Leslie grew up in Ft. Mitchell, Kentucky in a musical family. Her early musical training was similar to that of most of our featured artists—piano lessons and community theater—where she got to train for singing and learned other instruments. Aside from being influenced by the musical members of her family, Leslie grew up listening to and eventually became influenced by Peter Gabriel, Elton John, Cat Stevens, Prince, The Beatles and U2.

With a strong desire to start a career in music, Leslie started a band with her fellow co-workers at Yellowstone National Park. Leslie did vocals with Brad Nagle and Brent Morgan both on guitars, plus Hilson Parker who temporarily played buckets as drums for the band. With the new band gig cutting into her work schedule at the park, Leslie got fired. As if it was the sign they were waiting for, her fellow bandmates immediately quit their jobs and joined Leslie for a trip to Austin, Texas where they began writing more songs. It was then that their band, To The Moon Alice, was born. Two more members were added to the roster, Mike Benigno (Drums) and Tim Gravelle (Bass).

The band moved to New York, and eventually moved upstate to Woodstock during the height of their touring days. They played on the HORDE tour with Neil Young, Bare Naked Ladies, Blues Traveler, and many others, after meeting Jon Popper of Blues Traveler who played harmonica on a couple of their songs. The band gathered a following and was later signed to A&M Records. They released an EP in 1997 titled 3 Feet To Infinity. Later they recorded a full-length album that was never released, as the band was dropped after the merging of A&M and Universal Records. This ultimately caused the band to fall apart with the eventual disbandment in late 1999.

Determined to pursue a career in music, Leslie moved to Nashville, Tennessee and started working on more songs for a solo career. She then met with the Australian songwriter/producer/publisher Chris Pelcer, who then became her songwriting partner for years to come. Describing her meeting with Chris, Leslie says “Literally the second we met, we wrote three songs pretty quickly and we've written hundreds of things together. We just keep on going.” The first big accomplishment with the partnership of Leslie and Chris came in 2001, when they got to write songs for Peter Cetera. The songs Just Like Love and Rule The World were both included in Cetera's album Another Perfect World (2001).

Leslie was the first writer to be signed under Paul McCartney's publishing company MPL's Pop division from 2001-2003. In May 2002, Leslie's song On My Own (L Mills/B Siewert), which had been featured on the daytime drama Guiding Light on CBS, was nominated for Outstanding Original Song. In September 2003 she finally released her debut album, Different For Girls, under Atlantic Records. Different For Girls easily became one of the best pop albums of 2003. Songs from the album also made it into film and soundtracks such as What A Girl Wants, White Oleander, and Jammin' In Jamaica.

After leaving Atlantic Records in 2004, Leslie decided to release her succeeding albums independently. The first of these is 2007's Everlasting Road, released under her own Tiny Violet Records. While it did not receive as much publicity or distribution as the debut album, Everlasting Road fed the hungry fans with new mature-sounding, singer/songwriter-based material. But that wasn't all that Leslie did between Different For Girls and Everlasting Road, as she wrote many songs for films and TV including Gray Matters (2007), Las Vegas, Just My Luck (performed by Chantal Kreviazuk), MyScene Goes Hollywood, Everything You Want, and Live!.

Who would have known that Leslie would get to work with the legendary Yanni? Through Rick Wake, an old contact from the days of To The Moon Alice, Leslie got the opportunity to meet and work with Yanni. She ended up writing lyrics for some of his classic compositions in addition to writing new music. She got to tour across the United States with Yanni, playing sold-out shows in huge venues that included Radio City Music Hall in New York.

In April 2009, in the midst of the Yanni tour, Leslie's latest album Falling Off The World was released. Like Everlasting Road, Falling Off The World is the fruit of collaboration between Leslie and Chris Pelcer. The new record received even less publicity than Everlasting Road and was overshadowed by her work on the tour, but that didn't stop the fans from finding out about the new record (and of course we did our part in spreading the word). Leslie is currently planning to do a tour in support of her own solo material.

KGRL is very proud to present our September 2009 Flower-Powered Artist, Leslie Mills. Leslie and her long-time collaborator Chris Pelcer joined KGRL in the studio for an exclusive performance shot in high-definition video and audio. Check out our CD review of Falling Off The World and savor marvelous photos of Leslie shot by our good friend Jeff Koga. There's also a comprehensive interview with Leslie Mills in video, audio, & transcribed form.

We're giving away 3 signed CDs! But you know that already. What you didn't expect is we'll be giving 2 CDs per winner. That's one copy of Falling Off The World and Everlasting Road per winner. Just e-mail us at contests [at] kgrl.fm and tell us why you deserve to win. Don't forget that you can request a FREE copy of the FPA live session DVDs as well!

The synthesized vocal intro to the first track Once In A While sounds like a choir of angels heralding the beginning of a wondrous musical journey. I can't help but smile upon hearing the piano, acoustic guitar, and bass in Leslie's songs, as it's always nice to hear organic instruments in pop music. Of course, that smile turned into a bigger smile upon hearing Leslie's distinctive voice. Once In A While has an upbeat danceable groove with a melody that will shame many of the current mainstream non-singer/songwriter pop artists.

Continuing the upbeat rhythm of the previous track, Circles Around The Sun reminds us of the '80s in a similar fashion as Ladyhawke's Morning Dreams. The electric guitar and pumping bassline gives this track a rock tinge that definitely places this song in the pop-rock category. Circles Around The Sun's delicious melody is hard to resist.

The album's title track Falling Off The World, doesn't fail to impress either. The electronic/synth arrangement is just immaculate. What I'm trying to say is that while most electronic music relies on the synthesized sounds to fill in the song, this track is complemented by the use of it. It sounds futuristic with all the electronic sounds, yet it's heavily anchored to what really drives this song, the melody. And if that's not enough, Leslie's lead and background vocal work kicks this track up a notch. You can check out the live session video below to see just how well the melody of this song stands up in the acoustic performance.

It took a couple of listens for me to realize just how sweet the next track, titled Sweeter, is—and it gets sweeter after successive listens. But what really makes this song sweet, as I've been praising previously, is the warm and vibrant voice of Leslie Mills. There's just something heavenly in her voice.

I was almost convinced that Curt Smith would be singing the next track after I heard the intro. The Things My Heart Could Say reminded me of the Tears For Fears opus, Everybody Wants To Rule The World. Needless to say, this instantly became a favorite of mine. I could go on a whole day listening to this song on repeat. I just love it that much.

Perhaps my craze over The Things My Heart Could Say overshadowed my attention towards the next track, Never Too Soon, but soon I realized just how amazing this track is. Never Too Soon is delivered in an upbeat electro-pop arrangement. With its powerful melody and emotional intensity, I think a slow-ballad arrangement would also work, but regardless of the arrangement, this is definitely one of my favorites. Awesome songwriting Chris and Leslie!

The song She Told Me So branches out and gives us a hint of reggae. It's great to hear a bit of variety on a record. The piano-driven track Take It Home teaches us a thing or two about life—“Only take what you need, leave the rest here. / Find a happier place, you belong there.” While both tracks offer very enjoyable listens, they did not impress me as much as the tracks before.

I'll skip One Determined Heart for now and tell you all about the rock-edged song Room To Breathe. The distorted guitar on a backdrop of synthesized music fares well but I really prefer a full band-based arrangement for such.

The tracks One Determined Heart and Be My Water are the emotional heavy-hitters on the album. One Determined Heart does away with the upbeat to concentrate more on gorgeous lines and hooks. The vibe gently reminded me of the classic ballad Looking Through The Eyes Of Love, while the closing track Be My Water opens the floodgates to a rush of emotions. Chris and Leslie really know how to make their listeners weep. This song was produced by David Kahne and features a full-band arrangement—yes, finally, real drums!

Many people do not realize that most pop singers rely on professional songwriters to give them material for their albums. What makes it a cruel joke is that most of these artists are the ones who "make it big." And this is why my heart will always belong to singer/songwriters. A fine example of this is Leslie Mills. Falling Off The World is one of the finest pop singer/songwriter records out there right now. It's time to indulge yourself in sensible pop music.

The Things My Heart Could Say
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Listen to Leslie Mills' responses in High Quality MP3 Stream using the player below:




Transcription excerpt from the interview:

KGRL: You and Chris wrote songs for Peter Cetera. How did you get to get to write for him?

Leslie Mills: You know, [when] we worked with Peter Cetera that was actually through Chris because I think Chris had written a song a number of years ago that Peter really liked, and he'd written it with Peter in mind so somehow they connected. Then I was brought into the picture. We wrote a couple of songs for his album [including] one of the singles. It was just such an awesome experience because his voice is just— It was so amazing to be sitting there, me writ[ing] some lyrics and him sitting there singing those lyrics with that sound. It was so cool [and] very rewarding as a songwriter.


KGRL: You were signed as a writer for Paul McCartney's publishing company. How did you get signed under his company?

Leslie Mills: I got signed to Paul McCartney. My manager at the time— I had gotten together a pretty good group of songs...and I think she had sent it out to some different people. Suddenly we [got] a call from someone at MPL [Communications] and they were just very interested in the things they'd heard in my catalog, and it was exciting because at the time they were just starting a new Pop division. So I ended up being the first writer signed to MPL as a pop writer.

When I met Paul McCartney sitting there and listening to my music, I think I was in shock because [of] who he is and what a songwriter [he is]. So all that stuff is really such an honor. How could it not be? It was a really great experience, and they're great company [and] great people


KGRL: So you had Different For Girls in 2003, Everlasting Road in 2007 and Falling Off The World this year. How long does it take for you to finish a whole album?

Leslie: You know, I have so much music. I really do. I have a lot of different songs. There's always more music in the works for me. I'm starting to feel like I really want to put new music out a lot more often because there's still so much material that I haven't put out, songs that I love....In a way the independent records are easier to get out quicker because on the labels you may have recorded an album a year before that and it may take another year-and-a-half for it to come out. The next record that I do, I'd like to just go in the studio and just do and go mix it and be done and have it be kind of quick, but I don't know. I've liked all the processes. With Different For Girls I worked with so many different producers and studios, and it was just a real education in making records. From that Chris and I started to do a lot more recording and doing songs for films and stuff, and working out of our own studio. So it's all a good process.


KGRL: We've noticed that there isn't much promotion going on for your new record Falling Off The World, which is absolutely gorgeous. I guess you are currently focusing your energy with the Yanni collaboration. Are you planning to re-release it sometime in the future or are you just playing it low key with the solo career?

Leslie: Well, I have been on the Yanni tour. The US tour is about to end here for now. In my time off away from that, I'm definitely focusing more on my stuff from that album, and getting that out there because it's sort of quietly come out—I haven't really done a big formal announcement of it, so it's sort of the die-hard fans that know about it right now—and put it out there. What I'd like to do is start playing and doing shows. Doing the Yanni tour has been a great great experience, just to be in such a big production and work with the orchestra and these amazing musicians. What it does also is just inspire me to get out and do my own tour and all of that. I wanted that record to come out regardless of that timing just because...I've got another album in the works too. I just want to keep it going.


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