Miss Laurie Lehner
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Miss Laurie Lehner

New Orleans, Louisiana, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2022 | SELF

New Orleans, Louisiana, United States | SELF
Established on Jan, 2022
Solo Pop Rock

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"Unexpected Delights"

"While standing on the corner, waiting for something to happen, a powerful voice became evident. Venturing across two streets, I found her. Sure enough this is where the voice was emanating from. Turns out Miss Laurie Lehner of Miss Laurie & the Band Aides was from New York but here gigging for the last two years. The band is obviously aiming for the rock music heavens but hearing her sing called up other voices of past and present. Laurie Lehner is somewhere between Alanis Morrissette (though Alanis is less of a voice and more of just a style) and Julie Driscoll, between Jennifer Rush (think Flames of Paradise) and Amber Mouton. None of these comparisons quite capture her sound. She also writes her own songs(!!). I told Laurie what I will say here- she has the motive force, and is a true original." - Raymond Kent, WWOZ New Orleans via Facebook


"The Right Kind Of Viral— Singer-Songwriter Miss Laurie Lehner’s Popular Political Parody Videos"

Much has been said of the challenges facing the music industry in 2020. What started as a public health crisis quickly became a financial nightmare for many people. For musicians, the professional crisis is also an artistic one. How does someone accustomed to creating and performing in a group context adjust to working alone? How do you reach an audience when you cannot perform live? How do you find your niche and separate yourself from the herd amongst the cacophony of social media? And how do people who are often, by nature, nonconformist and emotionally sensitive cope with the chaos of a tumultuous political season?

Meet Miss Laurie Lehner, a New Orleans singer-songwriter who has found a way to answer these questions for herself and thrive in the most unconventional way—as an internet sensation. Before the pandemic hit, Lehner was a staple of the local music scene, featured regularly at venues such as d.b.a., the Howlin’ Wolf, One Eyed Jacks, and the Blue Nile.
A rock ’n’ roll singer with a soulful voice, Lehner performed acoustic shows with guitarist Smokey Brown and full band shows with the group they built together—Miss Laurie and the Band Aides.

A self-professed introvert, Lehner has always enjoyed “operating alone and working from my lair,” as she describes it. But getting out of the house and onto the stage with the band every weekend was her life and her catharsis. “I would love to be playing full time right now—I’d love to be back,” she says. These days Lehner performs alone at home, and she’s creating a different kind of music—but she’s singing for an audience of millions. Lehner describes her side hustle as “political parody videos that focus specifically on the failings of the President, one Donald J. Trump.” Every week or two, Lehner drops a new video on Twitter and YouTube to address the most recent developments of the political cycle. She writes her own lyrics to replace those of classic pop, rock, country, hip-hop, and Broadway tunes, and then performs for the camera, often in costume and with an array of multi-media effects. The videos are catchy, satirical, sometimes ridiculous—and often scathing. On Twitter, where Lehner has found her primary audience, a single video often receives hundreds of thousands of views.

Lehner’s sense of humor is not for everyone. Die-hard fans of the current president will likely not be amused. But if you are a fan of political sketch comedy on Saturday Night Live or enjoy comedy songs by “Weird Al” Yankovic or Adam Sandler, you’ll likely find “Miss Laurie” (her stage moniker) clever and endearing. In early June of this year, on the heels of the president being whisked away to a bunker beneath the White House, Lehner released “Stuck in a Bunker with Trump” (set to the tune of “Stuck in the Middle” by Stealers Wheel). In the video, she deadpans as Melania, accent and all,

singing: “Crowds to the left of me, protests to the right/ Here I am, stuck in this bunker with Trump.”

In her video “Put a Mask On It,” Lehner completely recreates Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” video, admonishing all the “MAGA Hatters,” “All Lives Matters,” “Anti-Vaxxers,” and “Bad Syntaxers” to put on their masks. 

Lehner knows that her political slant will be off-putting to some folks, and she’s okay with that. “I try to be as authentic as possible. In this world, and in this business, where there is so much inauthenticity, I’m trying to be real,” she says. “Since New Orleans is a Democratic city in a Republican state… I do feel that energy here, that there is a pushback, there is a resistance.” This much is for sure: Lehner has found her voice through a medium that she is good at and that she enjoys. And people are responding. Over half a million people have watched her video “Individual 1” (a parody of Harry Nilsson’s “One” covered by Three Dog Night as “One is the Loneliest Number”). Her work has also been shared on social media by celebrity followers including Rosie O’Donnell, Jane Lynch and David Crosby.

Originally from New York, Lehner got involved in plays and musicals while in high school. She attended the American Music and Dramatic Academy in Manhattan, and for a while, aspired to perform on Broadway. She was doing an acoustic singer-songwriter tour in 2014 when she came to New Orleans and fell in love with the city. Soon afterwards, she auditioned for a local band and made the move to the Crescent City. She worked with several original and cover acts as she was developing her original music and eventually building her own band. 

Writing and singing original music is Lehner’s true love. Her non-parody songs are personal and edgy, often addressing past relationships, and she cites Ani DiFranco as an inspiration. “I don’t really write love songs,” she says. “I usually write when I’m really frustrated, and I write and work myself through that emotion.” Protest songs were never her plan, but that changed about halfway into the first year of Trump’s presidency. “It was kind of a delayed reaction. It took me a little while to process it, and I was so angry,” she recalls. So, she followed the formula of coping through the songwriting that she had employed with her relationships. “I needed to make myself feel better, and tell him what a jerk he is, and make it as funny and interesting and as musical as possible. I really don’t ever try to come up with songs. They’re just ideas that I get, and they don’t go away until I finish the song.”

It was via the president’s preferred media outlet—Twitter—that Lehner found her audience. “I started getting the hang of it when I moved from Facebook to Twitter. He was elected, and it started to become clear that there was something nefarious going on at Facebook, but I found that the people on Twitter wanted to talk about it the way that I wanted to talk about it—creatively, and through humor. I found they were so receptive. I was actually replying to the President’s tweets with my videos, and then people would see them and share them. I started to get followers, and that was the first strong creative response I’d ever received en masse for anything.”

Lehner taught herself along the way to make her videos as she learned how to use virtual tools. “I had no idea. I wrote the thing, put the phone camera on, and tried to sing over a karaoke track. Then eventually I realized I needed to get a recording program, figure out how to add backup vocals and harmonies and everything else. When I needed to do something, or had a new idea, well, now I gotta find an app that does this. Or device that does that”.

In April of 2018, Lehner posted “How To Spell Words,” her take on “Hollaback Girl” by Gwen Stefani. The video eventually reached 270,000 views and was featured on the Funny or Die  community homepage. Lehner appeared in the video with long blonde hair, donning a black cap and white halter top, scolding Trump for his atrocious online spelling and grammar: “Few times seen you misspell that, so I think it’s time that we have this chat/ Cuz you don’t know how to spell words, you don’t know how to spell words.”

Lehner’s vocal impression of Stefani was as spot-on as her outfit. Mid-song, she cut to her own remix of Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady:” “So won’t the real fat baby please shut up/ please shut up, please shut up.”

Over 20 screenshots of Trump’s previous tweets were interspersed throughout the video, featuring such botch jobs as “honered,” “nuclular,” “dummer,” “Wikileaieiieaeakes,” “leightweight chocker,” “dieing,” and, of course, “covfefe.” “I try not to be vicious,” says Lehner. “I’m not trying to be bloodthirsty. I’m trying to… maybe give a jab. It’s just for fun, and it’s meant to entertain the people who are also feeling what I’m feeling.”

In August of 2019, Lehner got the opportunity to perform her parody songs live. She played on a bill at the Fillmore New Orleans with Randy Rainbow, who has achieved immense success and notoriety doing showtune parodies. By that point, Lehner had already created about 35 of her own parody videos. “The show was great because at the time, I was thinking, ‘When am I gonna get this opportunity again to perform these songs? Maybe never!’ There was a great crowd of energetic, enthusiastic folks,” she added. Lehner used a drop-down projector to display the visuals behind her on the stage, and she edited her audio to remove the lead vocals so she could sing along live.

Lehner believes that her music is audience-friendly, even though it can be savage. “Even in my own personal songwriting, it’s pretty biting,” she points out. “But that’s really only to one specific person, and that person always knows who they are. So, everyone else is safe,” she adds with a chuckle. “Everybody else is fine, you don’t have to worry. It’s never gonna be someone in the audience, so you can come and feel safe".

You can follow Miss Laurie Lehner on Twitter at: twitter.com/AndTheBandAides and on YouTube at: youtube.com/LaurieLehner - Offbeat Magazine


Discography

Still working on that hot first release.

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Bio

Miss Laurie Lehner is a singer songwriter, indie recording artist and political satirist from NYC living in New Orleans.

A New York native, Laurie moved to NOLA after visiting the city on a crowdfunded acoustic tour in 2014. The city of New Orleans spoke to her and she answered an ad in search of a lead singer for a Bourbon Street house band. After a successful audition, live in front of an audience on Bourbon Street, she got the job and moved from The Big Apple to The Big Easy two months later. Miss Lehner has fronted several bands playing cover songs and original music including her own, Miss Laurie & the Band Aides formed in 2014 with Smokey Brown. Laurie and Smokey, who play acoustic shows together as well, met in the Bourbon Street band she moved across the country to join. Miss Lehner is also a former groupie and writes many of her songs in reflection of her experiences in the world of rock & roll.

After the 2016 presidential election, Miss Lehner turned her creative focus toward political satire and began creating song parody music videos for Twitter (all of which can be found on YouTube). As a form of protest, personal therapy and entertainment her videos were embraced by the online community including celebrity followers Rosie O'Donnell and Jane Lynch who share her videos on Twitter. "Miss Laurie", as she has become known on social media, had reached twenty thousand followers on the platform, garnered a following on YouTube, and collectively her parody videos have well over a million views. In August of 2019, Miss Laurie Lehner was delighted to support Emmy-nominated political parodist Randy Rainbow on his live tour at The Fillmore NOLA. In November 2020, Miss Laurie Lehner and her parody career were featured in Offbeat Magazine; "The Right Kind of Viral - Singer Songwriter Miss Laurie Lehner's Popular Political Parody Music Videos".

Since then she has been writing, recording and releasing new music on her own label Make Love Records.

Buy and stream Miss Laurie Lehner on Spotify, iTunes, Amazon, Pandora and wherever digital music is available.

For new releases and more subscribe to youtube.com/LaurieLehner and follow Miss Laurie Lehner on Twitter @AndTheBandAides.