Interviews & Profiles
" Gioia "
(formerly of Freestyle diva group "Expose')
by: Kandace, from "OutLook" Magazine
Brought to you by "Xtasy" with permission.

" Gioia "
This interview is done by Kandace of OUTLOOK Magazine Ft. Lauderdale, and brought to you by "Xtasy" with permission.

A member of the world renown group EXPOSE from 1986-1991, Gioia helped make an indelible mark in music history with such mega hits as “Point of No Return”, “Let Me Be the One”, “Come Go With Me”, “What You Don’t Know”, “Tell Me Why”, and a Billboard #1 hit single: “Seasons Change”.  Their two chart-topping albums were “Exposure” and “What You Don’t Know”.  Earlier this month CBS TV aired an interview with this her.  Her story presented here may surprise you.  It is a story of “mind over matter”; a victory of “faith over despair”.  This Diva is making an awesome comeback after being told several years ago that she would never….could never sing again! 

A FAIRY TALE STORY?

     “I was born in Italy and came to the U.S. as a baby.  I can speak enough Italian to get by.  I moved down here to S. Florida in 1986 from NYC after being mugged.  I beat him up pretty bad….yea!  But I had been in NYC for a few years anyway and was tired of it.  So, I looked in the paper for a job somewhere else and found one in North Miami.   They put me up and paid me really well, and six months later I got hit up for ‘Expose’.  Their producer came up to me and handed me his card.  They were just beginning but I was there for the first album.   However, there was the original ‘group’ that put out the song ‘Point of No Return’ to the S. Florida community in 1985.  That group you remember at the COPA and BACKSTREET was them.  They got a deal with ARISTA records, but the label said that those girls needed to be replaced.  You see, they were not really singers.  Well, two kind of were, but the third: not at all.  She was just someone’s girlfriend.  So we were hired and re-recorded the song.” 

     “We toured the world: SE Asia, Guam, the UK, Europe, and the U.S. about a million times.  We even got to play in the ROYAL ALBERT HALL.  I had such good times…. but a lot of it was quite surreal!   It was exhausting at times.  We were just so overworked and always tired, I felt I was literally dying!  I remember being on a bus going to see Big Ben, and there is a picture of me with someone trying to pour a Coke over my head to wake me up!  It started out as kind of a Fairy Tale story, but it did not pan out that way.  We were three little girls who just happened to sing and we were working together.  We were puppets.   Now, finally, I am glad that it is over, and I am glad that I am on my own.  It is a much better feeling.” 

INTERVENES THE AMBIGUOUSLY TWISTED HAND OF FATE

     “I ended up leaving the group because of my voice.  It kind of happened ‘overnight’.  At first I thought I had a little sore throat.  Then soon my voice was just gone!  I went to every Laryngologist I could find from the ‘three corners’: here, California, and NY.  They just said, ‘No way can you keep this up: you’re done’, (simulated sobs), I would never sing again!  The diagnosis was an inoperable tumor on my vocal cords.  In some ways, like you have said, there is always a reason for things.  Maybe it was a lucky break for me because even though I was devastated, it allowed me to just be a Mom and stay with my daughter.  And then I started a business which was a small school for the Performing Arts.” 

     “So, I did not talk for 3-4 years and the tumor just sort of dissolved!  I started writing in 1995 and I went through every kind of music that there is because….because I AM a songwriter.  I really had not known previously that I had that gift.  So I started with a rock album that was really cool.  No one has really ever heard it except my diehard fans.  I think it is going to end up being like a cult thing once I get the Dance music out again.  I think people will dig it out.  This Rock album was called “Shelter” and I sang with a band called WET, but I never promoted it because I was still afraid of the Music business.  I just kind of gave it away.  I did some shows down here for the album, but I don’t think that the time was right.  I will really enjoy doing Dance music again.  You know, I am a dancer!  I wrote Country-type songs as well, and Pop stuff, hokie stuff, R & B to the hilt, and now I am back to Dance.  It has more of a free type style to it.  We are now working on a show so we can put a tour together.” 

GIOIA IS NOW “FREE TO BE”

     “I find that most of my friends are Gay men.  I am only promoting my new single “Free To Be” in the Gay Clubs.  I don’t even want to go into the straight clubs.  You know, they are all drum and base….and that is fine with me: ‘do your own thing’.   I co-wrote this single with Dennis Nieves.   He came up with the track and I wrote the melody and lyrics.  It is like a freestyle, sort of upbeat thing.  It was written for my friend RICHIE who has been sick for 15 years with Aids.  So I wrote it from his perspective because basically I was thinking, ‘What does he think when he wakes up in the morning?’.  What came to my mind was that when you open your eyes and notice the sunshine, you feel like you are a lucky one.  You just live your life: that kind of feeling.  Like every day that he wakes up he is grateful that he has one more day.  And here WE are going: ‘Damn, my kids are driving me crazy’, or ‘I have to pay these bills’, you know, whatever your problems are, you are alive and healthy and breathing, and it is just so simple!  Or like me: ‘They didn’t play my song today’, I mean, who cares?  So for these reasons….I believe that the song has a SOUL.” 

     Yes, indeed, Gioia, and the Soul lives forever just as your music appears destined to do.  Especially so vividly embracing two souls: those of Richie and yourself who have quite successfully risen above potentially life shattering obstacles!  We love ya, Girl!