Lisa Crawley

Lisa Crawley
Background information
Origin	New Zealand
Genres	Indie pop[1]
Occupation(s)	Musician, Acting
Associated acts	Dave McArtney, Greg Johnson, Julia Deans, Annah Mac, Tim Finn, Rodney Fisher, Ben King
Website	lisacrawley.com

Lisa Crawley is a New Zealand musician, singer-songwriter and actor.^[2] She has recorded with Dave McArtney, Greg Johnson,^[3] Julia Deans, Annah Mac, Tim Finn, and for the first season of X Factor New Zealand.^[4] She was also given the task of transcribing Tim Finn's demos for his musical Women In Black into sheet music and work-shopping the show with the cast. Crawley has played as part of the band with Pete Murray in Australia.^[5][6]

Early life & career

While studying at Auckland’s Avondale High School Lisa Crawley joined the band Velez, who then entered the National Battle of the Bands. However, it wasn’t until the band broke up that she began writing songs of her own.^[7]

Completing high school, she taught piano for a year, before being accepted to study jazz school at the University of Auckland. After one year of study she accepted a four-month residency as a singer/entertainer in Atami, Japan. “It was like a full-on dinner show, with people all sitting down, watching. Seven days a week we'd do two shows each night, and then I'd go and play piano in the lounge later in the evening. It was really cheesy material, like Japanese pop songs" she told the New Zealand Herald in November 2011.^[8]

When her experience in Japan wrapped up she decided to make the move to London. In order to have a physical product on hand, she recorded and independently released an EP called Shoot The Night (2007) three weeks before the trip. The four-song introductory release included ‘Stranger’, which won her the Pacific Songwriting competition in 2008,^[9] and ‘Trying Out Tonight’, which was accompanied by her first ever music video.^[8]

While in the UK, Crawley managed to slot in a few gigs between shifts working for a nightclub. She eventually joined former Goodshirt frontman Rodney Fisher's band.^[10] Leaving and returning to London with a valid visa a year or so later, she picked up gigs as a lounge pianist in hotels including The Ritz,^[11] which helped to pay for the recording of her follow-up EP, Hello, Goodbye and Everything In Between (2009).^[12]

After returning to New Zealand, Crawley recorded with her live band The Conversations under the production guidance of Ben King (Goldenhorse).^[13] The five-track EP was praised for its quirky songwriting and impressive range of vocal tones and emotion.^[14]

Continuing the themes of her second EP, Lisa Crawley's 10-song debut album, Everything That I Have Seen (released October 2011) captured more of her experiences and emotions from her years in Japan and London, as well as the tragic passing of her boyfriend.^[15] The album was recorded and mixed over the period of a year at the Lab Studios in Auckland with Oliver Harmer. As a first, Crawley self-produced the majority of the album, with some assistance from Jol Mulholland, Wayne Bell and Andrew Keoghan (who features on the closing track, ‘We Are Wolves’).^[16][17]

Released in September 2013, All In My Head also included re-arranged versions of her previously released songs ‘Trying Out Tonight’ and ‘Stranger’.^[18] Music critic Simon Sweetman called it a “star-making record”.^[19]

Lisa Crawley then moved to Melbourne where she regularly performs with her band. At the time of writing she is now Melbourne based demoing new tracks with Australian producer Ryan Ritchie, and is set to perform at Canadian Music Week in May, 2015.^[20]

Crawley has also had a career in acting and has had roles on shows Shortland Street, Go Girls, The Blue Rose and ABC’s Dirty Laundry Live.^[21][22]

References