Inger Lorre
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| Inger Lorre | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Lori Wenning |
| Born | 1964 |
| Origin | New Jersey |
| Genre(s) | Alternative rock, glam punk, grunge |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, Songwriter, Singer, Artist |
| Years active | 1985-Present |
| Label(s) | Geffen Records Sympathy for the Record Industry Triple X Records |
| Associated acts | The Nymphs Inger Lorre and Motel Shootout Jeff Buckley Henry Rollins |
| Website | Inger Lorre at MySpace |
Inger Lorre (b. 1964 Lori Wenning) is an American singer who is best known for her bands The Nymphs and Motel Shootout.
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[edit] Early life
Inger Lorre grew up in and around New Jersey as she is often vague about anything that occurred in her life before relocating to Los Angeles, California in interviews. She told those closest to her that bad scenes and endless distractions marked her childhood. As a teenager, she hung out with older stoner kids, who gave her acid, cannabis and beer. This began a long and painful obsession and eventual addiction to drugs and alcohol. Lorre did an abbreviated stint studying art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, but ultimately school bored her.[1]
[edit] Music career
[edit] The Nymphs
After making her rounds in the Jersey music scene, Lorre and guitarist Jet soon headed west to California, as a four-piece. Two of the Nymphs' members went home to Jersey after only few months. Lorre and Jet quickly found replacements in second guitarist Sam Merrick, drummer Alex Kirst and bassist Cliff D.[2] Once on the Hollywood club scene, the Nymphs quickly found favor among critics and club goers. As the Nymphs' popularity grew, so did Lorre's drug and alcohol consumption as both were readily available at no cost at all times. It seemed those who didn’t know Lorre wanted to and would try to lure her into conversation by any means possible. Lorre's sharp tongue, skimpy outrageous outfits, and classic beauty had every Los Angeles scenester’s undivided attention, including Courtney Love's.
Love began to show up at every Nymphs performance around Los Angeles but never made contact until out of the blue Lorre received a strange phone call from Love. Love told Lorre that she really liked her band and thought they should be friends. Courtney even went as far as to imply that she and Lorre looked like sisters. This comment seemed to incite an ongoing cat-fight between Lorre and Love. Things began to escalate when Love befriended Lorre's then-best friend, slept with her boyfriend and began trying to mimic Lorre's onstage persona.[3]
Despite her ongoing battle with Love, drugs, and her increasing erratic behavior, things were looking good for the Nymphs. Labels began to take interest in the band's moody mix of punk rock and goth, glam and grunge. Back then, Lorre's dream was merely to make an album for an independent label like SST Records or Alternative Tentacles. Instead by late 1989, the Nymphs somehow became the subject of a label frenzy that eventually landed a $900,000 contract from Geffen Records. The Nymphs gained notoriety with songs like "Supersonic", "Sad and Damned" and "Imitating Angels", which were later re-recorded by the band Extra Fancy. Lorre even entered the world of Hollywood with a role in the film Bad Influence, in a scene set by another Nymphs' song, "Highway", a song about young girls who loved serial killer Richard Ramirez. All seemed to be going amazingly well except for one crucial loose end, her new label wouldn’t release the Nymphs' record.
Almost 2 years had passed since the Nymphs handed in their completed album. Unfortunately, it was during those two years that the Nymphs' luck began to change. Tom Zutaut, who signed the band, discouraged them from playing shows. Then, in the midst of recording their debut, the producer was abruptly taken off the project. The reason: W. Axl Rose needed him. Courtney Love used an angry message Lorre had left on her answering machine on the song "Sassy" off Hole’s 1991 release Pretty on the Inside.[4] Lorre was losing her battle with drugs and alcohol and in an alcohol induced fit, her patience finally ran out. On a late March afternoon in 1991, after getting quite inebriated, Lorre urinated on the desk of A&R man Tom Zutaut.[5] When the news surfaced, tabloid magazines had a field day and ran features mocking Zutaut for getting a golden shower. Rolling Stone[issue # needed] quipped, "Talk about being pissed at your record label.” Even after what would be later referred to in certain circles as “pissed off-pissed on“, Lorre struggled to get Geffen to release her album. Eight months passed and Geffen finally issued the Nymphs’ album and even though they scored a tour with Bauhaus’ Peter Murphy, the worst was still yet to come. While Lorre was on tour, her longtime boyfriend, Chris Schlosshardt bassist of San Francisco band Sea Hags, died of a heroin overdose. Shortly afterwards, Lorre suffered a nervous breakdown and broke up The Nymphs in 1992. An EP called The Practical Guide to Astral Projection was released in 1992, but it failed to chart.[6]
[edit] Solo work
Continued heavy drug use eventually forced Lorre back to New Jersey, where she hid out for several years. A few spots here and there over time, where Lorre popped up in various places, never evolved into a Nymphs reunion or second album. In 1995, she teamed up with Motel Shootout and released the single Burn, on old friend Long Gone John's label, Sympathy for the Record Industry. She entered rehab and worked toward permanent recovery.
She befriended singer Jeff Buckley and they began collaborating on music. Lorre's vocals are featured on "Angel Mine" while Jeff played guitar, sitar, and mouth sax on the track. Jeff and Lorre duetted again on the track "Thief Without The Take" contained on Lorre's album Transcendental Medication. Buckley also covered "Yard of Blonde Girls" co-written by Lorre, which appeared on Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Sadly, at the height of his popularity, Buckley drowned during an evening swim on May 29, 1997, before the album's release.[7] Though saddened by her dear friend's death, in 1999 a clean and sober (and somewhat more sane) Lorre reemerged from New Jersey with her solo album, Transcendental Medication released on Triple X Records in 1999. The album featured cover artwork by Mark Ryden.
In 2000, Lorre moved back to Los Angeles, where she painted and appeared in group shows around the city including the world renowned art gallery La Luz de Jesus on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. She made a cameo appearance in the 2001 indie film Down and Out with the Dolls, a raunchy, wry and in-your-face tale of the fast rise and fall of an all-girl, four-piece Portland rock band. She performed a cover of Black Flag's "Slip It In" with Henry Rollins on the 2002 album Rise Above.
On July 17, 2004, Lorre played an acoustic show at Hollywood's The Knitting Factory, performing Nymphs songs, new songs and some covers. In 2006, a version of The Nymphs popped up in a few places. Lorre is said to have been working on an autobiography and a new solo album for several years, but neither has reached fruition, and information is almost impossible to find.
[edit] Discography
[edit] The Nymphs
- The Nymphs LP - 1991 Geffen 36,000
- A Practical Guide To Astral Projection EP - 1992 Geffen 5,000
[edit] Inger Lorre & the Motel Shootout
- Burn Single - 1994 Sympathy for the Record Industry
[edit] Solo
- Transcendental Medication LP - 1999 Triple X 12,000
[edit] Guest Appearances
- Jeff Buckley, Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk -1998
- Rise Above: 24 Black Flag Songs to Benefit the West Memphis Three - 2002
[edit] Filmography
- Bad Influence (1990)
- Down and Out with the Dolls (2003)
[edit] References
- ^ Appleford, Steve. "Take Two", New Times Los Angeles, 1999
- ^ "Interview with vocalist Inger Lorre" HIP magazine, 1990
- ^ Borzillo, Carrie. "Ex-Nymph Inger Lorre Pens Retort To Hole's Sassy", ALLSTAR, July 21, 1998
- ^ Steininger, Alex."Inger Lorre: Transcendental Medication", In Music We Trust, Issue Eighteen, April 1999
- ^ Appleford, Steve. "Take Two", New Times Los Angeles, 1999.
- ^ Pearson, Sarah Luck. "Inger Lorre, Patron Saint of Fucked-over Musicians", LA Weekly feature, March 24, 1999.
- ^ Bill Schenley (May 29, 2005). "<Archive Obituaries> Jeff Buckley (May 29th 1997)". alt.obituaries. (Web link). Retrieved on 2008-01-08.
