Lisa Loeb Biography

Lisa Loeb first burst onto the music scene in 1994, with the single “Stay,” an incredibly successful song from the film Reality Bites. She was the first unsigned artist to have a single top the charts, spending three weeks in the number one spot. Long before her rise to fame, Lisa Loeb began studying piano as a child but switched to guitar in her early teens. She studied music theory while attending Brown University, and afterward, she attended Boston’s Berklee School of Music before forming a band in 1990.

Nine Stories was a tribute to the author J.D. Salinger, and Loeb rounded out the band Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories with Joe Quigley on bass, Tim Bright on guitar, and Jonathan Feinberg on drums. When her friend Ethan Hawke asked Lisa Loeb to provide a single to add to the soundtrack for his movie Reality Bites, Loeb provided “Stay.” The single was chosen by the film’s director, Ben Stiller, for inclusion on the soundtrack. And the rest, as they say, is history.

“Stay” hit the charts and stayed there, selling over 750,000 copies and garnering Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories a host of nominations, including a Grammy nod. Geffen Records signed Loeb, and work began on her debut album.Tails was released about a year after her signing, and was also successful. Firecracker followed in 1997, and reached gold status. Cake and Pie came next, an album which was re-released after Loeb switched labels, under the name Hello Lisa. Her first album on the Zoe label followed, The Way It Really Is, in 2004. Additional albums followed: Cherries (2007), The Purple Tape (2008), and even a book, Lisa Loeb’s Silly Sing-Along: The Disappointing Pancake and Other Zany Songs. The book’s accompanying CD includes six Lisa Loeb classics and four additional songs.

Lisa Loeb continues to perform and record. Her seventh studio album, No Fairy Tale, arrived in 2013, but in the years since she has released a number of children’s books and audio CDs, including Lisa Loeb’s Songs for Movin’ and Shakin’: The Air Band Song and Other Toe-Tapping Tunes (2013); Nursery Rhyme Parade! (2015); and Feel What You Feel (2016.) Loeb also continues to tour both as a solo artist and with her backing band.