Feist (singer)

Early life

Leslie Feist came into the world on February 13, 1976, in Amherst, Nova Scotia, to a pair of artists. Her father, Harold Feist, was an abstract expressionist painter with dual American-Canadian roots who instructed fine arts at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. Her mother, Lyn Feist, studied ceramics and hailed from Saskatchewan. The family settled in Sackville after the birth of their first child, Ben.

Feist’s uncle, guitarist Dan Achen, was a member of the 1990s rock band Junkhouse. Her parents split shortly after her birth, and she, her brother, and their mother relocated to Regina, Saskatchewan, to live with her grandparents, and later to Calgary, Alberta.

There she attended Bishop Carroll High School and Alternative High School, dreamed of becoming a writer, and spent much of her youth singing in choirs. At twelve, she danced among a thousand performers in the opening ceremony of the Calgary Winter Olympics. She holds dual Canadian and U.S. citizenship.

Music career

In 1991, at age fifteen, Feist founded and was lead vocalist for a Calgary punk band called Placebo. They won a local Battle of the Bands and opened the festival Infest 1993, featuring the Ramones, where she met Brendan Canning. In 1995, she took time off to recover from vocal cord damage. She moved to Toronto in 1996 and was asked by Noah Mintz of hHead to play bass in his solo project Noah's Arkweld, playing bass for a year despite never having played it before.

In 1998, she became rhythm guitarist for By Divine Right and toured with them through 2000. She also played guitar for some live performances by Bodega. During this era, she worked at The Rivoli and Lava Lounge. In 1999, she moved into a Queen West apartment above Come As You Are with Merrill Nisker, who performed as Peaches.

Feist worked the back of the stage at Peaches' shows using a sock puppet as 'Bitch Lap Lap'. They toured together in England from 2000 to 2001, staying with Justine Frischmann of Elastica and MIA. Feist appeared as a guest vocalist on The Teaches of Peaches and in the video for 'Lovertits'. She later covered that song with Gonzales on her album Open Season.

In 2006, she contributed backup vocals on a track on Peaches' album Impeach My Bush. Feist's solo debut album, Monarch, was released in 1999, produced by Dan Kurtz, who later formed Dragonette.