Aimee Echo From theSTART


Just for the record, if Aimee Echo ever wanted to quit her day job as the frontwoman for theSTART, we’d hire her in a heartbeat to be PETA2’s vegan advice columnist. Not only is she an expert on what’s cool and hip (she was recently dubbed one of AP’s 10 hottest vegetarians), she’s also got great tips to offer—whether you’re a newbie, an old-school Street Teamer, or a wanna-be. Need to know where to get a cute vegan belt? How to deal with paranoid parents? Can you eat fish and still be a vegetarian? Aimee’s got the answers. Our own Nugget of Rage better watch her back—looks like Aimee’s moving in on her turf!

Lucky for the Nugget, Aimee’s too busy supporting her new album, Initiation, to go job hunting. Lucky for us, she made time to answer a couple of questions.

Was there any one thing that made you go vegetarian?

When I first went vegetarian, it was basically information. Half of my family is vegetarian, and a few of us are vegan. So it was sort of like my older cousins—when I was young—they went vegetarian and then they progressed to being vegan and slowly my aunts and uncles and I and then my mom. It was just sort of like, “Oh, OK, so this is what is really going on.”

I’d have to say the number one most informative piece of literature that I found at that time was Diet for a New America. It’s a great place, definitely, to start.

So did having so much support from your family make it easier for you to go vegetarian?

Yeah, oh yeah, that was definitely a lot easier. I think it’s really strange to me right now, the fear factor, I guess. I was talking to my mom the other day, and she said that talk shows—I don’t get to watch television because I’m on tour so much—address “my child is going vegetarian, what do I do?” Clap, maybe?

It’s just so weird that people are afraid of vegetarianism still after all these years, with all the information that’s out there, and that people are still so leery of the idea.

Hopefully, I won’t die of a heart attack like my dad, who ate burgers and shakes, did at 48. That’s when a shift in my viewpoint for the health standpoint came from. It was always apparent that I was doing something good for animals. But when my dad passed away at 48 years old, it was incredibly strange because that’s just so young. His cholesterol was like 320-something, and they had told him to cut back on animal products and watch his diet. And it was so weird because I was going through his things after he passed away, and there was a postcard from a cross-country trip that he had taken and sent to my grandmother, and it was like, “Hi Mom, I’m at the McDonald’s. I just had a burger and a chocolate shake in the middle of America. Here’s a picture of the McDonald’s.” Somewhere in the Midwest, there’s a big McDonald’s arch bridge that goes over the freeway; it’s like a landmark kind of thing. You see the postcard, and it’s like, “Oh, there you go. Instructions for a heart attack at 48.”

Do you have any advice for people whose parents are freaked out because they’re going vegetarian?

Basically, just educate your parents because the information that’s out there, it’s not an opinion, it’s factual. A vegetarian diet can be healthier than a diet that includes animal products. I mean, I’m baffled all the time by people who try to tell me that my diet is unhealthy. It’s weird because it shouldn’t be an opinion-related issue, it should just be factual evidence—this is what animal products do to the body. And it’s not pretty what they do, between the cholesterol and then having to cook everything, you don’t get the nutrients from the animal in the first place that you’re eating it for.

Pick up a book like Diet for a New America or The Food Revolution. I’m not trying to push John Robbins on anybody or anything. I think he just writes the most in-depth and factual, easy real primer to get everybody going as far as providing information, especially to their parents if their parents have fears or doubts. I know that I’ve passed that book on to other people who eat meat, like my boyfriend’s parents, who think I’m a crazy California hippie girl.

Any tips for someone who wants to make the switch to vegetarianism and doesn’t know how to get started?

Don’t cut things out to start, add things in. Every person that I’ve met that I helped turn onto a veggie way of life, I always shared with them something good that I was eating. And I think that if you don’t so much focus on cutting out the animal product at first and if you just start to try and pick really good vegetarian choices and not worry so much about it, soon you’ll go, “Wow, that’s delicious!” and you’ll just switch over naturally. I think that’s the fastest way to go. If you find it scary, don’t take foods away, add more good vegetarian choices.

I’ve been really trying to do that with a lot of people that I know, like family members that I know right now who have been saying, “Well, what’s that crazy crap you’re eating?” and then actually going, “Let me have a bite.” And then going, “Oh, that’s good.” I’m sneaking in the veggie sausage when I’m cooking for the boyfriend’s dad.

What would you say to people who consider themselves vegetarian but still eat fish?

Oh, that’s so weird. I don’t like to say anything to anybody in a negative way. I’d rather be inclusive to people that are trying to go in the right direction than say, “You’re not pure” and pass a judgment. Because for me, it was an evolution to where I’m at now.

I don’t like to have an opinion about somebody else’s food choices, but maybe pick a new title? Again, educate yourself and see what’s really going on with fish and realize that they have feelings as well. And also, there are dangers in eating fish as well, there’re lots of toxins and mercury in fish. Fish is full of junk. Think, every time you flush the toilet, you’re providing the environment for fish and then you’re going to eat them

What are some of your favorite alternatives to leather?

I love my Chuck Taylor’s. I live in Converse. I really, really do. There’s this little shop that I get my vegan belts at here, and it’s called Electric Chair, and it’s pretty cool; they have some good choices. Pangea online is starting to get cute shoes.

What do you say to people who aren’t familiar with animal rights or veganism?

Well, generally, I know that I try to be happy with a smile on my face and educate in small ways because people who are still eating and using animals tend to be very defensive, right off the bat. I’ve noticed that a lot.

I think that people, emotionally, they feel so much guilt still, but they get really defensive. I found that literature is usually the best way to go and a happy smiling face.

You have to be heartless, completely heartless, to be able to walk into a slaughterhouse and walk out and then still continue to eat meat. Or be completely numbed out as a human, which happens a lot these days, too, you know. Everybody’s not really in touch with their feelings, you know, and it’s just like—you put a soldier in warfare, they’re gonna kill another human because that’s what they’re trained to do, you know? They make it really nice and sweet and easy to eat animal products in our country.

You mentioned that you have companion animals. How many do you have? What are their names?

I have a small Chihuahua, and his name’s Ino, and he goes on tour with us everywhere. He’s great, he sings on our records. He’s on the first record, and he’s on our new record. He’s a good little singer. He usually gets his own track. He got his own track at the end of our first album, and he got his own track at the end this album as well. This one’s a little more hardcore; last time he was kind of crooning, now he’s screaming.

Want to hear more from Aimee and theSTART? Download the MP3 of “Like Days” from the new album, Initiation.