Leah Renee was born October 1, 1985 in Toronto, Canada. She
describes herself as “a normal person who’s working very hard to
make her dreams come true.” Leah’s been in show business since the
age of 5, she began doing cartoon voices and TV/acting work at 10
and starred in the Donnie Wahlberg CW series Runaway. At 13 she
began taking voice lessons with renowned vocal coach Elaine
Overholt who helped Leah hone her vocal skills and define her
sound. “I’ve been in the entertainment business since I was five
years old. I started out acting, but when I was fourteen or fifteen
I heard Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears and I remember
thinking, ‘That’s a job? That’s cool!’ That’s when I decided to
pursue a career as a pop singer as well,” Leah Renee said in one of
the interviews adding that Tracey Chapman, Guns n Roses, Mariah
Carey, Brandy, TLC, Sheryl Crow, Celine Dion, and Alanis Morrisette
are some of her greatest music influences. Renee often says she’s
very close to her family and admits moving to New York in 2008 was
a difficult decision but it was worth it. She says she loved living
with her family and could have stayed there forever adding her
parents are her best friends. “My mother and father are amazing,”
Leah Renee gushed. “They gave up so much so that I could do what I
loved, even though they knew I had chosen a difficult path. I knew
what I wanted at five years old and my dad took a job working the
night shift in a warehouse so that he could take me to auditions
during the day while my mom worked. Then, after several years of
his losing a lot of sleep, my mom quit her job to take me around
until I was 16 and able to drive myself.” “My family’s a little
different,” she continues. “My dad and younger brother are both
into motorcycle culture – they both have Harley Davidsons – and
they can get lost for days on a bike trip. My dad has tattoos and
hair longer than mine and he’s always stealing my shampoo. My mom,
who now works as a customs broker, and I do everything together and
I really miss her. I talk to my parents a few times a day.” So it’s
pretty obvious settling in a different country was not an easy
adjustment but thanks to Leah’s producers, Curtis and Vox, and the
fact that she loves exploring new things and places, New York has
become a fun place for her to live and work in. “It was very
difficult because not only was I moving to a new town, I was moving
to a new country. I was living at home with my parents at the time,
which was cool because we have a really great relationship. So it
was scary moving out on my own, but New York is great. I love it,”
Leah Renee said. However, living on her own wasn’t always that
easy. Leah recalls some disappointing moments along the road. “I’ve
worked with some producers who were quite prevalent in the
industry,” she explains. “They made promises that never came
through - I was even told I was being signed to a major record
label, which never happened.” Even when living in her home Toronto
Leah felt certain drawbacks of being famous. “Because I was acting
on TV, the girls in high school would give me digs before they
really knew me. And the guys couldn’t handle not being number one,”
Leah said. “I really had to believe in myself to deal with the down
times. But I’ve always felt that it’s important to be real. That’s
why I write about my experiences – I want people to know who I
really am.” Leah adds that all the trials she has been through help
her pen new songs. In NY Leah Renee met Aaron Curtis and Charlie
Vox, better known as heads of a consortium of writers and producers
known as The Conglomerate that worked with such big names as
Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson and more. Curtis and Vox
became Leah’s collaborators on her debut LP, Storybook, as well as
the project’s main producers, and Leah’s good friends as well.
“I’ve learned everything I know about songwriting from them. I had
never written any music before, but they taught me song structure
and how to craft lyrics. I had always kept a journal and we used a
lot of information from my journals to create songs that were
uniquely me for the album,” Leah said in her interview in February
2009. Currently, Leah gets ready to release her debut album
Storybook by summer and promote her debut single ‘iBF’ that stands
for “imaginary boyfriend” and is sure to become the subject of
millions of text messages the minute the song breaks on pop
stations. Leah Renee is a pretty down-to-earth girl and admits that
dreams of her own superstardom are not necessarily what drive her.
Most important to her is having people hear her music and being
able to continue her singing and songwriting. “The first time I
hear my record on the radio, I think I’ll lose my mind. Being
number one would be a dream come true,” Lear confessed. She also
says she loves acting. Currently, she voices the character of
Chris-Alice on Discovery Kids’ popular animated production Growing
Up Creepie, and is also well-known as the voice of “Beaver” in the
long-running series Franklin The Turtle. Leah Renee has also
started opposite JoJo and Valerie Bertinelli on the Lifetime’s True
Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet. “I love acting. It has always
been a part of my life and it always will be. But right now I am
focusing on the music,” Leah said in her interview with
Examiner.com in February 2009.
