Music:
Member Since: 12/20/2005
Band Website: stay tuned!
Band Members: sometimes play with a magnificent band... lissie & the tramps. the tramps are scott kinnebrew on bass, walker young on keys and bill "smitty" smith on drums.
Influences:
About Lissie
You can always recognize an Annie. There’s something iconically American – fresh faced, light, open – about the women who once starred in the musical about a curly haired orphan with an indomitable spirit. You’re not quite sure where this infectious energy comes from, energy that evokes all the possibilities of youth – the precociousness, the adventure. Once it slips, “I was Annie when I was nine,†you say, “Yes! Of course you were.†And then you ask, what happened next?
For Lissie – a California indie rocker, what happened next reads like a novel, like a fusion of Salinger, Voltaire, and Blume, with a rock and roll paperback thrown in for good measure. It starts with an expulsion, it includes a command performance at a surreal celebrity wedding, it reveals a blithe spirit as experimental as she is committed – to community and her own fluid melody.
"I got expelled from high school in late February of my senior year,â€
Lissie says, as if this is as ordinary as going to the prom. "It’s a long
story, but I always felt as if most of my teachers were trying to squash
my spirit and put me in my place, mistaking my individualism and
enthusiasm for bad behavior. When kids act up, they're always written off
as being trouble when really their energy could be put towards something
good. Hardly anyone in my public school system wanted to take the time to
figure out what that thing might be." It took her three weeks to earn a
degree at an alternative outreach center and then she promptly hit the
road.
Lissie traveled solo around the country, stopping to visit friends and family from Florida to DC, Chicago to Boulder. As a child growing up in Rock Island, Illinois – a stone’s throw from Iowa and the Mississippi River – Lissie was a natural performer. “I could always carry a tune,†she says. “Even as a baby. Even before I could talk.†She credits her grandfather – an international barbershop quartet champion, as the source of her gift for melody. When she set to roaming the country at eighteen, she did it troubadour-style, singing wherever she happened to be.
"I played a lot of open mics in the towns I visited and in Fort
Collins, Colorado where I went to college. I met other musicians. I
would open for the traveling acts that came through town, like G. Love and
Special Sauce and Ozomatli. I met DJ Harry, who was signed to the Sci
Fidelity label, and he liked my voice. We wrote a song together and it
ended up on his album, “Collison.†It was trip hop, different from the
folksy acoustic songs I'd been writing. It opened up a whole new world of
possibilities for me." The song, "All My Life" received a good deal of
college and AAA radio airplay, and placements in the TV shows, “The OC,â€
“Veronica Mars,†“House,†and “Wildfire,†as well as in the documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?"
Lissie spent a college semester studying in Paris. “I’m not sure what a
degree would have meant to me, " she says. " I’d just been taking general
courses trying to learn a little bit about as many subjects as I could."
Her courses took a back seat to hear love of performing. In Paris, she met
an American who booked gigs for her at Bistrot des Artistes and the Lizard
Lounge and befriended a Japanese painter who got her on French radio. "I
felt like I kept getting better- the responses were positive,
overwhelming. I decided to quit school so I could pursue this way of
life."
Lissie moved from Paris to Los Angeles, where she hit the open mic circuit
and quickly landed a gig at Genghis Cohen. It was there that she met
Betsy Hammer. Ms. Hammer introduced her to Brooks Arthur, legendary
producer/engineer with classic credits like "Hang on Sloopy", "My
Boyfriend's Back" and "The Chanukah Song." Together, they took Lissie to
Guy Oseary who introduced her to producer, Glen Ballard. Lissie's voice
can be heard on the title track of the film “Dream It Out Loud†which
Ballard scored. Oseary also invited her to perform during the clandestine
wedding ceremony of Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher.
In 2007, Lissie produced an EP through her imprint label Lionboy Records.
The four-song release has received airplay by Nic Harcourt on the
nationally syndicated radio show "Morning Becomes Eclectic" originating
from national public radio's flagship KCRW, as well as placements in a
Romanian telephone commercial and the film "Wedding Daze" (starring Jason Biggs and Isla Fisher). In support of this EP, her solo tour included the
South by Southwest music festival, and an opening slot for Badly Drawn Boy on his run of west coast dates.
At times it seems Lissie's path is strewn with golden (and often bizarre)
opportunities, but she is not without the ability to create her own road
and drive right into the center of community. In Los Angeles, Lissie
makes her home in Beachwood Canyon, a natural haven for artists and free
spirits. She set up a weekly residency at Crane's Hollywood Tavern,
inviting her vast array of fellow friends and travelers to join and jam.
The Beachwood Rockers were born, and the shifting collective has been a
mainstay at Crane's for almost two years. Lissie also performs as the
"Blue Jean Queen" in the "Denim Family Band" regularly at both Crane's
and with frequent performances at the Hotel Cafe.
She's currently collaborating with Morgan Page on original and reworked
versions of her own compositions as well as with producers Paul Fox and
Curt Schneider, writing and preparing to record an album that will be
released in 2008 on Sony BMG UK.
Lissie's Videos
All Be Okay-Directed By George Whitman & Produced By John Vanover
Longest Road- Morgan Page featuring lissie
Lissie Live on Songpull.com - Look Away - Directed by: George Whitman On My Chest
I Don't Know What I'm Doing Anymore - Live from El Rey
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Sounds Like: i mean it
Record Label: Sony BMG (UK)
Type of Label: Major
