QC all-girl band to celebrate their first album with Saturday show

It’s been a tremendously busy spring for Bettendorf’s Ava Rowland, who just graduated high school and is literally a rock star.

The lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and main songwriter for the all-female band Been There Done That (BTDT), the 2022 Bettendorf High alum will celebrate with her three longtime bandmates in a special show Saturday, June 4 at 7 p.m. at Davenport’s Redstone Room (2nd and Main streets).

With lead guitarist Katie Quinn (who just finished her freshman year at Iowa State), bassist Izzy McChesney (who finished freshman year at Scott Community College), and drummer Hazel Khoury (who ended junior year at North Scott High), BTDT will perform for the release of their first album, “Blame the Stars,” recorded last summer at QC Rock Academy in Davenport.

The band worked closely with QCRA lead guitar instructor Billy Gardner, who plays in the band Kronos Resistor.

“I’ve been with Billy since I was seven years old,” Rowland said Friday of studying with him. “He’s our band instructor and also teaches me and Katie guitar lessons. So he also produced the whole album for us, which is amazing. It sounds really great and it sounds very professional and I was very impressed.”

The QC’s only all-girl rock band, BTDT first embarked on their musical voyage together as a cohesive band in 2016 (when they were ages 11-13). But their origin goes back earlier to when the girls grew up listening to a variety of music genres that played an influential role in shaping their paths and ultimately led them together, according to their bio.

Talented and mature beyond their years, and ultra competitive, Been There Done That has a long list of accomplishments, including 2018 Winner of the Iowa Rock & Roll Music Association’s Youth Rocks Contest, and winner of the 2016 and 2019 QCRA Battle of the Bands. They secured a spot on 97x’s 40th-anniversary album and a spot on I-Rock 93.5’s Local Stage CD, as well as a bonus track.

Rowland was a co-winner of 2020’s Voice of the QC contest and the band opened the local iHeart Radio Socially Distant Festival in 2020. BTDT’s first EP “Pretty Lies” was recorded at Catamount Recording Studio.

In addition to singing in several BHS choirs, Rowland performed the plum role of Ursula in “The Little Mermaid” this April in school.

First full-length record last June

BTDT — with Gardner’s advice — chose eight of their best originals to record at QCRA last June.

“We picked a day in June last summer and we came to Rock Academy at 4 p.m., and we stayed there until like 10 a.m. the next day, to pull an all-nighter and just record as much as we could,” Rowland recalled. “We finished most of the recording during that summer, and then there were a few little things that we had to add. So Katie did that over her winter break when she was here for a month.”

The band’s song “Darling” is based on Rowland getting broken up with the first time, when she was a junior in high school.

“That was a hard thing to go through, especially during COVID-19, when I couldn’t really see my friends or anything to feel better,” she said. “Then there’s other songs, like ‘Rollercoaster,’ which is the first track on the album and that one I just wanted to start off with a good fun summer song.

“Because I feel like it is really easy to write about like sad topics because they’re so emotional,” she said. “When writing about something happy, which is just as important, it’s a lot harder, but I was like, I wanted to challenge myself and do it and write a kick-ass song about having fun with your friends in the summer.”

The album title, “Blame the Stars,” is not its own song, but a line from “Anyone But You.”

“There’s a line in it that says, ‘I blame the stars for our bleeding,’ which I mean translated into, ‘I’ll blame this whole situation on anything but us because I just want us to work out’,” Rowland said.

“It captures the essence of the album because it’s like — stuff is going to happen, and there’s nothing anybody can do about it,” she said. “It’s just what the universe wants to happen. It’s just what was meant to happen.”

Excited to be at Redstone

BTDT is pumped to be back at Redstone Room at River Music Experience.

“I love Redstone Room. I love the atmosphere in there,” Rowland said. “I love that we can fill it up, because we could play like a huge venue, but it wouldn’t be like packed. I just love the atmosphere of everybody being in there and being close and it just makes everything 10 times better. And their sound system is incredible.”

The band will have copies of the CD for sale, as well as BTDT merchandise. The record is also available on all major streaming services, including Apple Music, Spotify and Pandora.

“I think it’s so incredible that we’re so close and that we stuck together for six years now,” Rowland said. “We’ve kind of grown up together because we started this band when we were 11, 12 and 13.

“Now we’re going to college and graduated high school and it’s so awesome,” she said. “I also think that it’s really important to show other women in the area and just in general that you can do so many incredible things that aren’t going to school and going to college and being a nurse or a teacher.

“You can be an entrepreneur and you can be brave enough and courageous enough to do that because you’re worthy enough to do that,” Rowland added. “If you want to become a teacher or a doctor, that’s your passion, go and do it. We’re showing that women can follow their passion as much as they want to and you should see if it makes you happy.”

She will be studying music this fall at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn., dreaming of a future where BTDT may settle full-time in Music City. The band will perform Saturday, June 11 at 5:30 p.m. on the Burlington riverfront (200 N. Front St.), and June 18 at 6:30 p.m. for a Pride Party at Moline’s Bass Street Landing (17th Street and River Drive).

The Saturday Redstone Room concert will have two opening acts (totaling about an hour) — Made Ya Look, another QCRA band, which features Rowland’s brother, Cooper, and Mo&Co, a female-fronted Americana band, led by Mo Carter.

Tickets are $10 in advance, $12 day of show. For more information, visit the BTDT website.