Whole lotta Loeb - recording artist Lisa Loeb

Interview, June, 1994 by Peter Galvin

It's an early-spring night at Wetlands, a downtown Manhattan club, and the place is packed to the ceiling with people waiting for Lisa Loeb and her band, Nine Stories, to come on. Loeb recently gained notoriety when her song "Stay" appeared on the Reality Bites soundtrack (RCA), thanks in part to her friend and groupie Ethan Hawke.

The perfectly rumpled Hawke is in the audience tonight, as are a number of record company executives who have been wooing the unsigned Loeb. When the singer gets onstage, she calls to mind a cross between Janis Joplin and Marcia Brady, creating an irresistible mixture of artistic intensity and mainstream appeal. Most of Loeb's music turns out to be edgier than the buoyant, poppy "Stay," with angst-ridden but melodic rock songs about ambivalent lovers and depressive friends, sung in a voice both girlish and knowing. Has love really been unkind to her? "When I write songs," she later explains, "I take a situation in my head and make it the saddest that it can be. But I actually think it's fun to have a boyfriend. It reminds me of when you're in second grade and you have a partner, somebody that you hold hands with and walk to lunch." And that's exactly how Loeb makes you feel when she's onstage--that she's your buddy, your playmate, your best friend for life.