About Me
Sara Johnston fell into music as a career by mistake - or at least that's
what she likes to think. Born and raised in Montreal, her musically-minded parents made it compulsory for their four daughters to take up instruments, which Sara did, choosing piano and cello. Singing was also a family staple and from her earliest memories, it was a common occurrence to have to line up with her sisters and sing for guests while her father played the piano.
Sara reconnected with music in her early twenties, upon realizing how much she missed her instrument: "I'd been having all these dreams about playing my cello but I was scared that the reality of playing the cello could never add up to the way it felt in my dreams. But it turned out to be even better." At the same time, she taught
herself to play guitar out of a desire play songs insted of movements. Jamming with various Montreal musicians, she eventually met then-music video director and
producer, James De Salvio, who asked her if she wanted to play cello on some
songs that he had been recording in his home studio. De Salvio soon recognized Sara's talent as a singer and introduced her to his friend and maverick Quebec francophone artist, Jean Leloup. Leloup invited Sara to lay down a vocal track. The song, "I Lost My Baby", was on the radio two weeks later and became the hit single on Leloup's Canadian-platinum album, "Le Dome"
De Salvio's brainchild "livingroom project" with which Sara,
along with a collective of a dozen other Montreal musicians, had become
involved as a singer, became an overnight sensation known as Bran Van 3000.
Their debut album, "Glee", released in Canada in 1997, went gold in 1998 and
won a Juno Award in Canada. With their hit single, "Drinking in L.A.", the
band signed to Capitol and toured the U.S. and Europe, opening for artists
like Bjork and Massive Attack. Bran Van 3000's meteoric rise and subsequent
success ended soon after the release of its highly-anticipated follow-up
album, "Discosis", in 2001 when internal differences, compounded by the
bankruptcy of its U.S. label, Grand Royale, proved too great to overcome.
But her fairytale ride in Bran Van 3000 - that happy mistake -
gave Sara a wealth of performance experience, a high-level exposure to record
production (working with producers such as Ric Ocasek) and the
self-recognition of her talents as a songwriter (she wrote two songs,
"Loaded" and the beautifully-bittersweet ballad, "Rockstar", for the second
album) . In the aftermath of Bran Van 3000's unexpected dissolution, Sara
knew that she would return with her own solo album, free from the
constraints of band and label politics. But unlike the first time around,
this would prove to not be so easy.
In the ensuing two years, she spent countless hours with
friend and co-Bran Van singer, Jayne Hill, experimenting with music,
searching for sounds, writing, jamming and familiarizing herself with
production techniques. And with the help other Bran Van alumni, Gary
Mackenzie on bass, Rob Joanisse on drums and engineer, Rod Shearer behind
the board, Sara began to lay the foundation for her album. But it was
during this time that she began to experience the effects of a growing
physical and emotional exhaustion, exacerbated by the frenetic pace that she
had set for the album's recording
Despite her chronic exhaustion, Sara continued recording her album
throughout 2004 in stop-and-go spurts dictated by her erratic energy levels.
She had just begun to perform her songs live with a newly-formed backing
band in December 2004 when yet another debilitating hurdle - a herniated
disc, likely brought on by her diminished condition - brought her to the
ground. After a year of recuperation and physical therapy, Sara released her
debut solo album, "Sleeper", in May 2006.
if you wanna buy it www.indyish.com or www.cdbaby.com/cd/sarajohnstonI edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4
