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One night several years ago, Taylor Momsen’s father took his
daughter to a White Stripes show. “Before that, the only concert I’d
been to was Britney Spears,” says the singer, songwriter, and
guitarist. “But once I saw Jack White onstage, that was it. I grew
up as a dancer and I thought you had to dance to be a girl in the
music industry. Then I saw the White Stripes and I was like, ‘No,
you don’t. I can do that.’” Momsen was nine.
Jack White’s raw power and deceptively simple guitar-and-vocal
attack proved to be highly influential on the now 16-year-old Momsen,
who began humming melodies before she could talk and writing songs
at the age of five after falling in love with The Beatles. “I was
obsessed with them,” she says. “I also loved Led Zeppelin, The Who,
Pink Floyd, Audioslave, Soundgarden, Oasis, and Nirvana. That’s what
I listened to. My rock idols are all men.”
So it’s not surprising that Momsen channels a lot of masculine
energy on LIGHT ME UP, her rock-and-roll-heroine-in-the-making debut
album with her band The Pretty Reckless. The songs, all written by
Momsen and Ben Phillips with their producer Kato Khandwala, run the
gamut of emotions, alternating at times between seething rage and a
bruised vulnerability. With Momsen’s inky vocals, pummeling riffs,
and swaggering attitude, LIGHT ME UP sounds a bit like what might
have happened had Led Zeppelin been fronted by “a chick.” The
album’s ferocity could raise an eyebrow from those expecting a
pretty, blonde teenager to gravitate toward straight-up pop
songwriting. “It’s heavier than people might expect from me,” says
Momsen, who is best known as the actress who plays Jenny Humphrey on
The CW’s Gossip Girl. “But this album is the most honest expression
of who I truly am.”
Momsen is a smart, emotionally complex young woman who has
developed a strong identity despite growing up in the notoriously
critical and fickle entertainment industry. Born and raised in St.
Louis, MO, Taylor spent much of her time in NYC and at thirteen, she
relocated to Manhattan. At two years old, Momsen signed to a
modeling agency and a year later she began acting professionally
appearing in commercials as well as films such as The Grinch Who
Stole Christmas. In 2007 Momsen was cast as a lead in the CW show
Gossip Girl.
“I didn’t choose acting or modeling, I got thrown into it,”
Momsen says. “I liked it, so that wasn’t a problem, but music and
songwriting are what I’ve always really wanted to do. I’ve been
working with producers and hanging out in recording studios since I
was five, I just couldn’t put out an album when I was eight,” she
says with a laugh. “Now I can.”
LIGHT ME UP is an unflinchingly honest chronicle of Momsen’s
experiences, filtered through her unique point of view. “The record
is about life,” she says. “It covers everything: love, death, and
music itself. It’s rock and roll. It’s sex. It’s drugs. It’s
religion. It’s politics. Each song tells a story about the trials
and tribulations and emotional struggles that I’ve experienced or
observed. It’s not a happy pop record, but it’s not Satan-worshiping
either. The lyrics aren’t meant to be taken literally, they are open
to interpretation.”
The songs tackle everything from romantic insecurity (the
full-throttle rager “Make Me Wanna Die,” which also appears on the
soundtrack to the film Kick-Ass), to despair (“You”), to how working
non-stop can you make you feel like one of the un-dead (“Zombie”).
Momsen pushes back against the haters on “Light Me Up” and asks how
far you have to go to get forgiveness on “Going Down.” With her
growly, world-weary alto, Momsen can do it all: garage-rock rave-ups
(“Miss Nothing”), punchy blues-rock stompers (“My Medicine,” “Since
You’re Gone”), as well as emotional power ballads (“Just Tonight”)
and lovely acoustic guitar and string-driven numbers (“You”).
“I’m not just writing something because I think people might like
it,” Momsen says. “I hope they do, but I’m writing it because I have
something to say. So many feelings go into the lyrics that it’s hard
to explain what they’re about. Momsen first hooked up with Khandwala
(Blondie, Drowning Pool, Paramore, Breaking Benjamin) and partner
and songwriter, Phillips in October 2008. By the spring of last
year, they felt they had hit upon a sound that felt authentic to
her.
“The three of us have similar musical taste, so it was easy to
find that singular vision,” Phillips says. “Kato and I worked very
hard to help Taylor reach her potential because we could see how
talented she was right off the bat. She went into the vocal booth
and began to sing and we turned to each other and went, ‘Holy sh*t,
she’s f**’ing great.’ Her voice was astonishing. So many artists
these days let their voices be discombobulated by computers. Taylor
doesn’t do that. She doesn’t need to. She can walk into a room and
kick your ass.”
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Artist's Web Site
See a YouTube clip from The Pretty Reckless
Presented In Conjunction With Landshark Entertainment
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