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KGRL Exclusive Leslie Mills Interview
The Alley Studio - 06.22.09
Leslie Mills sat down with KGRL for a comprehensive interview right after her KGRL FPA Live Session held at The Alley Studio - 06.22.09.
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KGRL: Can you give us a brief introduction as to who Leslie Mills is?
Leslie Mills: Hi. I'm Leslie Mills. You know, I've been a singer, songwriter [and] recording artist on my path in music for a number of years now. I live in Nashville, Tennessee, which has been a great place for me to be and write and work. I'm so grateful every day that I get the opportunity to do music and write songs and record. I'm still anxious to get out there and do a new tour or something like that. I love the experience of being in music....I've always been creative, always wanted to do something like this.
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KGRL: What got you into music?
Leslie: I come from a pretty musical family. I grew up in northern Kentucky. My mom was a singer. She'd had a girl group when she was in high school. My grand-dad played piano. My brother's a drummer. I grew up writing poetry and stories, singing, [and] kind of doing some acting and dancing. So my whole household was just very supportive of the arts, and I got a lot of my influences from my family, my brother, [and] all of that.
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KGRL: Did you have any formal music education?
Leslie: You know, I studied piano [for] a few years when I was little. I took like acting and I was in some community theatre and things like that singing and played some different instruments. But I didn't have a lot of vocal training or too much formal training in music.
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KGRL: If you were to describe your music to those who have not heard you yet, how would you describe it?
Leslie: I would describe my music as— I've kind of written in some different genres so I'd say kind of pop semi-alternative singer-songwriter [style], and I've tried with each record to sort of feel a vibe and go with that. But I love popular music.
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KGRL: Can you tell us who influenced you the most in your songwriting style?
Leslie: I have such a range of influences. You know I loved a lot growing up like Peter Gabriel, Elton John, Cat Stevens, Prince, The Beatles. I've always loved the catchy songs but also unique voices [like] U2.
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KGRL: What was the first song you wrote? Did you ever get to record it?
Leslie: The first song I wrote to get recorded [was] with my first band called To The Moon Alice. I wrote the song in Yellowstone Park. I had written poems and things and I had been singing but I hadn't been writing songs, so that song came about from an older poem that I had and that song was on a record we did for A&M Records called 3 Feet To Infinity [by] To The Moon Alice.
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KGRL: Speaking of your band To The Moon Alice. Can you tell us what happened to the band?
Leslie: To The Moon Alice...recorded a full album that never came out and then we toured around for like two years. We played at festivals called The HORDE Tour and a lot of colleges and things like that. So we had a great time together. We were like a family and it was a great entrance [for] me into the music business because it was the first thing I had done in the business. We were on A&M Records and there was a merger so we had this waiting period where we didn't know what was going on, and we ended up being dropped from that label. Shortly thereafter...the band kind of fell apart. I ended up moving to Nashville and just going on my own. But I'll always remember that band and the times we had because it was my first experience performing and writing, so those guys will always be special to me.
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KGRL: We understand that you guys finished a full-length record that never got released. So what happened to those songs? Is there any chance that any of those songs will be revisited one day or even be released?
Leslie: I wonder about those songs that we did [and] if they'll ever be released. I do actually wonder that. Sometime I feel like they will be or they'll somehow surface, be put out or something. Leaked out or put up on the internet or something. [It] would be kind of cool to hear them get out because that was really tough to do a record, work really hard, record, write all those things, and then it not to come out, which happens all the time.
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KGRL: How long have you and Chris been working together?
Leslie: Chris and I have been working together. I've been working with Chris Pelcer for like eight years. Something like that. Literally the second we met, we wrote three songs pretty quickly and we've written hundreds of things together. We just keep on going. I'm so grateful for him because it's just awesome to have a collaboration and be able to work with someone who knows what I'm thinking. I kind of know what he's thinking, and it's just worked out really well.
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KGRL: You and Chris wrote songs for Peter Cetera. How did you get to get to write for him?
Leslie: 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.
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KGRL: So we heard your version of Rule The World on your 2003 record, Different For Girls. Have you recorded your own version of Just Like Love?
Leslie: You know, I did the version of When I Rule The World. David Kahne produced that on my album Different For Girls. Peter Cetera the song Just Like Love, I haven't. I've never done the song. It would be interesting to see what it sounded like.
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KGRL: You were signed as a writer for Paul McCartney's publishing company. How did you get signed under his company?
Leslie: 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.
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KGRL: Can you tell us how your songwriting process is? Do you write lyrics or music first?
Leslie: For me, there's no one way that we write a song. Sometimes I have a title idea, a melody idea, a little bit, [or] a mood, and Chris and I will get together and just start hashing that out. Lyrically, I tend to go off on my own and just process and think about things. A lot of times the music is first, with maybe one phrase of a lyric, and we really just will "vibe" with that. A lot of times that will just be with acoustic guitar or on piano, or we'll sit in the studio and just start recording whatever comes out, and there [have] been some amazing ideas that way – just off the cuff and then develop it later on....There was a song Swim that was on my first record Different For Girls. All the lyrics [were] done first—the entire thing—and then it was just metered to that lyric, which isn't usually the case. But it can happen any which way.
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KGRL: How long does it usually take for you to finish writing a song?
Leslie: You know, there are some songs...that take no time at all. It just sort of comes out, start to finish. It's absolutely amazing when it happens that way. It isn't always the case; some things I'll work on for a few days [or] maybe a week. Some things maybe an idea from a little while ago that just wasn't the right time to work on it and when it's a good idea we'll usually come back to it and finish it. So it's all over the place. The song Everlasting Road from Everlasting Road album just came out.
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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.
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KGRL: How does it feel like going back and listening to your old records?
Leslie: I don't listen to the albums too often. When I do it's wild for me because...what's really interesting is what's listening to the first tapes when the songs were first written. They were just immediately so fresh. It's wild to go back and listen to your music because it's sort of a time in your life and represents what was happening then. It's fun to do, occasionally.
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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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KGRL: Speaking of Yanni, we have been playing tracks from the new Yanni record with you on vocals.How did you get to work with Yanni?
Leslie: One of the first people I met in the music business was a producer named Rick Wake. He worked with my first band, To The Moon Alice. He just, I guess, got this idea to do this project with Yanni. He played Yanni some of my songs and so out of the blue I got a call that "Yanni would like to meet you and would you like to come down to Florida" and meet him? I had no idea what it was going to be and how it related to me at all. Once I went down there I ended up writing lyrics to some of his classic compositions and then also doing some new music. So it's just been a cool experience. We're out playing arenas, and that for me is a new thing. It's taken a couple of years working on that.
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KGRL: How did you choose which songs to work with Yanni?
Leslie: Well, I took Yanni's album In My Time, which is a piano album, which was great to listen to because you could hear just the simplest way to relate to the song by the instrumentation being that way. He just said listen through and whatever you really connect to, write some lyrics to it. I just listened to that album a few times, and there was an immediate song To Take To Hold that grabbed me. Structurally it was set up in kind of a pop-songwriting way. The space was perfect and the melody, and I just connected to it. So I just sort of went for writing the lyrics to that and everything since then that I've done with his music has been the same way. He's asked me to do some very special songs to him. In a way there was a lot of pressure and [it was] very challenging, but I'm pleased that that's how it is. For me, if I wasn't kind of moved or inspired by the music I wouldn't have anything really to say. That's just how it is.
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KGRL: We know that you've already collaborated with countless artists. Is there anyone you wish to collaborate with someday?
Leslie: I'd love to collaborate with Seal. I'd love to collaborate with Peter Gabriel. Gosh, there would be so many. I could just keep going. I have a really long list, all my favorite people. And I would like to do some more songs for other artists too. You know, it's really fun, all of it. It's an honor when somebody likes your song and wants to record it. There's all kinds of people I could think of.
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KGRL: Which amongst the songs you have written so far is your favorite?
Leslie: There's different favorites at different times, for sure. Violet from Different For Girls is one of my favorites, but I actually really love it when we've played it with piano very simply. I love Everlasting Road so much. I love The Good Life and the fun songs I've done too. Don't make me make an absolute favorite. Don't make me choose.
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KGRL: What was your best experience playing live so far?
Leslie: When I was on Atlantic Records and we did Different For Girls, I did more appearances. I didn't do an all-out tour with that record. I wish and hope and will do that from now on. When I started off in the business, playing with To The Moon Alice, we played at one point with Neil Young and Barenaked Ladies. These experiences to me were a dream come true. Now as part of the Yanni Voices tour, a real thrill for me was playing at Radio City Music Hall. Honestly, I think back to playing at The Bitter End in New York, and those very first times of singing in front of an audience. Those are really special things too. So I need to do more perform[ing]. It's just a great thing to do. I love it. I love it, so come see me play once I have a tour schedule please.
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KGRL: It's hard to believe but your status in MySpace says that you are still an unsigned artist. We're sure that you've been getting tons of offers. Are you planning to sign up with another major record label or are you staying indie?
Leslie: I think with what's coming next, I will just see where I end up whether that's a major label or staying indie. I think I like a little bit of both. In a way I'm really happy to have released some independent records. If it's the right fit I'll make that decision as it comes up, really.
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KGRL: We know that you're an award-winning writer for TV shows. Can you tell us if you're currently working on any new music for TV and movie?
Leslie: I think what's going to be exciting, another fun part about coming off [of] the road and being back in Nashville for a couple of months, will be just working on some new material for movies and television. We'll see what happens with that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Another thing that's been fun is [doing] some stuff with Mattel over the years. Through September I guess they'll be doing a mini-documentary called "I Can Be A Songwriter" that was a lot of fun [which] I filmed in Nashville. I'll be looking forward to working on new things for television and film.
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KGRL: Do you foresee yourself branching out to other genres, like electronic?
Leslie: I feel like there's fun in a lot of different genres. I think one thing I've always wanted to do is just do sort of special works like special albums, or even side-project-type things that focus on a genre. I could see myself doing some electronic music for sure. It would be fun.
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KGRL: Are there any new artists you listen to?
Leslie: I definitely need an update to my iTunes. I did have the Goldfrapp record and there's just so much new music I need to get. I'm working on that and I will take all your recommendations. It's funny. On the road I started thinking of some older songs and downloading some records that I've obviously misplaced over the years.
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KGRL: What do we expect from Leslie Mills for the rest of 2009?
Leslie: For the rest of 2009, hopefully I'll do some shows. That's what I'd like to do, some shows. Support Falling Off The World. I have more music coming out. I'm working on new songs and just more music, and definitely some live stuff. It's been a great year so I'm really excited about it.
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KGRL: Any last words for the KGRL listeners?
Leslie: Well KGRL rocks as we all know, and I personally just appreciate your support. And keep supporting KGRL because it's just an awesome, awesome, awesome station to support women in music and up-and-coming songwriters. It's just great. So, KGRL, we love you!
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Our heartfelt thanks goes out to Leslie Mills and Chris Pelcer.
Photos by Jeff Koga.
Transcription was done by our good friend, Flour (E.S.).
Leslie Mills Links:
Official Website: http://www.lesliemills.com/
Myspace Page: http://www.myspace.com/lesliemills
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