Trained as a violinist, she began displaying her knack for casual reinvention while playing the violin with a punk-like abandon in the 1990s college-radio rock staple the Dambuilders.
At the age of eight she took up the violin and, a decade later, took a place to study music at Boston University before realizing that the classical world was not for her.
"I didn't want to make classical music my life. The Beethoven symphonies have already been played a million times and I am not going to do it any better."
"I just always loved music. I was the girl with a mohawk playing the violin in high school. Everybody thought I was a freak. And guess what? I am."
Instead Wasser,
sporting dreadlocks and vinyl mini-dresses, started to play violin in punk bands. "It's hard to make a classical instrument fit into that world, but I wanted to bridge the gap between the guitar and the bass and play the violin really loud."
In the grunge era, her band the Dambuilders were signed to a major label and toured the world. -
telegraphShe was in her first band, the Dambuilders from 1990 until 1997
Joan dated Jeff from 1994-1997 when he died.
"It was incredibly difficult to grieve privately for those close to him - everybody wanted a piece of him - we were a very private couple. It took a while to get through that period, honestly. I never would want it to happen any other way because the fact that I survived it has made me such a strong person. It has actually really made me more compassionate."
