Tracks:
- Hearts In Trouble (Debbi Lonmon/Jenni Lonman/Allan Rissik/PJ Powers) [4.45]
- Someone Like Me (Debbi Lonmon/Jenni Lonman) [4.06]
- Wish I Could Have Loved You More (Debbi Lonmon/Jenni Lonman/Lionel Bastos) [3.29]
- Insensitive (Anne Loree) [4.05]
- You Don't Call Me Baby Anymore (Debbi Lonmon/Jenni Lonman) [3.53]
- The Heart Of The Matter (Don Henley/JD Souther/Mike Campbell) [5.07]
- Millionaire (Debbi Lonmon/Jenni Lonman) [3.39]
- Love Letter (Debbi Lonmon/Jenni Lonman) [3.40]
- Free To Run (Dennis East) [3.35]
- Lights Are On But No One's Home (Debbi Lonmon/Jenni Lonman) [4.22]
- Naughty But It's Nice (Debbi Lonmon/Jenni Lonman) [3.42]
- The Love You Made (tribute to John Lennon) (Debbi Lonmon/Jenni Lonman) [3.19]
Buy this CD from One World
Musicians:
Release information:
25 March 1996, BMG, CDBSP (WL)7005
Press Release:
They were every teenage girl's dream come true. On stage. In the spotlight.
Featured in magazines. Interviewed on televison. Famous. The latest
clothes. The cutest boys.... Rocking 'n rolling their way around the
country. But Little Sister, like their fans, have grown up. They're
still singers, still in the spotlight, only now there's a maturity and a
sensitivity to their music that will touch your
heart.
With
a powerful newly-released album, 'Heart of the Matter', lead guitarist Debbi Lonmon talks to us about the song writing
process and the experiences that have influenced Little
Sister's music along the way.
After years on the road and
thousands of live shows, Little Sister know who
they are in the minds of all the fans who've supported them through three
albums and countless hit singles. "No way will we desert them or leave
them behind," explains lead guitarist Debbi Lonmon. "But then of course,
they've grown up with us and their tastes have changed, too." The new
album, 'Heart of the Matter' is, she says, an
emotional encyclopedia - kind of like life itself.
Because being
famous doesn't give you immunity from the typical trials of everyday life
and dark-haired Debbi and her sister Jenni, Little
Sister's powerhouse blond lead vocalist, have experienced
their own share of disappointments and heartbreak along the way. And it's
all reflected in 'Heart of the Matter', with 12
great songs - 10 of them original - taking the listener on a roller
coaster ride through the bad times - and the good." The album certainly
contains material that will be instantly recognizable as
Little Sister - some tracks are straight out of
the old mold, Debbi says. But many of the things we write about now lend
themselves to softer interpretations. We're really fortunate that we have
three strong markets - people who buy our records, people who listen to
our music, and people who come to our shows. We see the new album as
paying back all those fans for their loyalty and giving them fresh new
songs to enjoy. And we really believe that anyone who's never given our
music a listen before will be in for a pleasant surprise, too."
The
song writing process, admits Debbi, is a therapeutic one. If you're a
songwriter, you don't just suffer - or enjoy, for that matter - you write
about it. And it's those real experiences that will strike a chord with
listeners of all ages. "Songs are my way of getting to understand life and
of communicating with other people, with myself, with everything around me
- real, spiritual or even imaginary."
"On
'Heart of the Matter' I've worked as closely as
ever with Jenni and our keyboard player, Marc Bentel. 'Wish I
could have loved you more' , was written with Lionel Bastos
and there are collaborations on one or two other songs as well. There are
only two covers, plus one song written by our producer, Dennis East. You
could say that 'Heart of the Matter' is a record
of the growing up of "Little Sister."
For the song
writing process itself, there is no set formula. "But we have different
angles, Debbi explains. I often give Jenni the gist of a melody, just the
beginning, and she develops it. Each of us is very happy in our creative
relationship. I don't want to be the lead vocalist - I'm happy to leave
that to Jenni and she often develops our songs from that perspective. I
love singing
harmonies and that awareness of the importance of harmony
adds another dimension to our work."
'Wish I could have
loved you more', the first single from the new album, was a
collaboration with Lionel Bastos based on a line from the movie JFK where
the Kevin Costner character is so obsessed with pursuing his own career
that his relationship with his wife and family disintegrates. In one
really poignant scene, he says to her: 'I wish I could have loved you
more.'
"I understand that feeling. Lionel understood it, too, when he
suggested we write a song around it. I think a lot of people who are
committed to careers in music understand it."
"I wish I had more
time for people and relationships. I wish I wasn't scared to commit to
relationships because of what it might do to my career, so, in that
respect, it's a musician's song. Lionel and I worked out the beginning and
then, some time later, Jenni and I were on tour in a hotel room and we
actually only had four lines, but the mood we were in was the mood that
came through in the lyrics. We finished it off in half an
hour."
"It's a strong song, up-tempo. It's not a song of lost love,
it just says: 'Look, I'm truly sorry about this'. It's so true that it
gets me every time we play its."
Another powerful number off the
album, currently climbing the 5FM national charts is 'Someone
like me', another collaborative track based on an idea from
Marc Bentel.
Says Debbi, "It's a rock song reminiscent of earlier
Little Sister. It's a happy song but it's about
the disbelief you get that someone you adore feels the same way about you.
It's how I'd feel is Richard Gere asked me on a second date!"
"Then
there are the songs that just happen. 'Love
letters' was like that. I wrote it in 10 minutes. I just
picked up the guitar and there it was waiting for me! I love getting
letters - so much so, that I write them to myself! I really do. I even
post them, but I don't open them unless I really feel the need to do so. I
got the idea from a book on Creative Realizations by Sark. She says 'Write
yourself a love letter.' The song is really just about a special
relationship and how great it is to write a letter, get a letter from
someone you love. When I'd done the song, Jenni and Marc got involved and
fine-tuned it a bit and since Jenni's absolutely brilliant with languages
we came up with a middle eight that's in Spanish! It's a happy song."
One of the sadder songs on the album is 'Lights are on
but no one's home' , an emotion-filled number made even more
poignant by Jenni's husky interpretation.
"Now you're staring into
my soul", says Debbi of this track. Every line you hear is true. I had
crashed my car - twice. We were going through problems with the band. It
was in those days of huge political turbulence when no-one was going out
and gigs were scarce. We took smaller gigs for less money just so that we
could keep on working and some of them were horrific - they didn't even
give you a glass of water. Our phones were cut off. At one terrible gig
Jenni and I had a fight, then Marc and Jenni had a fight and we were all
ready to quit."
"Next day Marc phoned and said he'd got a song. We
didn't want to hear it, but when we did it just broke us up. Again, we
managed to turn negativity into something creative and positive. "Out of all the songs on the album, though, there's one of which Debbi is
particularly proud. 'The love you made' is Debbi's
tribute to her hero, John Lennon.
"As a songwriter, he's the
pinnacle of genius, she says. His lyrics and hooklines are brilliant,
uncopiable. I can't tell you how often I've turned to him for
inspiration."
For the
future, Little Sister aim to keep right on
singing, sharing, loving, and learning - turning fleeting pieces of
thought and emotion into the often catchy, sometimes heartfelt songs that
have earned them their rightful place as a major musical force in South
Africa.
