'Stay' songstress returns for concerts, food

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Lisa Loeb recorded "Stay (I Missed You)" in 1994 and became the first musician to top the Billboard Hot 100 without a record contract. Her new CD, "Hello Lisa," has been released under the Artemis label. Loeb returns to Hawai'i this weekend to perform with Dweezil Zappa and Barry Flanagan. Lisa Loeb with Dweezil Zappa and Barry Flanagan, 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Kaimuki High School Theatre; $20 in advance; $25 at the door; 732-6699 On Maui: 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Maui Arts & Cultural Center, $25. Loeb will be at Sanrio, Ala Moana Center, 1-3 p.m. Saturday.

The year was 1994. With only two seasons of "The Real World" under its belt, MTV still played music videos. And if you were lucky, somewhere in the middle of endless repeats of shoe-gazing flannel rock by Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains and Soundgarden, you found a tiny wisp of a girl in a short black dress and tortoise-shell cats-eye glasses running around an empty SoHo loft.

She appeared happy one moment, sad the next. She stared directly into the camera while she sang, as if accusing you of daring to call her "naive" when she thought she was strong. She didn't look like Eddie Vedder or Layne Staley, but that wasn't exactly a bad thing. And she was singing "Stay," a sweetly confessional ballad, made more wonderfully quirky by the fact that it had no chorus to speak of.

"I think that people (nowadays) are way more respectful of the fact that I'm actually a songwriter — that I've had pop success, but I'm still a songwriter," said Loeb, discussing the music-over-image benefits that come with a longtime music career. "People know that I have a sense of humor and I'm not the totally serious girl in the short dress."

Over a call from Japan to discuss Honolulu and Maui performances this weekend — her first here in seven years — Loeb was soft-spoken but extremely self-confident. Even in a conversation that touched on career highs — her first and second hit CDs for Geffen and recent move to New York indie label Artemis — and lows — A&M Records' three-year shelving of her third CD "Cake and Pie" — Loeb was friendly and down-to-earth chatty.

With "Stay (I Missed You)," Loeb became the first musician to top the Billboard Hot 100 without a record contract. After a major-label bidding war erupted for her services, Loeb signed with Geffen. "Stay," from the soundtrack of the navel-gazing Gen-X flick "Reality Bites," could have been the kind of monumentally huge hit single that made Loeb a Trivial Pursuit question under the category of "one hit wonders."

But a year later, her debut album "Tails" was released to a million in sales and another Top-20 hit, "Do You Sleep."

"I didn't really understand how lucky I was until more recently," admitted Loeb, now 35, about her first brush with fame after years of collegiate and post-collegiate gigging. "I didn't understand how tough the radio market was and always will be. I felt lucky because I was in a place where I had been playing music for years ... and I was ready for the next step. It was very exciting."

Loeb had another Top-20 hit with "I Do" from her well-received second album "Firecracker" in 1997, fitting quite nicely into the post-grunge resurgence of folk pop and Lilith Fair-era female singer/songwriting. But two years later, a public fascination with all things teen pop left Loeb's new label A&M confused about what to do with her next CD "Cake and Pie," except hold it from release for three years. Loeb left the label shortly after its release. She has since re-released and retitled the CD "Hello Lisa" with Artemis.

Artemis "is less of a conglomerate, so it's giving me the mental freedom with the new album I'm working on to make an album that I like, release it, and not have to wait for a consensus from a group of people who don't understand what I'm doing anyway," Loeb said.

She copped to a shrewd and aggressive fondness for protecting the business end of her music as well as the artistic end. Loeb was even wise enough early on to retain ownership rights to the master copy of "Stay."

In addition to her concerts here, Loeb will join musician/boyfriend Dweezil Zappa to tape a cooking segment for a Food Network series the couple is developing.

"We're doing a segment with his grandmother who lives on O'ahu," said Loeb of the still-untitled food travelogue series set to debut in

January. "(The series) is just about our experiences with food. Basically, it's everything having to do with food — cooking, eating, shopping, buying — and how our lives lead us to food."

And on a more personal note, "We want to learn how to make the perfect Thai fried rice."

Loeb's weekend shows will feature the singer on solo acoustic guitar, with guest appearances by Zappa and friend Barry Flanagan.

"It's gonna be a very intimate show," said Loeb. "Requests are always welcome." And that includes the hit single that remains her best-known composition.

"I'm still just really happy about ("Stay") and proud of it," said Loeb, laughing shyly. "It was something that was made in a way that was really real.

"It just reminds me that if you work really hard at something, you might actually succeed."