"She's Alright, She's OK"
Leah Andreone Unveils Impressive Debut

There is something decidedly paradoxical about Leah Andreone. At once she is cosmic, you know, "out there," yet still extremely down to earth. She can take a way-out thought, wrap it in common sense, and make it work. This perplexing trait is rather prominent in the personality of the 24-year-old San Diego native.

The song lyrics on Veiled, her brilliant debut release, provide easily compelling evidence of her engaging nature. It is difficult to avoid becoming caught up in her magic way of turning a phrase and bending a cliche´. Her writing style conjures pictures of a kidnapper's ransom note, where symbolic words and powerful phrases are cut out of the pages of magazines and newsprint and pasted together in combinations to convey a totally different message. Andreone's messages can be interpreted differently each time you read or hear them. You can tell each word is handpicked for maximum emphasis.

In conversation, she is much the same. It's plain that she measures her words carefully. It is almost cartoon-like the way her pregnant pauses conjure images of the gears of her mind spinning around feverishly. It's refreshing to interview someone who is as into answering your queries as you are to posing them.

In a recent phone conversation with Scene, Andreone spoke about her style of writing, where she comes up with such unusual angles from which to write and the level of diversity in what she writes. Additionally, she spoke of family, live performance, Elvis Costello and the way the media has romanticized the tale of how she came to sign her recording deal with RCA. OK, let's start there.

Andreone has pretty much resigned herself to the fact that this question will be asked in every interview. Tell her that you'd like to touch on a couple questions that she may already have been asked by others, and she starts to giggle.

"I know one of them," she laughs. "The diner question, is that what you mean?"

Much of the print media has painted the tale of Andreone's signing a deal as being a modern day version of the discovery of Lana Turner at a soda fountain. Does Andreone see it the same way?

"A little... Maybe... The thing is, this Lana Turner had years and years of fighting for a place in the music scene. The other Lana Turner just happened to be there. I worked for my break, and it just happened to come about in a pretty ironic manner."

Even though she has repeated the story endlessly, you can still tell she hasn't switched to a rehearsed statement.

"I was going to school in San Diego. I sent out a couple demos in L.A., driving back and forth trying to do this singing thing, going to various clubs and stuff. I had some interest from a label, who I ended up not going with, but I did end up moving from San Diego to L.A., and then I got a part time job waiting tables at a diner on Sunset Boulevard and singing at night. It's funny. One day, after so many nights of smoke-filled rooms, and singing as much as I possibly could, anywhere I could, I got my deal in a restaurant. It's ironic," she muses.

"I was waiting a table of ... obviously ... executive from RCA, and they were talking about who to sign next and such. I got an idea, and asked the owner of the restaurant if I could run home. I told him I'd be right back. I came back with a demo tape, just as the record company guys were leaving, and I tackled the one man asking him to listen to the tape." It turned out to be Skip Miller, who was then head of black music at RCA's A&R department and now works with Lionel Richie.

"He ended up coming back the next morning, and asked where he could see me sing. I sang that night for him in a club and he offered me a deal. His exact words to me were, 'So, is this the best you could do?' and I said 'Yeah, that's it.' He smiled and said 'Oh, I thought so, too. I want you to sign a deal with me.' We met for about a week, and kinda got to know each other. He turned out to be a wonderful man and a true fan, so I signed with him."

She had to do a little scrambling and negotiating of her own, just so Miller could get to hear her.

"It wasn't even my show that night. It was someone else's show and I told them that I'd bring [record company representatives], if they'd just let me have a slot in the show. Thankfully, they gave it to me."

She says they didn't give much of a slot, but it turned out to be enough.

"I did a couple of my songs -- nothing that's on Veiled -- an Elvis Costello version of 'Funny Valentine' and a cover of Aretha Franklin's 'Think.' I did just the four songs and I was out of there. To get signed from that, it was kinda ironic."

The frequency with which the word "ironic" pops up in Andreone's responses prompts thoughts of the Alanis Morissette song of the same name. there's an urge to add the "don't cha think" line to the word.

That's another thing. There are a lot of comparisons floating around out there linking Anreone and Morissette. The press is comparing her to just about every female artist, including Jewel, Jill Sobule, Shawn Colvin, Sarah McLachlan, Tori Amos and Kate Bush (those two courtesy of her own label), Juliana Hatfield, Susanna Hoffs and even Sheryl Crow. Considering that Andreone has a fairly unique voice and truly unique style, one might wonder if all those comparisons get to her.

"I think I've simplified my thinking on that whole subject," she says with a tone of tentativeness. "Before, my thoughts were very complicated on this comparisonn thing, and I kept asking Why? ... Why am I compared to her? Why this girl? Why that one? I guess there really is no answer other than it's easier to say, 'She reminds me of this person' than it is to say, 'Well, you know her voice sounds like this, her eyes do this when she sings and her fingers move like that.' Instead of getting into what is going on, it's just easier to pull a name out of the air. It's like if I were trying to tell you what alligator meat tastes like, I guess instead of trying to describe the meat I'd probably just spit out, 'It tastes like chicken.' It's just quicker."

As for a descriptive label for her sound and style, well that's a different story. She hasn't quite come to terms with that.

"I don't feel good about tags, genre tags. Growing up, I just listened to so many different types of music and was influenced by such a variety of people ... and it's all in there. I think when you listen to my music it runs the gamut. You just can't nail it down to one style and a lot of music is like that these days. It's a pity to call music one thing or another, it's music."

As for specific people she cites as influences, she tops her list with Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye. She claims the early influence of rockabilly and a lot of punk as a result of those types of music 'filtering through the wall from my brother's room.' She is also quick to add, 'Oh, and I am a huge fan of Elvis Costello, Maria Mckee and yes, John Lennon. I'm also impressed by Sarah McLachlan."

There is a lot of diversity to be found on Veiled (and that level of diversity may be the only legitimate thing Andreone and the previously mentioned Morissette have in common). Andreone claims the wide array of styles on the disc wasn't a planned thing.

"It's just the way things fell out of me. I didn't know that this was going to go off in all the directions it has. I was just writing for the love of writing, and whatever I felt at that time was exactly what I would write about. I'd follow whatever caught my interest. There is a song about childbirth on the disc. I'd been thinking about the mysteries and amazement of giving birth and there came 'Happy Birthday.'" This is one of her more unique songs, with lyrics sung from the first-person fetal point of view.

In addition to her odd lyrical viewpoints, strange melds of words pop up throughout her debut. She says some of it is intentional and some just happens.

"It's wordplay, I guess. I love plays on words. I'm having fun as I write these songs. A lot of this is like a mind game for me. I sit in bed, thinking about lyrics and how to piece them together, and it's fun; I may not even write a song about it, but thinking through some weird situation that can be twisted into three different situations that can be looked at in three different lights by each of three different people. I love playing with things like that ... and just getting everybody thinking."

In listening to her disc, there is a lot to think about. In a song called "Hell To Pay," she takes a curious look at personal accountability, wondering about just how far people would go if they knew they weren't going to have to take responsibility for their actions. In her current single, "It's Alright It's OK," she looks at life in a dysfunctional family ... from the perspective of the child. Some of her songs are written with incredible depth. You almost have to wonder if they are tales from her own life.

"Some of them are autobiographical to a certain extent. Then some of them are just me, a voyeur, going, let's say, into a bar and watching the dynamics between certain people, or walking on the street watching people walk by and getting a story a story from that, or even just talking with strangers and hearing their stories. I do enjoy having to solve something in a song -- to happen upon an unusual equation and finding a way of solving it."

She is quick to point out that the abusive tale in "Problem Child" did not in any way reflect her own home life.

"'Problem Child' is someone I know. Actually it's a family I was involved with and I had listened to stories from the son and the father about the abuse that had gone on in that family. Over time I had watched this guy hurt people constantly in various ways. He'd just constantly strike people down mentally and physically.

"He got me wondering why he did things in life the way he did. It really sparked things for me, and got me started on the song. Then came plenty of questions about why I do things the way I do them, why you do them the way you do them, and why that guy, this girl and anyone else does things they do. In writing 'Problem Child,' I got my answer. I think what you grow up with and what you're taught and see at home is all we really know. Until we learn different, what we know and have learned through life is what we are going to be able to give back. In this case, what he [the problem child] knew, he just kept giving people -- the kicking people, beating them down just keeps going. It's a scary legacy to pass down.

Early in the conversation Andreone said she had been doing these types of interviews for about four months. That's a lot of questions to be answered. So were there any questions that were left out?

"Oh my, I think I have been asked every single question that exists in this universe ... I'm serious. I've been doing this for four months. Actually I went to Europe for a while, so I got every cultural question you could imagine. I got asked a lot about my heritage, what it was like growing up with an Italian father, and they were surprised that I felt he is the sweetest, most gentle man and just wonderful to grow up with.

"There must be some stereotypes of an Italian temper [giggles], of which he had none. I got asked a lot about that and my mother's heritage. And how do the audiences in Europe differ from those in America, to which my answer is: 'they don't.' People are people. I've found both to be enthusiastic and there is this really cool communication and relationship that grows as we go."

She does say one of my questions was new. Any more at home like you? Any more creative geniuses? Through a laugh she says her grandfather had a single out years and years ago, and he was a writer. Still giggling, "My mother is a writer, my brother is a songwriter and my sister graduated with a journalism degree. Yeah, it kinda runs in the family."

Lee Barrish