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BELLAS WITHOUT BORDERS ‘Incomparable’ is a no-holds-barred tell-all about the twins

Nikki and Brie Bella are getting stir crazy.

The WWE Hall of Fame inductees are just like everyone else in quarantine—tired of grays poking out from their shiny dark brown locks, frustrated with staying inside and bummed Nikki had to cancel her baby shower.

“We’re blessed that we’re healthy and we get to be together,” Brie adds. “Nicole and I were saying how much we missed just going to a coffee shop and sitting there, enjoying a cup of coffee and seeing people and talking and laughing.”

Besides Nikki’s baby shower, the Bella Twins were forced to shelf their tour in support of their memoir, “Incomparable” (Simon & Schuster), which hits stores May 5. The 256-page tome was a twoand-a-half-year project that dredges up their problematic childhood and their parents’ contentious relationship, the Bellas’ climb up the WWE ladder, and the twins’ business acumen. They founded companies like Birdiebee, Nicole + Brizee Beauty and Bonita Bonita Wine. Nikki is pregnant with her first child with her “Dancing with the Stars” partner/fiancé Artem Chigvintsev, while Brie is expecting her second child with fellow Superstar Daniel Bryan.

“It’s funny because, being a reality star for seven years now, we’re open books,” Brie says. “But the one thing we really haven’t talked about is our childhood and our journey to the ring and to becoming these strong women.

“You always want to protect your family. We’re going to expose a lot, and for Nicole and I to go and get our parents’ blessings, that was a hard one. It wasn’t easy.”

The Bellas realized they had two choices: go down a “really bad path and be super bummed out” about their childhood or they could be survivors and be strong and positive, which is what they did.

“We want other people to feel the same way,” Brie says. “Even if things go really bad, you can turn them around and make them good.” Christina Fuoco-Karasinski >> The Entertainer!

It didn’t quite go that way when the Bellas asked their mother, Kathy Colace, to read the chapter about her former marriage to their father, Jon Garcia. Colace, who is now married to former Superstar John Laurinaitis, wasn’t shy about her reaction, which was documented on the Bellas’ E! reality show, “Total Bellas.”

“My mom got pregnant with us at 18 years old, and when we came they were both 19,” Brie says. “It was like kids raising kids. They were still trying to figure out their lives and here they had kids. My mom always stuck by us and always did the best she could, even though she admits to the mistakes she made.

“Because I’m a mom now, it’s hard for me to—I don’t want to use the word ‘expose’—expose what happened to us, because all we ever wanted to do was protect our mother. It’s funny. In the second episode of ‘Total Bellas’ this season, you see how exhausted I look. I wasn’t exhausted from a toddler. I was losing sleep because had to talk to my mom about it. I just didn’t want to hurt her, but at the same time, I wanted to tell my story.”

Before the pandemic, the Bellas planned a book tour and a full promotional schedule running up until five weeks before their due date. Instead, they’ll host a virtual book/podcast tour.

“Brie and I literally have 5,000 copies being shipped to our house that we have to start signing,” Nikki says. “Then we’re going to work on a virtual book tour. Brie and I definitely want to do something in the fall. We’re hoping we can do that—redo that—and do that across America and the world.

“I’d really love to do a tour in the U.K. as well.”

The nonstop Zoom and phone interviews are exhausting the Bellas. Usually, they work relentlessly every other week. With their staff sent home, the Bellas are seemingly working around the clock.

“I looked at my schedule and I was like, ‘Whoa, I’m really busy, actually,’” Nikki says. “I have 5,000 books to sign, but I don’t want to say no, because everyone needs some sort of hope out there. I know what it does for our fans to get that signed book in the mail.

“I know my hands are going to hurt very bad and it’s going to be time consuming, but if it gives someone a smile, especially in the time we’re in now, it’s so worth it.”

The Bellas admit they’re afraid of being pregnant during a pandemic, but there have been flashes of happiness.

“We’re high risk, but to know the light at the end of the tunnel in July, beginning of August, is this beautiful baby, it just keeps me smiling every day,” Nikki says.

“I know we had to cancel my baby

shower. I’m 36. I’ve been waiting to be a mom for a very long time. It’s definitely not the pregnancy I imagined. Last night, Artem felt the baby kick for the first time, and he was so excited. He woke me up at 6 this morning to talk about it again. It was just the cutest thing.”

The Bella Twins

“Total Bellas” 9 p.m. Thursdays on E! eonline.com/shows/total_bellas “Incomparable” bit.ly/2VGk0uw

SEEING ‘RED’ System of a Down's Shavo Odadjian expands cannabis empire to Arizona

System of a Down bassist Shavo Odadjian doesn’t do things halfway.

Chalk it up to the number 22.

“The number 22 has been an ‘angel number’ for me,” Odadjian said. “It keeps me driven. The number 22 has been a part of me since birth. I was born on April 22. I was married May 22. I was 22 when System got picked up (by a record label).

“Recently, I realized my two boys, who are 8 and 6, are exactly two years and 22 days apart.”

When he founded his cannabis company, it only made sense to include “22” in the name. He needed to pair it with another word—“red” came to mind.

“I’ve always had synesthesia,” Odadjian says about perceiving letters and numbers with colors. “The red comes naturally. I didn’t know everyone wasn’t always like that.”

Since Odadjian founded 22Red, it has sold proprietary strains and premium cannabis with a commitment to consumer education. 22Red recently expanded to Arizona and will start selling in Las Vegas in May.

“I never want to do something I’m not good at,” says Odadjian, a 26-year smoker. “I’ve tried so many different things. I know I’m a good leader and I can put a great team together.

“I’ve learned how to do that and make something successful. When you have a good team, you can be successful. I have learned to delegate, but I’m 45 and I’m growing up through 22Red. I’m still learning about myself. I learned what I’m good at—being creativity and execution. If I say I’m going to do something, I have to complete it.”

The company was conceived under the notion that “cannabis is more than a plant, but a means to honor the creative minds inside us,” according to its mission statement.

It launched with prerolls of Church 22, a strain that smells like frankincense he hadn’t smoked for about 20 years. Church 22 remains, along with Mimosa 22, Caramel Gelato and the heavy 22 OG.

Odadjian later added THC vape cartridges—OG Kush, strawberry banana and watermelon, and the same flavors in disposable. Christina Fuoco-Karasinski >> The Entertainer!

Marrying music, fashion, cannabis and wellness in one space, Odadjian is ushering in a new era of lifestyle branding. He recently developed a line of clothing that is minimalistic and wearable.

“Before we were doing cannabis, my best friend from fifth grade and I were going to do a clothing brand. You know, streetwear,” he says. “Cool, limited drops. It was natural for us to do that.

“Our third partner has been growing in LA for about 15 years. When it got legal, I started thinking about doing something amazing.

“I didn’t know he was an amazing grower. I was like, ‘Wow.’ My mouth was open. I couldn’t believe it. Everything is automated. He designed things nobody else has. He’s a consultant now. I said, ‘Why don’t we make it a whole encompassing LA lifestyle brand?’ We can have apparel, cannabis and music. It’s a cool lifestyle deal.”

There will always be music, though. Before the pandemic, Odadjian was slated to introduce North Kingsley, a “work in progress” for the last year and a half, with fellow musicians Ray Hawthorne and Saro Paparian.

“It’s a cool music project,” Odadjian says. “The genre happened in the studio from scratch.”

He says it’s layered with his bass, a guitar, 4/4 beat and trap.

“Our singer raps. He’s not talking about paper plates,” he says. “He’s socially and politically aware. There are a lot of thought-provoking issues. It just organically happened. The music is ready to go, but with the pandemic, we may hold off. We were going to do constant drops of music, so there’s always something new coming at you. There’s video clips for every song.”

In line with 22Red, there will be

merch.

“I’m a fan of clothing and apparel,” Odadjian said. “I want clothing that’s especially comfortable and won’t die out after the third wash. It’s going to be exclusive. It’s not a just wear and show off the band’s name. I’m a creature of habit. If I have this new hoodie, I’ll be living in it for the next month.”

A Win for All

Scottsdale artist Niki Woehler is supporting struggling eateries with a contest

Niki Woehler was checking her social media feed earlier this spring when she stumbled across an emotional video she says was shared by Pizzeria Bianco owner Chris Bianco.

A frequenter of Bianco’s restaurant, the Scottsdale contemporary abstract artist says she was brought to tears and concerned about the impact the COVID-19 pandemic would have on locally owned restaurants like Pizzeria Bianco in the months to come.

“I started to think, ‘OK, well God, if he’s going through that, so are all of our local guys going through that,’” Woehler recalls.

So, she decided to rally the community behind her—in the form of a raffle. Entrants who spend $30 or more on takeout, delivery or gift cards at any Phoenix-area restaurant can email a copy of the receipt along with their contact info to theartoftogo@nikiwoehler. com to be entered for a custom, commissioned creation worth up to $10,300 from Woehler.

Cash substitutions are excluded, as are franchises and national chains; however, multiple entries are allowed. Submissions must be received by June 10, and a winner will be announced June 11—or National Making Life Beautiful Day.

“What if I come up with an idea where I can give art?” Woehler recalls thinking. “So, my thinking process was one person can’t make a difference for all of these restaurants, but if we all collectively put some of our resources in to help them stay alive, then maybe they’ll be there when we’re done with all of this crazy.”

The value of the winner’s piece of artwork will ultimately depend on the specifications determined during an inperson meeting with Woehler. The prize must be redeemed by January 1.

Woehler says she will take everything into account, from the planned space which the finished piece will occupy to its surrounding furniture and lighting; to the mood, colors and size; to which of her previous paintings the winner does or doesn’t like. Its dimensions can be up to 48 inches by 72 inches.

“It’s important for me to understand what you love, what you don’t love, and tell me what you don’t love about that Connor Dziawura >> The Entertainer!

particular piece—I won’t be insulted by it; art is so subjective—because when I’m creating a custom piece for somebody, I want them to love it,” she explains.

After meeting with Woehler, the winner can expect to receive the painting in between four to six weeks. AN ACCIDENTAL ARTIST

Woehler deals in two different styles: acrylic on canvas, which she describes as “very organic, very textural pieces,” and resin on wood, which is “super high gloss and very, very, very richly hued and very dimensional.” She also creates waterproof art installations, substituting the wood panels for aluminum sheets.

“I’m typically inspired by nature and all the elements,” she describes of her paintings, likening her canvas creations to weathered wood or metal, and comparing her resin works to cut pieces of stone, amethyst and onyx.

But while her art can now be found throughout the state and even the country, Woehler in fact stumbled into the profession seemingly by accident.

A Toronto native, Woehler essentially began what became a lengthy career in marketing when she was 14. Her mom, she says, working at a large ad agency in Toronto, would share ideas with Woehler, who would then pitch those ideas to her friends and collect data.

By the time she was 16, Woehler was a paid copywriter “making a lot of money, even in today’s standards,” she says.

She studied broadcasting and marketing at Sheridan College in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and ultimately moved to Phoenix in 1994. She ran her own boutique ad agency for over a decade, serving clients like vitaminwater, smartwater, the Harlem Globetrotters and Cirque du Soleil.

But she was a closet artist, she says.

About two decades ago, after a friend’s funeral, she recalls, she was driving home on that beautiful day, with the top down, reminiscing. “A little voice whispered in my ear and said, ‘Pull in.’ And I looked to my right and it was a Michaels,” she says.

Her friend’s name? Michael.

“I walked in and I bought canvases and paints and brushes, and to this day I still don’t know what prompted that. I didn’t even like art. I hated art in school,” she admits.

That moment launched a short-lived hobby painting in secret. Despite

positive words from her neighbor, an ASU art professor, life got in the way— she still had a marketing career and she mothered several children—so she put the brush down and left it behind for nearly a decade, she estimates.

Then the recession hit.

“I found myself turning to painting just kind of as my peace and quiet and something for me,” she says.

She still wanted to keep her talent a secret, but a client of hers found out and wanted to buy a piece. That snowballed to the client commissioning several more paintings, before suggesting Woehler pursue art more strongly. So, she went home, listed a painting online, and “it sold in under an hour for a lot of money,” she recalls. She tried it again and it happened again, she adds.

“I kind of looked up at the universe and I said, ‘Alright, I’m paying attention right now. I am listening. If this happens again, I’ll shut my agency down and I’ll be an artist for a living,’” she recounts. “And it did. So I shut down my agency within 30 days and I’ve been painting full time ever since.”

That was 2012, when she still didn’t have a reputation in the art world. Using her marketing knowledge, and with some help from an art consultant, she slowly established herself.

“She set me off on the right path there,” Woehler says of the consultant. “She said, ‘Value yourself. If you don’t value yourself, nobody else will. Don’t give your work away; it’s great.’

“She also gave me the confidence. She said, ‘No, your work is good enough. You should be going after great galleries and museums and interior designers.’ And she said, ‘You’ve got a lot to be proud of here, so put it out there and don’t be afraid of doing it.’”

The gallery that ultimately gave her confidence, she says, is the Forré & Co. Fine Art Gallery in Aspen.

“The fact that she (the curator) took me still, to this day, blows my mind,” Woehler says. “I am still her entry-level artist. I hang next to paintings that are half a million dollars all the time. That gave me, for myself, credibility.

“From there, I had absolutely no fear about going out. It’s time consuming and you have to have thick skin, because you send out 200 emails, and if you get two responses you did really, really well. It’s just of built from there over time.”

Over the years, Woehler’s art has been showcased everywhere from galleries and showrooms to museums, hotels and other private and corporate collections in and out of Arizona. As for her most notable creation, she says she was once commissioned to create a 54-by-6-foot painting for real estate firm CBRE’s Esplanade office.

She also took first place in an Arizona State Fair fine art competition, with the same painting that got her into the Aspen gallery. David E. Adler is going to turn that design into a rug.

But as the COVID-19 crisis has impacted some of her recent planned projects, including Let’s Throw Paint Workshops that she launched earlier this spring, she says she’s now redirecting her focus from galleries to building her own business and working with interior designers.

“I think there’s kind of a paradigm shift in the world more so even now, and I think it’s really important that artists take their career into their own hands,” she says. “Not that I don’t want to be in galleries—you do, of course you want to be in galleries, it expands your reach, and people who’ve never seen you before see you—but I think it’s good to have a balanced business.

“So I’ve really been focusing on building my own personal business as well.”

Niki Woehler

For more information, visit nikiwoehler.com or follow Woehler on Instagram at @ NikiWoehlerArtist.

10 UPFRONT | CITY | ARTS | DINING | BEER AND WINE | SPORTS | FAMILY | MUSIC ONE SIMPLE TRUTH Megadeth’s David Ellefson lends a helping hand during the crisis

North Valley resident David Ellefson has been keeping busy during the quarantine.

On April 17, the Grammy-winning Megadeth bassist released “Simple Truth,” the new single from his eponymous solo band Ellefson. The proceeds are going to Croce Rossa Italiana, the Italian Red Cross, as Ellefson’s guitarist and drummer, Andy Martongelli and Paolo Caridi, respectively, are from Italy.

The song will appear on the follow-up to 2019’s “Sleeping Giants” and will also feature vocalist Thom Hazaert.

“We actually wrote the song in Milan during a tour rehearsal, and a lot of it was recorded there,” Ellefson says. “We’ve gone back and forth with Andy in Italy, from the Platinum Underground in Phoenix, and with our mixer and coengineer, Alessio Garavello, in London. While we’re all staying positive and just keeping busy, it’s heartbreaking to see what’s going on over there with the death Christina Fuoco-Karasinski >> The Entertainer

toll climbing every day.

“We played several shows in Italy on our European ‘More Live with Deth’ tour last year, and I was just there with Megadeth back in February (with Five Finger Death Punch and Bad Wolves). It’s absolutely devastating to see what the country is going through right now. The people and its culture have been so welcoming to me over the years. I’m honored to do anything I can to give something back to them during this time of need.”

Ellefson assures his European touring band of Martongelli and Caridi are safe.

“Fortunately, my band is all safe over there, but they were one of the first ones to really take the big hit and we felt it,” Ellefson says. “We felt it was nice to give something back and give some awareness as well. We’re open to any other charities that might want to get on board with us donating to Italy as well.”

The solo album is coming along well. Ellefson was supposed to travel to London in mid-April to record the bass and vocals. Due to the pandemic, the band sends recordings through Dropbox

and Google Drive.

“We’re obviously having to work remotely, which is still productive, and we’re still getting a lot done on the record,” Ellefson says.

“It has a nice big sound to it. I think it’s more of a rock record than a thrash metal record, for sure. I think it’s cool because my bass playing style tends to lend itself really well to rock and hard rock sounds, just as much as it does to the thrash metal sound. I think when I play bass, you can always tell it’s me playing.”

When Ellefson writes songs, he does so on the guitar.

“My tendency when I play electric guitar is always to write with a singer in mind and to think about what the vocals are going to sound like over the riffs and the songs that I write. As much as I love to play progressive and complex music, the reality of it is the listener is usually listening to the singer. So, I write with the audience in mind, too.”

Working with Hazaert is great, Ellefson adds.

“Andy is a cowriter on a lot of the material with us,” he says. “With Andy and Thom, we have a team and we can really put these songs together collectively now.

“Sometimes I write something and sometimes I don’t know where the song is going to go, to be honest with you. Then there are other times when I’ll take it over to Thom and Andy and we can start to put this together. Usually, the way it works is I’ll write a riff or a chord progression and I’ll send it to Andy over in Italy. He’s essentially our music director.” JUGGLING ACT

Ellefson has also given during the COVID-19 crisis to kids in need via his David Ellefson Youth Music Foundation and its School’s Out initiative, partnering with the Grammy Music Education Coalition, Dolby, Cisco, Jackson Guitars, Hartke and Samson. They’re gifting displaced students with free instruments and equipment and pairing them with lessons from Rock Star music instructors, including Ellefson and his Megadeth cohorts Dirk Verbeuren and Kiko Loureiro; Nita Strauss (Alice Cooper); Chris Kael (Five Finger Death Punch); Clint Lowery (Sevendust); Bumblefoot (Asia, Sons of Apollo, ex-Guns N’ Roses); Chad Szeliga (Black Star Riders); Chris Poland (Ohm, ex-Megadeth); Jimmy DeGrasso (ex-Alice Cooper, Megadeth); and Marc Rizzo (Soulfly, Cavalera).

“This morning, I was just doing a couple of bass lessons to a student in Russia and a student in the Netherlands,” Ellefson says. “I’ve got a couple more later this week. We’re banging them out now. We have like a thousand applications. Me and my friends have a lot of work to do.”

At the same time, he’s balancing Megadeth, his coffee company and his solo project.

“This is my life and I’m living the life that I’ve always wanted to live ever since I heard rock ’n’ roll on the radio when I was age 10,” Ellefson says with his laugh.

“To be honest with you, I’m just living the life as it was presented to me at age 10. I got excited about it, and I’ve just been following that same enthusiasm ever since.”