"Tales From the Shy Side"
La Mesan finds confession is good for the soul, and the music

Karla Peterson
Arts Writer

Her debut album is called "Veiled," but from first to last gasp, Leah Andreone is about as uncovered as a singer can get.

The heroine in "It's Alright It's OK," is the "broken doll baby" casualty of a broken marriage. In the funky "Who Are They to Say," she's a "lunatic just livin' a real life." The brooding "Problem Child" speaks for itself, while "You Make Me Remember" speaks for child-abuse victims who can't forgive or forget.

So call it "Exposed" if you want to. As Andreone knows, there's no turning back now.

"When I was writing the songs, I wasn't thinking, 'OK, these are going to go on the radio, people are going to hear them in Europe and everything,'" said Andreone, who performs Monday (Dec. 16, 1996) at 91X's Acaustic X-Mas show at Golden Hall. "It was more about how I was feeling that day, and what was important to me. It wasn't until I started choosing the songs for the album that it entered my mind that these songs were very revealing.

"But I had a choice," Andreone added. "I could have taken some of the more personal songs off, and I decided not to."

In these post-Alanis days, a woman baring her soul in song seems about as daring as a woman showing off her ankle tattoo at the mall. But if Andreone is leaping on a bandwagon, you have to give her credit for getting one heck of a running start.

As the quiet, youngest daughter growing up in a gregarious, music-loving household in La Mesa, Andreone got into the confessional mode very early in life. So early, in fact, that she can't remember a time when she wasn't setting her feelings to music.

"When I was real young, my mother gave me a little diary with a lock and key. I was a pretty shy kid, and I just wanted to be at the piano all the time," Andreone said from a Chicago tour stop. "My parents gave me a diary so I'd have a way to express myself. I think they gave me the piano for the same reason."

By the time she reached her teens, the shy kid discovered the joys of expressing herself in public. At first, she performed with her sisters' bands, ducking into local clubs just long enough to sing a few songs and avoid the authorities. Andreone fronted her own bands while attending Helix High School and San Diego State, and in 1992, she followed the possibility of a record deal to Los Angeles. Fame and fortune took a while to catch up.

"It was crazy and humbling," Andreone, 24, said. "The deal didn't pan out, so I was working all day then going out and singing in smoky bars to people who weren't there to hear the music. In a situation like that, all you could do was hope to meet someone who'd support what you're trying to do, because it's really tough to keep yourself going on your own."

Personal insight

What happened next was the kind of plot twist a B-movie writer would be afraid to dream up. While waiting tables at Danny's Hollywood Diner, Andreone heard some music-industry types complaining about the lack of new talent on the horizon. Andreone ran home, grabbed her demo tape and returned just in time to give her customers some music with their check. "Take a listen to this," she said. And RCA exec Skip Miller did.

The following night, Miller heard Andreone sing at the Mondrian Hotel lounge. Then he offered her a deal. Andreone spent most of 1995 collaborating with producer Rick Neigher, and in August of '96, RCA released Veiled.

With its nervy combination of bristling alternative-rock tunes (including the modern-rock hit "It's Alright It's OK"), Top-40 friendly ballads and guitar-pumped funk numbers, Veiled is an eclectic introduction to a singer with an octave-jumping voice and genre-busting taste. It is also an impressive meet-and-greet session with a woman who refuses to hide a thing.

"One of the many things I've learned over the last two years is that everyone has their own tragedy, and too many people are judgmental about what tragedy is OK to talk about and which isn't. And abuse is one thing no one wants to talk about."

Andreone was abused by a family friend when she was 5 years old, but it wasn't until she wrote "You Make Me Remember" that she was able to turn her personal tragedy into a source of public healing.

"When I wrote that song, it was a freeing experience for me. And every time I sing that song now, people come up to me and they share their own experiences of abuse with me, and that's really cool," Andreone said. "I've been asked if I would give it (the abuse experience) back, and I don't think I would, because it's made me so much of what I am. I've learned from it, and that's the important thing.

Just two years after that B-movie day in the diner, Andreone was preparing to perform in Madison Square Garden on a bill that included Sheryl Crow, Tracy Chapman and Jewel. The shy girl is confessing to the masses, and no one is less surprised than the woman who started it all.

"This dream was never out of reach as far as my mother was concerned," Andreone said. "I was just talking to her on the phone and thanking her for being so supportive, and she said, 'Well, of course you were going to make it.' She never made a big deal about it. To her, trying to have a career in music was like going to school to be an engineer. If I wanted to do it, I could do it."