This "First Blood" business came about because I was thinking about how I could still do some kind of interview, but without asking the typical "how did the band start" or "what are your influences" kinds of questions. I've interviewed Nicole Laurenne twice before. The first time was for my first blog, Audio Ammunition, back in 2013, when she was in a great garage band in Phoenix called The Love Me Nots. The second was on my podcast, Born Too Late, a couple of years ago. Since I got a lot of those standard questions out of the way already, I didn't want to ask them all a third time. So, here we are. A series of questions centered around Nicole's "first" musical experiences in life.
What's with the title, you ask? Well, first off, it kind of fits, wouldn't you say? The second reason is that I love the 1982 Sly Stallone movie, OK? So there you have it—consume and enjoy!
Shock Treatment: What was the first rock 'n’ roll concert you went to without your parents?Nicole Laurenne: I accidentally went to a Sting concert when I was in college. (Yes, college - I was a classical music kid and didn’t really get into rock until much later). Does that count as rock? We were in Northern Michigan somewhere camping and we heard a thumping kick drum coming from far away. We trekked over a hill and saw an open air amphitheatre where Sting was performing when he was kind of at the height of his solo career. I got to see most of the show from on top of the hill with binoculars.
Shock Treatment: What was the first record you remember marching into a record store for and buying for yourself?
NL: Most of the records I had as a kid and even later as a young adult were gifts or were given to me by a music teacher to study with. My boyfriends and eventual husbands all had record collections that I got to peruse. I didn’t really have any kind of record collection of my own until much later in life. But when I first heard Alanis Morissette on the radio in Phoenix, I was driving home from work. Instead of going home, I drove straight to the nearest Tower Records. They didn’t even know who she was yet. I put in a pre-order request for the album though and got it like a week later I think. No regrets.
Shock Treatment: What’s the first band you heard that made you want to be in one?
NL: Sinead O’Connor really did it for me. I was starting to dabble in a kind of pop-rock band in college with some marching band friends and something about the way she wrote her songs and delivered them spoke to me deeply and made me want to put my own music out there. Something about her reminded me of ..me, I guess.
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| The Darts photo by Tina Gross |
Shock Treatment: What’s the first band T-shirt you wore proudly to school?
NL: Journey. Sue me, I was a classical piano player and when I happened to see Jonathan Cain on MTV playing a giant red grand piano on stage I was entranced. Also they were huge in the mainstream world with “Escape” at that moment in time so I thought I might be one percent cool for wearing it.
Shock Treatment: What’s the first rock 'n’ roll song you learned how to play?
NL: “Yesterday” by the Beatles, if that’s rock n roll, since my classical piano teacher had me learn a really epic, classical interpretation of it for a recital. It was an incredible, touching, huge Japanese arrangement of the song for solo piano that left people teary-eyed, I remember. But “Don’t Stop Believin” by Journey was really my first rock song that I chose to learn. An older piano student who took classical lessons with me played me the song and helped me figure out the riff. As a tried and true band geek, I played it in the band room in high school at lunchtime and all the other band geeks got into it. It was my first taste of seeing what pop music did for people, with everyone singing along and whatnot. It was fun and not serious.
Shock Treatment: Tell me about the first show you played in a band where you actually got paid?
NL: As a little kid, I would get paid to play solo piano at events once in awhile - a fashion show, or party, or something. In college I played for a little while in an original pop band with other Michigan students, just kind of fooling around playing our own pop compositions in an attic. But we somehow got hired to play the Christmas “Festival of the Trees” in some small town in Michigan and they paid us really well to play our own weird songs for the public wandering around Christmas trees and vendor booths.
Shock Treatment: Can you remember the first time you remember seeing a stranger singing along to your lyrics and how that made you feel?
NL: I was in a decent band finally in the mid-nineties called Blue Fur - all original songs, good home studio recordings, many many shows that we played everywhere often for free just for exposure and fun, but also got some bigger opening slots eventually. We often played at public squares and open air coffee houses and one very hot Phoenix night there was a big crowd in the coffee area, many were friends who had come to see us play, and I saw people singing along to my lyrics for the first time, to a song called “Quarter To Three”. It was definitely a surprising moment for me; I was really touched and thrilled that the song meant anything to anyone besides me. I was floating on air the rest of the night.
Shock Treatment: Tell me about that feeling you got when you recorded your first record?
NL: I did several records at a home studio that my husband at the time had built - a really amazing studio actually, with the console that Salt-N-Pepa used back in the day! But the first real record I made outside of the house was with The Love Me Nots with Jim Diamond (Gories, White Stripes, Dirtbombs) in Detroit in 2006. The studio was in an old chicken processing plant, with drains in the floor still. It was honestly a little shocking when we first arrived. Jim is super chill and easy, and we did the whole first record in a few days there. He had me sing my vocals into an old lawyer’s dictaphone mic and then sent the signal through a bass amp I think, to get it distorted just right. Everything at Ghetto Recorders was covered in dust and there were piles of vintage amps and gear everywhere. There was a sub speaker in the bathroom and a bass amp in the hallway. But it made me realize that if you have a great signal path for the sound you like, you don't need anything fancy. In fact, the scene made me really able to scream and get weird and make noise, without inhibition. The record “In Black & White” is now kind of a classic that is pretty valuable. People still bring me copies at shows now to autograph.
Shock Treatment: What was the first time you remember sacrificing something for a band?
NL: I never didn’t sacrifice something. I have lived, eaten, and breathed music since I was a child, foregoing a lot of other activities and friends and popularity and money and even mental and physical health to make sure I was making music all of the time. I used to practice piano as a child for hours every day, not because anyone told me to. Once I had a law career and was making money, I spent most of it on making music, to be honest. Yeah I sent kids to college and bought a house and stuff but fun money was spent on things related to making music - instruments, costumes, recording, touring. Even when I had major surgery for cancer, I got up and played a huge New Years Eve show and did a European tour while I was still basically healing. It wasn’t even a thought for me, it’s what I had to do, what I wanted to do. There really isn’t a sacrifice too great - other than making sure my kids and my mom are safe and happy - that I won’t make for this life. Dramatic but true.
Shock Treatment: When was the first time you knew that you were going to make music for the rest of your life?
NL: Probably when I first touched a piano key as a little child. It has never not been there. Even when everything pointed the other direction - demanding law career, twin daughters, flailing bands, losing lots of money on the recordings, whatever - it never occurred to me to stop. In fact those things just drove me harder.
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