It's all according to Alexz's script Hit TV show gives her the edge to sculpt her own music career
Glen Schaefer, The Province
She played an instant star on TV, but singer-actor Alexz Johnson says she decided to take her time when it came to her own musical ambitions.
The 21-year-old Vancouver performer, whose TV series Instant Star airs the first episode of its fourth and final season tonight (7 p.m., CTV), has been singing since almost before she could talk, winning a best anthem-singer contest at 11 years old and going on to sing the anthem at Vancouver Canucks and Grizzlies games before she was a teenager.
Johnson stars as Jude, a singer who wins a reality-TV contest and gets a record contract. After four years of the fictional Jude's adventures in the record business, the real Alexz is ready to launch her own recording career.
"The show is done, I finished filming right before Christmas last year," says Johnson, who grew up in Coquitlam and Port Moody, the sixth sibling in a musical-artsy family of 10 brothers and sisters.
"I ended my contract 'cause I got an opportunity to do a record in the U.S. so I jumped on that boat, it's kind of been my dream to focus on the music. I thought four years [on the series] was good."
The fictional Jude is a starry-eyed romantic, but the real Alexz comes across as far more pragmatic. She got her first big acting break at age 13 as another singer in the Vancouver-filmed Disney TV series So Weird, and further honed her singing craft doing benefit concerts with producer-musician David Foster.
She first played Instant Star's Jude at age 16 (the character was supposed to be three years younger than Johnson), and talked the show's producers into letting her and her producer brother Brendan write some of the songs she sang on the show.
The show is a hit in Canada, Asia and Europe, but unlike other teen actor-singers who scored as fictional singers on TV -- the Lizzie McGuires and Hannah Montanas -- Johnson resisted offers to do concert tours in character for the show's tween-skewed fans.
"It's just not me," she says. "I love the character, but I'm speaking someone else's words, someone else's lines. I'm writing some music but I'm not writing the music for me, I'm writing for some 16-year-old pop star."
Fictional Jude is torn between two hunky guys, but Johnson's own personal life is currently focused on the little Chihuahua-cross puppy she brought home to her Yaletown condo.
Amid her work for the show, Johnson scored a recording deal for herself two years ago, which she then dropped after that U.S. label changed ownership. Last year she got a new deal with Sony Epic, and after finishing work on Instant Star's fourth season last December, she headed to L.A. to record 10 tracks for an album that's due for release next year.
"It takes time, you have to sculpt it, you have to want it for the right reasons," Johnson says, citing singer-writers Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and Annie Lennox as inspirations. "If I wanted to be a pop star I would have done that a long time ago. I would have used the show to do it."
As to acting, she's had enough of that for now. "It kind of helped out with buying my studio equipment, being one of 10 kids. After I've done a couple of records, I'd love to be part of a really strong, great movie. But all these auditions, there's a lot of parts for teenaged girls who are over-sexualized."
But Johnson loses her pragmatic cool when she talks about the recording work that's kept her busy of late. She recorded her album in the basement studio of the iconic Capitol Records building in Hollywood, where everyone from Frank Sinatra to the Beach Boys have cut albums.
"Things are happening now in my life where I'm starting to go 'holy crap,'" she says.
- Alexz spielte einen Instant Star im Fernsehen, aber bei ihrer eigenen Musik entschied sie sich, sich ihre Zeit zu nehmen - Sie hat die Dreharbeiten kurz vor Weihnachten beendet - Sie hat den Vertrag bei IS beendet, weil sie die Möglichkeit hatte in den USA etwas aufzunehmen. Es war immer ihr Traum sich auf die Musik zu konzentrieren und sie denkt vier Jahre bei IS waren genug. - Sie hat mit 13 bei So Weird zum ersten Mal geschauspielert, auch als Sängerin. - Jude war immer drei Jahre jünger als Alexz - Alexz hat mir ihrem Bruder für IS Songs geschrieben - IS ist ein Hit in den USA, Kanada und Europa, aber anders als bei Lizzie McGuire und Hannah Montana, ist Alexz nicht mit IS auf Tour gegangen. Das wäre einfach nicht sie, sagt Alexz. Sie liebt den Charakter, würde aber jemand anderes Wörter sprechen. Sie schreibt zwar Musik für IS, aber eben nicht für sich selbst, sondern für einen 16-jährigen Popstar. - Jude ist zwischen zwei Männern hin- und hergerissen, während sich Alexz Privatleben auf einen kleinen Chihuahuawelpen konzentriert. - Während der Arbeit an IS hat Alexz vor zwei Jahren einen Plattenvertrag bekommen, den sie jedoch beendete als die Besitzer des Labels wechselten. Im vergangenen Jahr bekam sie einen neuen Vertrag bei Sony Epic, für den sie nach den letzten Dreharbeiten im Dezember nach L.A. ging um 10 Songs aufzunehmen. Das Album erscheint nächstes Jahr. - Es braucht Zeit, man muss es aus den richtigen Gründen wollen (Album), sagt Alexz. Wenn sie ein Popstar sein wollte, hätte sie es schon vor langer Zeit getan und IS dafür genutzt. - Sie hat ihr Album bei Capitol Records in Hollywood aufgenommen, wo schon Leute von Frank Sinatra bis zu den Beach Boys aufgenommen haben.
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13.06.2008 02:17
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