Bela was born in Tehran, Iran, to a family of Persian aristocrats. In her teens she began writing freelance articles about underground music for various local papers. Her first major job was an interview with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. She had been told by the paper only cover the show, but when Reznor saw her, he introduced himself and offered her an interview, allowing her to use his recording device to record it. She accepted, and he later invited her to the opening of the very first Lollapalooza as his guest and a reporter. She started her first magazine in 1998 while attending college at The University of Houston, where she majored in theatre and minored in literature, as well as taking independent studies in photography and playwriting. She was one of five students chosen out of thousands, all of whom had submitted original plays, to study with Edward Albee, an award-winning playwright known for his dark themes. Her Shakespeare audition in her second year at university also landed her in a class taught by master Shakespearean director Sir Peter Hall, who chose four people for the semester class in Houston. She performed such roles as Natalia in Three Sistersin 2001, Lady Nijo in Top Girls in 2002, Regan in King Lear, Phoebe in As You Like It, and Antigone in Antigone.
Career
Despite her teachers urging her to pursue an acting career, Bela decided to start writing a concept album of experimental music after school and soon left the theatre world for music with a theatrical twist. After releasing her first album, which she recorded at home on a small recording device, she started playing live shows. After opening for bandleader Martin Atkins' group in a show, she joined his supergroupPigface briefly in 2004 as a drummer. Bela agreed to play a few shows with them but then left the band to pursue her own musical projects. In 2002, she launched Ellahy Amen Records, a label based in Paris, France and Austin, Texas for avant-garde musicians. According to her website, Bela got the idea to start her own label after getting offers from other labels that she wasn't satisfied with; she didn't want to be on a male-run label. According to an interview on Persian radio, this decision came after Mike Patton emailed her urging her to pick the label that was the best permanent home for her music rather than a label that would be a quick fix. Artists signed to her label include Bela herself; Maya Bond, an eight-year-old singer-songwriter; and Lexion Blacklord, a musician from Switzerland. Bela is also the creator of a custom-made instrument called a Beltar, which has sympathetic strings and can play either noise or melody. The Beltar can be used both electrically or acoustically. Bela designed it to look like a weapon based on a theory Trey Spruance related to her of how "instruments are the weapons of angels". She is a student of Unity Church teachings and has studied many spiritual paths. She is also very active in the creative realm of Quantum Physics. In 2004, she was invited to play SXSW's music festival to promote her album. Bela collaborated with Eric Tessmer in 2010 on a Persian folk song called "To Beya". Bela wrote the rearrangement of the song and directed a video that was shown on a Persian Film Festival site. Bela was featured in Dazed Magazine as one of 12 artists who made alternative anthems for Dazed. She created an experimental track for them to stream called "Bitten Reformer". The track is a feminist world anthem.
