Laura Dawn

"I was born and raised in Pleasantville, Iowa," says Laura. "So I grew up on storytelling music...Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline. Oh, and Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard! I especially loved the harmonies and backing vocals of country music. But I was also really into The Smashing Pumpkins and older rock groups like The Clash and The Pixies. I wanted to write songs like those country artists--stories of the things I'd gone through that were really personal and honest--but with the sounds of rock that I love." All she needed were some stories to tell. But Pleasantville just didn't provide the proper inspiration. At 21 years old, Laura Dawn packed her bags and moved to New York City Believer is the soundtrack to her roller coaster life of the next few years. "I showed up in New York, straight from Iowa, with almost no money and not knowing a single soul. I started out living at the Lexington Avenue YMCA, and then graduated to a lower East Side squat on 13th St., where I was sleeping on a board on top of my suitcases. And within a couple of years, I'd become the singer in an all-girl art-punk band that ended up being a toast of the town for a while. We were going to all these decadent parties, drinking a lot, doing drugs for the first time. Hell, in Pleasantville, Iowa, the heaviest drug I'd ever seen was Budweiser! And now I'd gotten involved in this crazy scene. It was fun at first, but after a while, I really lost my way. I had to deal with some very intense personal trials--some serious heartbreak, a very close friend dying--and it just threw this life I was living into a new light. By the time that band broke up I felt so far away from the person I was when I came to New York in the first place, the one who wanted to be a real artist. So I just started writing, by myself, for the first time. I wrote so many songs, 50 or so. I had so many stories to tell from all those years of wrong turns and poverty and mayhem, trying to make it in New York City. And writing those songs saved me. I felt like I found myself again. I called my album Believer because I emerged with a faith that there had to be some purpose to my life, that there was some future ahead I couldn't possibly foresee that would explain everything." Of course, her future was to take those amazing songs and bring them to the world. Laura began playing out with her powerful new material, and record labels immediately took notice. Within a few months of her first solo show, she'd landed a deal with Extasy Records International and began working on the album that was to become Believer—a collection of songs illustrating her early years in New York City. “I was very young, very independent and fearless, and very, very green,” Laura admits. "Let's just say I got into plenty of trouble, and sometimes didn't know how to get myself out it." From the sexy punk edge of "Delicious," to the timeless, melancholy pop of "Useless in L.A., " to the innovative, gothic hard rock of the title track, Believer is an eclectic musical journey, brought together by Laura Dawn's consummate auteur songwriting and unique, infectious vocals. "People have told me I sound like a cross between Kim Deal and Dusty Springfield," says Laura, of a voice that goes from a breathy purr to a soulful wail. The album's sonic landscape is rich and varied, fusing rock guitar, bass and drum sounds with ethereal effects, drum loops, and textural instruments like electric cello and piano. "I was inspired, in part, by Moby's Animal Rights," says Laura. "I wanted to make a pop album that was extreme, that could go from the most beautiful, sparse love song to the most solid, traditional pop songwriting, and then on to the most pounding punk rock. In a way, it's kind of a woman's version of emo-core. We worked very hard to keep it intimate and real, yet when it came time to blow your head off-well, I think some tracks rock very, very hard." Laura enlisted producer Ted Niceley (Fugazi, Shudder to Think, Girls Against Boys), and a varied group of musicians, including legendary Replacements bassist Tommy Stinson, drummers Josh Freese (A Perfect Circle, The Vandals), Kevin March (Shudder to Think, Dambuilders), and guitarist Richard Fortus (Psychedelic Furs, BT, Love Spit Love), to work on the LP. Laura also had the chance to work with Yoshiki (Extasy Records CEO and President and former leader of the legendary Japanese rock group, X-Japan), who produced his favorite track "I Would," the album's lead single (written by Laura and Linus of Hollywood). "In the best of all possible worlds," says Laura, "people will hear this album and realize that a woman can be sexy, smart, funny, vulnerable, foolish and bad-ass - sometimes, all at once. The song "Believer" kind of says it all for me, in a way. Being a believer, keeping the faith that there's purpose to your life, is certainly a double-edged sword. Faith is sexy, it's silly, it's moving and real and elusive. But it can be dangerous and destructive if it's not tempered with some experience and wisdom. I guess the main thing I learned from all my adventures is that sometimes it's important to just keep going on, whether you can find a reason to or not. No matter what life throws you, you gotta stay a believer, you know? We need more of them."