MARINA POISON was born Aybike Celik on August 1, 1990 in Antakya, a small city located in southern Turkey, Aybike's father was a police chief and due to her father's assignations, Aybike lived in many different cities when she was a small child. Eventually they settled in Adana, located in the south, a more secular city despite the increasing Islamism in Turkey.
The family home in Adana was very close to the police station where her father worked as a police chief. Aybike's father was very strict, protective and a harsh disciplinarian. Even at a young age Aybike was not fond of rules or authority. Her father used his governmental power to attempt to "tame" Aybike. They actually tried to get along and occasionally as a family would sing Turkish folk songs but her father was adamantly against Aybike's dreams of becoming a musician. He did not consider singing to be a real profession.
Since Aybike was 6 years old it was her dream – to write, sing songs and express herself. The movie Return of the Living Dead 2 introduced her to punk music with its up-tempo and raw soundtrack. That intrigued her, but the punks in the movie also scared Aybike. Her mother told her that punkers were basically good people. While living in London in the early 1980s, the punk rock kids helped her mother carry her brother's baby stroller up the stairs and helped her with her groceries.
When Aybike was 9 years old she auditioned, and was selected for the children's choir of the state controlled radio station, TRT, a move that would later help shape and transition her into who she would become. At 12 her life changed radically and forever. Her older brother Zakibe had changed. He was listening to a kind of music that sounded ‘strange’ to most people in Turkey during that strict religious time. They listened to bootleg tapes of punk bands for hours like Ramones, Runaways and Sex Pistols. Aybike fell in love with the rebellious and don’t-give-a-shit attitude of the American and British punk rock sound.
The local punker kids helped Aybike survive in school; often the kids at school bullied and teased her. Punk rock music helped her cope and forge a new inner independence and toughness. She learned not to be dependent on anyone. She would not be broken.
Aybike also started to learn to express her angst in songs and poems. At the age of 14 she wrote her first poem and discovered that writing liberated her. She would spend her homework time writing poems and expressing her anger and frustration through her words.
Aybike began skipping school and got deeper into songwriting, her only outlet for her feelings. Her grades began to decline rapidly; this caught the attention of her angry and uptight father.
Aybike was no longer her father's vision of the “perfect daughter” he so desperately wanted her to become. She had finally broken out of the conservative mold that society had built around her. She forged her own free path and was becoming out of his control. Aybike was metamorphosing into a full-fledged rebellious, gothic punk rocker.
Aybike’s father was transferred to Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey. In this new and more progressive city, Aybike started hanging around with older kids in the punk and goth underground scene, expressing their fury the only way they knew how, by their youth’s generation and country’s suppression. This became the last stop of the process that would transform Aybike into who she would become.
Her father was no longer able to control Aybike. The daughter of his dreams had faded. She had a group of friends that he called; “the soon-to-be-arrested crowd” and she just didn't care.
As a last resort her father kicked Aybike out of the house, never to return. Aybike squatted with her newfound friends or sometimes slept on the streets. She could write, scream songs and have fun with friends that supported her. Aybike was no longer; she now was ALL punk.
MARINA POISON had arrived.
In 2013 MARINA POISON met Tolga Izbey who was known in punk circles as the guitarist of the band Rashit. At that time Aybike wrote show reviews and articles about bands on the Istanbul underground punk scene for a local music magazine. The two soon embarked on a project together called Solar Chaos. Solar Chaos was creating music that no one else was doing in genres such as garage rock, post-punk, and avant-guard. Soon the addition of a bassist and a drummer transformed Solar Chaos into punk rock legends that would fuel the Turkish and European underground scene for almost 10 years: Reptilians From Andromeda.
Reptilians From Andromeda seemed like they were definitely from another planet: they were loud, furious, rebellious, and shocking. Their videos, songs and concerts were totally original. MARINA POISON was the face of the band and lead vocalist and songwriter. MARINA POISON’s femme-fatal attitude on stage and her shocking lyrics made Reptilians From Andromeda famous in the underground music scene in Turkey.
In 2013 Reptilians From Andromeda signed their first record deal and since have released seven EP's and one full-length Album/LP from several US, UK and European record labels. The demand was overwhelming. Regional record labels could not press the albums fast enough.
In 2019 and early 2020 MARINA POISON led Reptilians From Andromeda non-stop tour throughout Europe leaving fans craving more from Greece, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. One country that just could not get enough eradication was Germany in the first quarter of 2020 before COVID took over.
Reptilians From Andromeda disbanded in 2021., but MARINA POISON carries on to pursue her own SOLO music career and art projects – in the spirit of PUNK ROCK.