LEAH ANDREONE: It's Alright, It's OK

So often when star-bound entertainers leave for the glitz of LA, they turn away from the support of their hometown. Easily sucked up into the pseudo-bourgeois limelight, their geography escapes them they forget how and by whose backing they honed their craft. Leah Andreone is the exception.

Returning to perform in San Diego is like homecoming night for pop music's brightest new star: "Yeah, I'm really excited about playing before all my friends," she says. "I didn't tell them what was going on until they found out I had an album out. You know, I didn't want that to change anything."

From her hotel room in Portland, Oregon, Leah Andreone talked with me about her career, her debut album, and her thoughts. First, let me clarify that Leah hasn't traded in her San Diego roots for the self-indulgences of fame and fortune.

"I grew up in La Mesa," she discloses. "I went to O'Farrell School of Performing Arts, and then to Helix High School. Then, I went to San Diego State University. I left San Diego because of record label interest in Los Angeles. I ended up not going with that label, but, you know, that launched my career."

The seeds of Leah's music career were sown when she was a child taking piano and guitar lessons -- and playing any of the various instruments she found around the house. Being shy, Leah often expressed herself by writing in journals which she still possesses.

"From the time I was a little girl, I've been most comfortable when performing," she says. "When I was young, if something went wrong, I'd go to the piano and sing more often than I'd talk it out. Maybe it doesn't sound like the healthiest thing, but it really did help me grow as a person."

Leah began performing during her pre-teen years. She recalls how when her sister's band would play, they would let her take over the stage for the last set. She also remembers when she got a chance to sing at a nightclub in Mission Beach at age eleven. The rules were: her parents would bring her in, buy a drink while Leah sang her songs, then whisk her out immediately.

Now, destiny is smiling upon the 23-year-old performer. After moving to LA to seriously pursue her career, she did what she could to position herself advantageously in the record industry, even going to the BMG office building (which houses RCA and Zoo, among other record labels) and asking for a job, doing "anything." She wound up in the accounting office there for four or five months until, as she says, "I got all my tapes out. Then, I left."

Soon after, she was waitressing at the Hollywood Diner on Sunset Strip during the day and singing in clubs at night -- another strategic move on her part, as the diner was frequented by top record execs. I asked her how she could tell a record exec from any other business person.

"It's by their clothes," she says sheepishly. "It just seems like they have a certain style. It's a nice style. It's like a very conservative look, yet there's always something funky mixed in with it. Kind of like a cool T-shirt underneath their suit. It's very interesting."

One day, while working at the diner, Leah overheard a table of these "interesting" industry types talking shop. They were expressing the need to discover fresh, new talent. Here was her opportunity: the moment she had been waiting for.

"I asked the owner of the restaurant if I could run home and get my tape," Leah explains. "I did. I got my tape and went back and they were leaving. So, I handed it to one of the men and he was kind of like, 'ahh, yeah, I'll check it out.'

"Then, I went and called my mother on the phone. I said, 'Oh my God, I gave him a tape. Oh my God, he's in his car.' I watched him put the tape in, and he laid his head back on the headrest of his seat, closed his eyes, and listened for a minute or two. I'm giving my mom a blow-by-blow description: 'He breathed; he blinked.' He ended up driving away."

No response. No resolution. "Oh, don't worry. Opportunity will come again. You can keep trying," her mother consoled. Leah has always been supported by her mom and dad. Her career was never seen as an impossibility, only a potentiality. The next day...

"I was late for work," Leah confesses, "and I had accidentally cut this woman off while driving to the restaurant. I thought 'Oh my God, I'm so sorry,' and she's flipping me off and cussing me out.

"I get to the restaurant and one of the waiters came back and said there's a woman on table three who knows you and wants to talk to you. I was like, 'Oh great, I just cut this woman off; she's gonna kill me.'

"So, I walked out, put my hand on her shoulder, and said 'I'm so sorry; it was an accident; I was late for work.' And she looked at me and said she had no idea what I was talking about.

"She told me her name, said she was from RCA, and asked me if I could take the day off. And I thought to myself, 'Sure, I'll quit if you want me to.'"

It so happened that the man she had given her tape to the previous day was an impressed RCA executive, well-known and respected throughout the music industry. He met with Leah and asked her when he could hear her sing. An hour and a half later, Leah had lined up a set for that evening with a band of friends.

After signing, the time had come to begin work on her album for RCA. The record company gave Leah a list of producers' names and told her to go check them out -- if she didn't like any, they'd just give her another list. She met with Rick Neigher and now says, "I didn't want to meet with anyone else. Immediately, we clicked. It was a mutual musical attraction."

The result is Veiled, featuring 11 tracks of acoustic melodies, funky grooves, and straight-up rock 'n' roll. If that sounds diverse, it is. But underlying Veiled's diversity is its consistent honesty.

"For so long," explains Leah, "there were so many things I didn't admit to or tried to cover up and not talk about. I think, over the past year and a half or two years, I've become more honest with myself about me, about you, about people. So, it was an unveiling. I mean there was a 'veil'; there were walls up."

On the album, Leah's voice creates an intrigue unbounded by trend or genre, allowing her lyrics to soar free. In spite of her uniqueness, she suffers the inevitable comparisons to other female performers, such as Tori Amos, Susanna Hoffs, Kate Bush and Sarah McLachlan.

"It's amazing," Leah admits. "I think it's shallow and I think it's simple. It's much easier to describe what alligator meat tastes like by just saying it tastes like chicken rather than saying the texture is like this, and the color is this color, and it smells like this.

"Instead of taking my music and saying, 'She talks about this, and when she sings her hands do this, and her voice has this quality,' I think it is just a lot easier to spit out a comparison."

Without spitting, Veiled's opening track, "It's Alright It's OK," is moving up the charts and receiving major airplay on San Diego radio stations. The video for the song is also being played frequently on VH1.

What makes Veiled so fascinating is its musical miscellany -- from the pop single that kicks off the disc to the rock-driven beat of "Happy Birthday" and "Come Sunday Morning." Then there's the Sly Stone-esque funkiness of "Who Are They To Say" and "Hell To Pay." The coffeehouse acoustic songs, like "Mother Tongue" and "Imagining You," manage to fit right in with the other styles.

The lyrical perspectives are fresh, too. "Happy Birthday" is a conscious expression of a baby leaving the womb to be birthed. "Problem Child" possesses the deep, heartfelt confusion of an abused child. And "Hell To Pay," which Leah co-wrote with her brother, confronts hypocrisy: If there were no hell to pay / I wonder would you still need a god.

"I wanted to address the questions, if you knew you would not be held accountable for your actions, how far would you go? Would your conscience even exist?" she asks.

On Dec. 16, Leah will be back in San Diego to perform at the 91X Acaustic X-Mas at Golden Hall. Other bands performing include Goldfinger, Lemonheads, Republica, and Nerfherders. Tickets can be won on air from 91X, purchased at Ticketmaster, or by calling 220-TIXS. This evening of alternative music promises to be a very special event for this new-found pop star from La Mesa.