Los Angeles’ Angela Defoe has written a viral pop single, directed an anniversary music video for one of many largest various rock songs of the 2000s, and maintained her sanity whereas being married to a continuously touring rock star. The director and musician’s subsequent aim is successful a World Collection of Poker (WSOP) bracelet.
PokerNews caught up with Defoe, a lifelong poker participant, in one in all a number of WSOP occasions that she is taking part in this summer time to speak about her music and directing careers, poker targets and being married to Ronnie Winter-Defoe, the singer and founding member of The Purple Jumpsuit Equipment.
Bookmark this web page! All it’s worthwhile to know concerning the 2025 WSOP is right here.
“I Simply Wished to Problem Myself”
Defoe met her husband at a recording studio whereas working as a vocal producer and editor. It was Winter-Defoe who wrote The Purple Jumpsuit Equipment’ 2006 hit “Face Down,” which went 5 instances Platinum within the US and made Selection’s listing of the 25 greatest emo songs of all time.
The upbeat music of “Face Down” is juxtaposed with sobering lyrics about home abuse and accompanied by a music video portraying the each day life struggles of an abuse sufferer. In 2022, Defoe wrote and directed an anniversary music video for a “symphonic version” of the deepest music in pop punk historical past.
“My concept was to convey the unique lady again and see how issues can change 13 years later,” Defoe instructed PokerNews. “As a result of people who find themselves victims within the second are surrounded by the pressure. They can not see their approach out. However once they can get themselves out of that state of affairs, issues can change for the higher.”
Defoe had successful single of her personal in 2020 with “Black Metallic Romance,” a dreamy pop ballad described by one fan as “an ideal music for a James Bond film,” regardless of its title paying tribute to an excessive and abrasive heavy metallic subgenre. An eerie however lovely music video for the monitor starring Defoe and Defoe-Winter has garnered 1.6 million views on YouTube.
“I simply wished to problem myself on making a black metallic music,” Defoe mentioned. “I had totally different genres I wished to assault, but it surely ended up having a lifetime of its personal and I could not match a sq. into this spherical gap. And when you type of create a foundation of a music, it type of tells you what it wants … and it’s a must to take heed to it. And so it ended up changing into type of this actually lovely, romantic, atmospheric music. And so I simply type of adopted what it was telling me to … And I really feel like poker is analogous in that approach.”
Poker Roots
Defoe, who grew up in California, has been round poker for so long as she will bear in mind.
“Since I used to be a child, all of our household reunions was poker and Filipino meals. And I’d take stacks of chips and make little homes and little roads for my playing cards,” Defoe mentioned, including that her mother and aunts would often sneak her cash from the sport.
Defoe stepped away from poker for practically a decade as she targeted on elevating her son. In February, she recorded her first Hendon Mob money by making a Los Angeles Poker Traditional (LAPC) ultimate desk, which she adopted up with successful a $250 Commerce match for $14,885 through three-way chop.
Three months later, Defoe chopped a $150 Venetian DeepStack Extravaganza II occasion in Las Vegas with hearth in her stomach after busting thirty eighth within the $1,100 Major Occasion by flopping a set of queens that was crushed by a rivered straight.
And now, Defoe is elevating the stakes as soon as extra as she takes on poker’s greatest on the WSOP.
Music Icon Steve Albini’s Loss of life Places Fabled 20-12 months Poker House Sport on Pause
Taking part in with Kristen Foxen
PokerNews caught up with Defoe on June 1 as she performed in Day 1 of Occasion #11: $10,000 Thriller Bounty, the largest buy-in of her poker profession. The sector included prime professionals like Eric Baldwin, Erik Seidel (a music afficionadio himself), Nacho Barbero and Kristen Foxen, one in all Defoe’s poker heroes who she briefly battled towards earlier than getting moved to a brand new desk.
“I used to be actually excited once I received her to fold a number of fingers,” Defoe mentioned. “She’s an incredible individual. She’s very grounded and secure. And I believe if she’s going to be the very best feminine poker participant on the earth, she’s an ideal candidate as a result of I believe she represents girls in a approach that ladies should be represented.”
Although Defoe was eradicated on Day 1 of the Thriller Bounty, she cashed three later occasions, together with a 99th place end in Occasion #17: $2,000 NLH for $4,708.
Defoe had her rock star husband together with her in Las Vegas on her bracelet chase, decked out in a WSOP letterman jacket and “Poker is Battle” hat. She mentioned Winter-Defoe, who will return to Vegas later this 12 months to play the When We Had been Younger pageant, is a reliable poker participant himself.
“He does (play poker) and he is fairly good at it. However he simply does not have the persistence.”
*Picture courtesy Angela Defoe
Connor Richards
Editor & Reside Reporter U.S.
