and making transformations from ugly duckling to beautiful swans, Nicola Watson instead went from sweet, naive little girl to wild, and utterly out of control teenager. Her mother hardly knew what to do with her daughter, nor did she want to place the blame on how her daughter actually ended up this way. One year, her girl was working in Hollywood; she had a bedtime, and she studied constantly. Not only did she get good grades in her classes, but she enjoyed reading. She wasn't allowed to watch R-rated films. In the course of just one year, things had changed completely.
But things weren't always that way. Before Nicola moved to California, she lived in the Jersey Shore with her mother. It was just the two of them, since her father had left quite awhile ago. Nic adored her mother, and she desperately wanted a close relationship with the woman whom she considered her best friend. But her mother demanded respect, and she was still bitter from losing the love of Nicola's father. She wasn't a cruel woman by any means, she was just a tough cookie to crack.
By the time Nicola was in middle school, she got tired of feeling as if she didn't have any friends. She stayed at home a lot; her strict mother rarely let her attend a classmate's birthday party. When she was ten, she decided that she wasn't a little girl anymore. Nic dressed in black and stole makeup from the local drugstore. She thickened eyeliner around her eyes and learned how to flick people off. She talked back to her mother and slammed every door in their house. Her mother was out of answers, and so she decided to send Nicola off to California to live with her relatives.
For a year, things went by smoothly at Nicola's new home. She was staying with her uncle, who was a Master Chief Sergeant in the US Navy, so it was more than difficult for the girl to be defiant. Through school, Nic realized how fun it was to perform, and on a phone call back home, she begged her mother to allow her to audition for roles. Another year, and Nicola's nature talent and ability to be cool and calm in the spotlight would get her the role of Samara. Just when she was starting to turn around and become a more well-mannered child, Hollywood had struck its chord.
She reprised her role as Samara, and then her mother had had enough. Nicola was staying out much later than a girl her age should be. She was talking back again. She was difficult to work with, and directors knew this. Nicola's mom requested that her daughter leave Hollywood, and Nicola moved back to the Jersey Shore in 2006. Without much to occupy her time, she began hanging out with friends at the boardwalk, skipping classes, and experimenting early with alcohol, cigarettes, and weed. But this time, Nic knew rather than throw all of these things in her mother's face, she'd simply keep them a secret.
It was through this group that she met someone would become a great friend, and eventually be her band mate in what is now called Riot Rhythm Machines. Nicola started playing shows, and lying about her age in order to get the bar gigs that were usually reserved to the 21 and up musicians. Slowly but surely, their group, which fused together heavy rock styles with a penchant for hard-hitting bass lines and club beats, started to gain notoriety among the partygoers and the music lovers, and Nicola saw her music take off.
Now that she's back in L.A., and now that she has a valid project under her belt, she's finding herself a bit more tame than usual. She still has a loud mouth, she still talks back. She's still got the Jersey Shore in her. But as the saying goes, you can take the girl out of the Shore, but you can't take the Shore out of the girl.
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