Profile On Tina Perrotta

 

             Music is a powerful form of media because everyone has their own personal connection to music and taste of music. This statement can be true, when talking about Tina Perrotta. Perrotta was born on December 12^th, 1995 in Wayne, New Jersey.  She loves music and it is one of the important things about her.  She listens to tons of bands of many different genres and decades, she has been to many concerts, and has a collection of New Musical Express magazines.

The New Musical Express magazines are more than reading material to her. It is a decoration to show what her favorite bands are. These magazines are framed all over her pink walls in her room. She owns the New Musical Express’s covers with bands like The Cure, Echo And The Bunnymen, Manic Street Preachers, The Jesus And Mary Chain, and Robert Smith on the front cover. The one cover that she is searching and hunting for is the NME’s edition featuring The Clash on the cover.  Perrotta said, “I do read quite a bit about music and different bands and artists, when I can.”

Now 25-years old, Perrotta can remember always liking music at a young age. The first memory of music that stands out to her is when her mother showed her the music video of Van Halen’s “Jump.” Perrotta stated, “I’d say definitely my mom is the main person who introduced me to music and influenced my music’s taste.” Then, her brother was another big part of her liking music as well. He got her into some of the artists, he loves, like Blink-182. Perrotta’s family is majority made up of her animals as it is her 1 cat, 1 bearded dragon, 1 guinea pig, a 75-gallon tank of goldfish, and 10 birds, her mother and herself. She does have an older brother, but he moved out of the house, because there is a big age difference, but that doesn’t stop her from being really close to her brother. According to Perrotta, “…. I’m practically an only child at this point. My family now is just my mom and I (and our pets!) and I wouldn’t change that at all, we’re close.” If she has the chance, she will add another pet to the family, because she really wants black pug as a dog.

Another musical thing that Perrotta’s mother has influenced Perrotta to do at one time is play an instrument. Perrotta’s mother is a guitar player and this interested her daughter to learn to play guitar. She was 13 years old, when she started to play guitar like her mother and her mother’s guitar can be found in her room with the New Musical Express magazines. When the guitar didn’t work out for her, she tried saxophone, drums, flute, and piano, but never stuck with it. She said, “None of the instruments struck because I found practicing them to be mind-numbingly boring.”

Perrotta said when talking about listening to bands is, “I don’t consider myself a “fan” of anyone really. I think calling myself a “fan” of someone is like a setup for disaster if they do something particularly atrocious.” It is more about the music being created, not the person creating it. Tina’s top 3 bands she likes to listen to right now are Echo And The Bunnymen, The Jesus And Mary Chain, and Joy Division. Top 3 albums she likes to listen to right now are “In Utero” by Nirvana, “The Fine Art Of Surfacing” by The Boomtown Rats and “The Holy Bible” by Manic Street Preachers. The songs that she feels describes her or represents her are any song by The Clash. Perrotta explained, “…their music definitely represents my ideologies and how I view the world kind of.”

She lives in Mountain Creek Resort, which is 20 minutes from Wantage, New Jersey. Originally from Vernon, New Jersey, but she would move a couple times. At age 3, she moved to Wantage, New Jersey and lived there until she was 20. Then at age 20, she moved to Mountain Creek Resort. Since her time living in New Jersey, she has been to many concerts. She is overdue for a concert right now, because the last concert was back in August 2019, which was The Maine, Twin XL, and Nick Santino in Atlantic City. The planned concerts upcoming, when concerts are back, are the Sad Summer Festival in Asbury Park, which is a small music festival like Warped Tour with a lot of punk rock music and she wants to buy tickets to see Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison, and Joan Jett And The Blackhearts, which Joan Jett, Poison and Motley Crue are all bands to cross off her bucket list. One concert memory that she has is when the last time she went to Warped Tour, it was a thunderstorm, but the show must go on, and Perrotta felt that she almost died. Perrotta explained to the question, if you could have a private concert, what artist or band and song or songs would it be, which is “My own private show would literally just be Guns N Roses playing the entirety of the “Appetite For Destruction” album.”

In her opinion about what is something about you that makes you different from everybody else and sets you apart from others, Perrotta humbly said, “I love to embrace everyone’s individuality, we are all so different and it’s amazing!” While her friend, CJ Schneider described Perrotta as “Brilliant, Considerate, and Strong.” They have known each other for 5 years as they met working together at PetSmart and they are always there for each other in times of need. Schneider said one of Perrotta’s pet peeves are, “When I sing showtunes.” Schneider explain he gets the reaction from Perrotta, which is usually a frustrated, “Stop!” According to Schneider, musical theater is too seriously and over the top for her liking. When they were both in the car one time, he remembers it being tons of songs from the 80’s playing, Schneider said “She put on Def Leppard, The Cure, and Psychedelic Furs.” Last, when Schneider discusses music with Perrotta, they usually find some obscure song or artist to listen to on YouTube as a joke.

Asking Perrotta what her dream job would be, she responded with this, “But to be honest, my dream job is really just finding a place I love going to every day that pays my bills and allows for financial security.” Perrotta is hoping it would be somewhere in the music industry or doing something as A&R representative, which means artists and repertoire and the job is helping artists to sign with a record label, but she is very open to anything. According to Perrotta, when asked where do you see yourself in 5 to 10 years and what do you think the future has in store for you, she said “My three main hopes for the future are that I have traveled a lot, moved somewhere far, far away from New Jersey, and that I have found a fulfilling and successful career that I enjoy. I don’t like to plan my life too far in advance, it’s so unpredictable so I prefer taking things as they come my way and not get distracted by anything specific. But I do always like to have things to look forward to.”

Other hobbies of Perrotta are she has a big plant collection of 15 plants, she bakes food for her plant-based diet, a quote book with quotes from her bookshelf of history books, and history buff with her collection of  history artifacts like Russian pins and a World War II  jacket.  Perrotta is a junior at William Paterson University as a Media Studies major in the Communication Department, but this wasn’t always Perrotta’s first choice. At Sussex County Community College, she started out as a Studio Art major to a Computer Science major and then finally William Paterson University, a Media Studies major.

Perrotta can be considered an all-around person with the many hobbies that she has and the many things she collects. One of the most important things about her is her passion in listening and collecting music. The many music magazines on her wall, listening to tons of different genres from different decades of music, and memories of live shows. This one quote in her quote book is one of her favorites that she can relate to the most, which is from Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road.” It said, “…I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop.”