Leslie Feist (born February 13, 1976), known mononymously as Feist, is a Canadian indie pop singer and songwriter, performing both as a solo artist and as a member of the indie rock group Broken Social Scene.
Feist launched her solo music career in 1999 with the release of Monarch. Her subsequent studio albums, Let It Die, released in 2004, and The Reminder, released in 2007, were critically acclaimed and commercially successful, selling over 2.5 million copies. The Reminder earned Feist four Grammy nominations, including a nomination for Best New Artist. She has received 11 Juno Awards, including two Artist of the Year awards. Her fourth studio album, Metals, was released in 2011. In 2012, Feist collaborated on a split EP with metal group Mastodon, releasing an interactive music video in the process.
Feist has released six studio albums as of 2023. Feist received three Juno awards at the 2012 ceremony: Artist of the Year, Adult Alternative Album of the Year for Metals, and Music DVD of the Year for her documentary Look at What the Light Did Now. Additionally, she was nominated for four Grammy Awards including the Best Pop Vocal Album for The Reminder and Best New Artist.
Early life
Leslie Feist was born on February 13, 1976, in Amherst, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her parents are both artists. Her father, Harold Feist, was an American-Canadian abstract expressionist painter who taught fine arts at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. Her mother, Lyn Feist, was a student of ceramics from Saskatchewan. After their first child, Ben, was born, the family moved to Sackville.
Feist is the niece of guitarist Dan Achen, who played in the 1990s rock band Junkhouse and had produced for numerous artists (Achen died in 2010 of a heart attack).
Feist's parents divorced soon after she was born, and Ben, Feist and their mother moved to Regina, Saskatchewan, where they lived with her grandparents. They later moved to Calgary, Alberta, where she attended Bishop Carroll High School as well as Alternative High School. She aspired to be a writer, and spent much of her youth singing in choirs. At the age of 12, Feist performed as one of 1,000 dancers in the opening ceremonies of the Calgary Winter Olympics, which she cites as inspiration for the video "1234."
As her father is American, Feist has dual Canadian–U.S. citizenship.
Music career In 1991, at the age of fifteen, Feist got her start in music when she founded, and was the lead vocalist for, a Calgary punk band called Placebo (not to be confused with the English band Placebo). She and her bandmates won a local Battle of the Bands competition and were awarded the opening slot at the festival Infest 1993, featuring the Ramones. At this concert, she met Brendan Canning, whose band hHead performed immediately before hers, and with whom she joined Broken Social Scene ten years later.
In 1995, Feist was forced to take time off from music to recover from vocal cord damage. She moved from Calgary to Toronto in 1996. Also in 1996, she was asked by Noah Mintz of hHead to play bass in his solo project Noah's Arkweld. She played the bass guitar in Noah's Arkweld for a year despite never having played bass before. In 1998, she became the rhythm guitarist for the band By Divine Right and toured with them throughout 1998, 1999, and 2000. She also played guitar for some live performances by Bodega, but was never an official member of the band."Feist Inside and Out". Toronto Star, April 21, 2007. During this era, Feist also worked at The Rivoli and Lava Lounge, both popular Toronto music venues at the time.
In 1999, Feist moved into a Queen West apartment above Come As You Are with a friend of a friend, Merrill Nisker, who then began to perform as electro-punk musician Peaches. Feist worked the back of the stage at Peaches' shows, using a sock puppet and calling herself "Bitch Lap Lap".Under the name Bitch Lap Lap she appeared on another recording with Peaches, "Sexy Dancer", a collaboration with 7 Hurtz for the 2001 tribute compilation If I Was Prince. Beside Peaches she was featured by the French electro-pop band Hypnolove ("Get to Know the Girl" on Eurolove, 2006), Teki Latex ("The Ish" on Party de plaisir, 2007 on Virgin), and Canadian The World Provider ("Persistence Is Feudal", Enabler, 2004). See . The two also 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. Feist appears in Peaches' video for the song "Lovertits", suggestively rubbing and licking a bike. Later, Feist covered this song with Gonzales (whom she met while touring with Peaches) on her album Open Season. In 2006, Feist contributed backup vocals on a track entitled "Give 'Er", which appeared on Peaches' album Impeach My Bush.
Monarch (Lay Your Jewelled Head Down) (1999–2001) Feist's solo debut album, Monarch, was released in 1999. It is composed of ten songs, including "Monarch" and "That's What I Say, It's Not What I Mean". The album was produced by Dan Kurtz, who would later form Dragonette.
Let It Die (2001–2006)
In the summer of 2001, Feist self-produced seven songs at home which she called The Red Demos, which have never been released commercially. She spent more than two years touring throughout Europe with Gonzales. In that same year she joined a group of old friends in forming a new version of Toronto indie rock group Broken Social Scene, adding vocals to many tracks after being forbidden to play guitar by de facto bandleader Kevin Drew.Berman, Stuart. This Book is Broken She subsequently recorded You Forgot It in People with the band. While on tour in Europe with Gonzales, they began recording new versions of her home-recorded Red Demos, which would later become her major label debut Let It Die. Let It Die featured both original compositions and covers. After the recording, Feist moved to Paris. While in Europe, she collaborated with Norwegian duo Kings of Convenience as co-writer and guest vocalist on their album Riot on an Empty Street, singing on "Know How" and "The Build Up". She also co-wrote and sang "The Simple Story" as a duet with Jane Birkin on her album Rendezvous.
Feist toured during 2004, 2005, and 2006 through North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia supporting Let It Die. She won two Canadian Juno Awards for "Best New Artist" and "Best Alternative Rock Album" in 2004. Sales of Let It Die totaled 500,000 internationally, and she was awarded a platinum record in Canada, as well as a gold album in France. Fellow Canadian Buck 65 appeared in the Feist-directed music video for "One Evening", which was also nominated for Video of the Year at the 2004 Juno Awards.
In 2005, Feist contributed to the UNICEF benefit song "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" The track "Mushaboom" was used in an advertisement for a Lacoste men's fragrance, as well as in the film 500 Days of Summer. An album of remixes and collaborations, Open Season, was released on April 18, 2006. She lent her voice to the two tracks "La Même Histoire" and "We're All in the Dance" for the soundtrack to the 2006 film Paris, je t'aime., first and last track; at least the CD had a sticker, saying "All the Music from Paris, je t'aime. Including 'La même histoie', a new song by Feist and 'Gogol' by Gonzales".
The Reminder (2006–2007)
In early 2006, Feist moved to Paris, where she recorded a followup to Let It Die at LaFrette Studios with Gonzales, Mocky, Jamie Lidell, and Renaud Letang, as well as her touring band Bryden Baird, Jesse Baird, Julian Brown of Apostle of Hustle, and Afie Jurvanen of Paso Mino.
Feist's third solo album, The Reminder, was released on April 23, 2007, in Europe, and on May 1, 2007, in the rest of the world. She toured worldwide to promote the album. The album features "1234", a song co-written by New Buffalo's Sally Seltmann, that became a surprise hit after being featured in a commercial for the iPod nano, hitting No. 8 in the US, a rare feat for indie rock musicians and even more notable since it hit the Top Ten on the strength of downloads alone. She has been lauded in the press and was featured on the cover of the New York Times arts section in June 2007. The Reminder had sold worldwide over 1,000,000 copies and is certified gold in the U.S. Note: reader must define search parameter as "Feist". The album also won a 2008 Juno Award for "Album of the Year" on April 6, 2008, in Calgary, Alberta.
Videos for many of the singles were directed by Patrick Daughters, who previously directed the video for "Mushaboom" and went on to direct "1234," "My Moon, My Man", and "I Feel It All". "1234" and "My Moon, My Man" were choreographed by the acclaimed choreographer and dancer Noemie Lafrance. The video for Honey, Honey features the work of avant-garde puppet troupe, The Old Trout Puppet Workshop.
"I Feel It All" was featured in the UK teen comedy The Inbetweeners and was used in the film The Accidental Husband. "Honey Honey" was featured in The L Word (episode 5.06, "Lights! Camera! Action!"). "I Feel It All" was featured in the 2008 film The Women. Popular German DJ Boys Noize remixed "My Moon, My Man", which appears on his 2007 debut album Oi Oi Oi. The DJ has also been known to close sets with the remix. In January 2009, Bon Iver played a cover of Feist's "The Park" from The Reminder on Australian radio's Triple J. The song "Limit to Your Love" was featured in season 2, episode 1 of British teen drama Skins, and was used in the film The Accidental Husband. A cover version of the song was released by UK singer-producer James Blake as a single from his 2011 self-titled album.
Prior to the airing of an Apple iPod nano commercial featuring this song, The Reminder was selling at approximately 6,000 copies per week, and "1234" at 2,000 downloads per week. Following the advertisement, the song passed 73,000 total downloads and reached No. 7 on Hot Digital Songs and No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100; The Reminder jumped from No. 36 to No. 28 on the Billboard 200, with sales of 19,000.
Following the television advertisement for the iPod nano in the UK, the single beat its original chart position of 102 to become number 8 in the UK charts. Time magazine named "1234" one of The Ten Best Songs of 2007, ranking it at No. 2. Writer Josh Tyrangiel called the song a "masterpiece", praising Feist for singing it "with a mixture of wisdom and exuberance that's all her own".Tyrangiel, Josh; "The Best Top 10 Lists of the Year"; "The 10 Best Songs"; Time magazine; December 24, 2007; Page 39. On April 6, 2008, Feist won a Juno Award for the single as "Single of the Year".
Feist performed an alternate version of "1234" on Sesame Street during its 39th season (2008), teaching children to count to the number four. She said working with the Muppets was a career highlight.
In 2009, Feist appeared in a short film directed by Broken Social Scene bandmate Kevin Drew that focused on her song "The Water". Feist appears alongside Cillian Murphy and David Fox in the silent role of "Mother". This film was streamed from Pitchfork.com for a week starting on March 2, 2009. In an interview with the site, Feist described the experience of being in this movie as "watching a movie while being in a movie."
Metals (2007–2013) In 2007, Feist was placed No. 9 on Spinner.com's 2007 Women Who Rock Right Now. and named both Spin's and Blender's Breakout Artist of the Year. After taking Bob Wiseman on the road as her opening act in Europe she acted in his video Who Am I and joined him on drums for You Don't Love Me.
Feist was photographed by Annie Leibovitz for the November 2007 issue of Vanity Fair as part of a photo essay on folk music. On November 3 that year, she performed "1234" and "I Feel It All" on Saturday Night Live.