The Aces talk family, new album, being 'beacon of light' for LGBTQ fans

When Cristal Ramirez of The Aces wrote the lead single for the band's new album, "I've Loved You For So Long," she was thinking about a long-term relationship.

But as she and her three bandmates – sister Alisa Ramirez and friends Katie Henderson and McKenna Petty – listened to the final product, they decided it was really about something else.

"Actually, I feel like the greatest love of my life is the band," lead singer Cristal says. "Always will be, always has been." And so the song became a love letter to one another.

The Aces, an alternative pop band hailing from Provo, Utah, have known and loved one another for as long as most of them can remember. Henderson and Petty are childhood best friends of the Ramirez sisters, and three of the girls share the experience of growing up and coming out as gay after a Mormon upbringing. (Petty, who is straight, is a devoted ally.)

Now, the band is living their childhood dream – playing headlining shows around the country to support their new album (streaming now) about growing up and learning to love your younger self.

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On 'I've Loved You For So Long,' The Aces 'ripped up any previous notion of how we made a record'

On earlier records, The Aces were "compelled by melodies," Cristal says, "but this record was full on about our story, who we are, where we come from." On songs like "Suburban Blues," she said the girls wanted to talk about what it was like to grow up closeted in Utah.

To fit that tone, the band took inspiration from groups like My Bloody Valentine, the Cure and the Smiths. Earlier records had had heavy disco influences, but the band "leaned a bit more into the late '80s New Wave on this record," Alisa says.

The Ramirez sisters have been writing together since they were kids; the girls wrote their first song together when Alisa was 14 and Cristal was 15. "I just felt this really amazing chemistry between us," Alisa says.

"We're basically twins; we're 18 months apart" and "basically share a brain."

Collaborating was "magical," Alisa says, and the girls fell into a groove with Alisa writing more of their lyrics and Cristal focusing on music. All four bandmates work on all parts of their songs, though, and stressed that they make decisions together and "majority rules."

The Aces on LGBTQ pride, coming out in Utah and 'speaking in code'

The sisters were also in sync in other parts of their lives. Growing up, "we always knew we were gay, but we never talked about it," Cristal says.

"Like speaking in code, our whole youth," Alisa finishes her sentence. "There were always girls that were just a little too cool."

Cristal, Alisa and Katie all agreed that the support they found in their band was essential in helping them cope with the challenges of their upbringing.

"Going through those really tumultuous teenage years – at the time, you wish you could change everything," Cristal says. "I was really ashamed of my queerness, I didn’t want to be queer. I was terrified of what that meant for me and my life."

Alisa struggled with being half-Latina, too; the girls' father is Honduran. "Utah's really racist," she says. "I felt that intensely growing up."

Amid those challenges, their band was "the place that I would go to feel peace, and to feel okay about myself," Cristal says. "I could just play music with them and be good at something and feel a sense of belonging in a way that I didn't feel anywhere else at the time."

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The Aces' 'most important' shows are in Utah

As adults, The Aces hope to speak to young queer people in environments like where they grew up.

"To the people that really need us, I think we're an absolute beacon of light," Cristal says. They've had many fans, especially young queer women, come up to them and say that "what you're doing for women in Utah, women in Salt Lake City – the kind of hope that you give us is just replaceable," she says.

"There's so many queer people who are stuck" in places where they can't always be themselves, Cristal says. "How can we give up on those people? I think we have to keep fighting to create safe spaces everywhere we possibly can."

Petty, the band's bassist, works to be an ally to her lesbian bandmates by still living in Utah; the other three members have moved to Los Angeles.

"It's not a very safe place in Utah for queer people. But I feel like that is a big reason why I've stayed for longer. There is a lot more work to be done here," she says.

"The neighborhood that my mom lives in, there's a Pride flag and right next to it, there's a Trump flag," Cristal says. "Every other house, it's like a … roulette spin of who is for our community and helping move our rights forward and who is actively not, and that's really scary."

Cristal recalls a "brave" moment at Petty's house. "She had this big Pride flag (outside), and I just remember feeling so proud of her."

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