Leslie Feist (born 13 February 1976) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. She performs as a solo artist under the name Feist and as a member of the indie rock group Broken Social Scene. At the 2008 Juno Awards in Calgary, she
... Leslie Feist (born 13 February 1976) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. She performs as a solo artist under the name Feist and as a member of the indie rock group Broken Social Scene. At the 2008 Juno Awards in Calgary, she was the top winner with five awards, including Songwriter of the Year, Artist of the Year, Pop Album of the Year, Album of the Year and Single of the Year. On 20 October 2008, she told the Canadian press that, following the success of her last album, The Reminder, she felt she needed to step away from the pressures of the music industry to consider her next career move and "rest for a minute".
Biography:
Feist was born on 13 February 1976 in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her parents are both artists - her father, Harold Feist, is an American abstract expressionist painter who worked at both the Alberta College of Art and Design and Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. Her mother, Lyn Feist, was a student of ceramics from Saskatchewan. After their first child Ben was born the family moved to Sackville.
Her parents divorced soon after she was born and Feist, Ben, and their mother moved to Regina, Saskatchewan where they lived with her grandparents. They later moved to Calgary. She aspired to be a writer, and spent much of her youth singing in choirs. At the age of twelve Feist performed as one of 1000 dancers in the opening ceremonies of the Calgary Winter Olympics, which she cites as inspiration for the video "1234".
Because her father is American, Feist has dual Canadian-American citizenship, though she joked in a televised interview on The Colbert Report that she was given American citizenship as part of a deal with Apple.
She has two half-siblings, Emily and Jackson, from her father's later marriage.
Music career:
In 1991, at age fifteen, Feist got her start in music when she founded, and was the lead vocalist for a Calgary punk band called Placebo (not to be confused with the European band Placebo). She and her bandmates won a local Battle of the Bands competition and were awarded the opening slot at the festival Infest 1993, featuring the Ramones. At this concert she met Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew, with whom she joined in Broken Social Scene ten years later.
In 1995, Feist was forced to take time off from music to recover from vocal-cord damage. She moved from Calgary to Toronto in 1996. That year she was asked by Noah Mintz of hHead to play bass in his solo project Noah's Arkweld. She played the bass guitar in Noah's Arkweld for a year despite never having played bass before. In 1998, she became the rhythm guitarist for the band By Divine Right and toured with them throughout 1998, 1999, and 2000.
In 1999, Feist moved in with a friend of a friend, Merrill Nisker, who then began to perform as an electro-punk musician Peaches. Feist worked the back of the stage at Peaches' shows, using a sock puppet and calling herself "Bitch Lap Lap". The two also toured together in England from 2000-2001, staying with Justine Frischmann of Elastica and M.I.A.. Feist appeared as a guest vocalist on The Teaches of Peaches. Feist appears in Peaches' video for the song Lovertits, suggestively rubbing and licking a bike. Later, Feist covered this song with Gonzales on her album "Open Season." She met Gonzales while touring with Peaches, and a long-term collaboration formed.
Monarch (Lay Your Jewelled Head Down):
Feist's solo debut album, Monarch (Lay Your Jewelled Head Down), was released in 1999. It is composed of 10 songs, including "Monarch" and "That's What I Say, It's Not What I Mean." Monarch (Lay Your Jewelled Head Down) was produced by Dan Kurtz who would later form Dragonette.
Let It Die:
In the summer of 2001, Feist self-produced seven songs at home which she called The Red Demos, which have never been released commercially. She spent more than two years touring throughout Europe with Gonzales. In that same year she and a group of old friends formed Toronto indie rock group Broken Social Scene and subsequently recorded You Forgot It in People, While on tour in Europe with Gonzales, they began recording new versions of her home recorded Red Demos, which would later become her major label debut Let It Die. Let It Die featured both original compositions and covers, and Feist has been noted both as a songwriter and as an innovative interpreter of other artists' songs.
After the recording of Let It Die, Feist moved to Paris. While in Europe, she collaborated with Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience as co-writer and guest vocalist on their album Riot on an Empty Street, singing on "Know How," and "The Build Up." She also co-write and sang "The Simple Story" as a duet with Jane Birkin on her album Rendezvous.
Feist toured during 2004, 2005 and 2006 through North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia supporting Let It Die. She won two Canadian Juno Awards for "Best New Artist" and "Best Alternative Rock Album" in 2004. Sales of Let It Die totaled 500,000 internationally, and she was awarded a platinum record in Canada, as well as a gold album in France.
In 2005, Feist contributed to the UNICEF benefit song "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?"
In early 2006, Feist returned to Europe to record a followup to Let It Die at LaFrette Studios with Gonzales, Mocky, Jamie Lidell, and Renaud Letang, as well as her touring band Bryden Baird, Jesse Baird, Julian Brown of Apostle of Hustle, and Afie Jurvanen of Paso Mino. An album of remixes and collaborations, Open Season, was released on 18 April 2006.
The Reminder:
Feist's third solo album, The Reminder, was released on 23 April 2007 in Europe, and on 1 May 2007 in Canada, the USA, and the rest of the world. She toured worldwide to promote the album. The album features "1234," a song co-written by New Buffalo's Sally Seltmann, that became a surprise hit after being featured in a commercial for the iPod nano, hitting #8 in the US, a rare feat for indie rock musicians and even more notable since it hit the Top Ten on the strength of downloads alone. She has been lauded in the press and was featured on the cover of the New York Times arts section in June 2007. The Reminder had sold worldwide over 1,000,000 copies and is certified gold in the U.S. The album also won a 2008 Juno Award for "Album of the Year" on 6 April 2008 in Calgary, Alberta.
In popular culture:
In 2006 Feist collaborated with former roommate Peaches on a track entitled "Give 'Er", which appeared on Peaches' album Impeach My Bush. Feist contributed backup vocals. Feist also lent her voice to the two tracks "La Même Histoire" and "We're All in the Dance" for the soundtrack to the film Paris, je t'aime.
Feist was photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the November 2007 issue of Vanity Fair (No. 567) as part of a photo essay on folk music, also featuring Joni Mitchell, Peter, Paul and Mary, and The Guthrie Family.
Feist performed on the season premiere of Sesame Street that aired on 11 August 2008. She sings a version of “1234” with the lyrics modified to focus on counting, and performs another song accompanied by Elmo.
"1234" was featured in the UK teen comedy The Inbetweeners.
Feist has had her music covered by many artists such as fellow Nova Scotians Travis MacRae and Buck 65, as well as bandmates Broken Social Scene and former tour mate Bright Eyes. Fellow Canadian Buck 65 appeared in the Feist-directed music video for "One Evening," which was also nominated for Video of the Year at the 2004 Juno Awards.
Feist works primarily with video director Patrick Daughters, who directed the videos for "Mushaboom," "1234," "My Moon, My Man," and "I Feel It All." "1234" and "My Moon, My Man" were choreographed by the acclaimed dancer Noemi Lafrance.
Feist currently plays a 1965 red Guild Starfire guitar, and in many photographs is seen playing a (now discontinued) Framus acoustic parlor guitar, model 00110/Amateur (1970s).
Feist in November 2007 performed a duet with Chicago native Brian Rasek (formally lead singer of "Repus") in a charity benefit concert at Millennium Park for AIDS relief in Africa.
Feist was placed #9 on Spinner.com's 2007 Women Who Rock Right Now.
Popular German DJ Boys Noize remixed "My Moon, My Man," which appears on his debut album Oi Oi Oi. The DJ has also been known to close sets with the remix.
In November 2007, Feist performed "1234" and "I Feel It All" on Saturday Night Live.
Feist was on the cover of the Spring 2008 edition of Naked Eye.
On 28 April 2008, Feist was interviewed by Stephen Colbert. At the end of the show she performed "I Feel It All," while Colbert donned Feist's blue, sequined, strapless jumpsuit from the “1234” video.
Feist joined Colbert again on his first-ever Christmas special, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, which first aired on 23 November 2008. She played an angel.
Feist's song "Honey Honey" from The Reminder was featured in The L Word (episode 5.06, "Lights! Camera! Action!").
In January 2009, Bon Iver played a cover of Feist's "The Park" from The Reminder on Australian radio's Triple J.
Feist was referenced in The Office episode "Lecture Circuit (Part One)", where Andy finds a Feist CD in the car of his love interest and sings a song about Splenda to the tune of "1234."
In March 2009, it was announced that she would make a guest appearance on the track "You and I" on Wilco's upcoming seventh album.
Acts in a short written and directed by Kevin Drew, aptly titled "The Water" after her song. Will be streaming for one week on Pitchfork tv. http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/986-the-water/1
The Reminder