Lissie’s Passion For Life
Her Music, Identity, and Love For Twin Peaks
After finding stardom when Lenny Kravitz invited her to be his opening act in 2008, Lissie (whose real name is Elisabeth Corrin Maurus) has been a “low key” and “natural superstar” in music. Kravitz found her on MySpace and was really impressed with her sound, so he asked her to join him on his Love Revolution Tour. Lissie’s music falls between folk-rock and pop music, but the singer/songwriter keeps a firm grasp on realism and intimacy, despite the genre.
Over the years, Lissie released four studio albums and a handful of EPs with collaborations with a wide range of recording artists, such as DJ Morgan Page, Deadmau5, and Band of Horses. Interestingly, Lissie and Page met because the DJ wanted to remix one of her songs, but they hit it off so well, the pair ended up writing “The Longest Road,” which peaked at #4 on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club Songs chart. The song was also nominated for a Grammy Award for “Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical” after Deadmau5 remixed it.
Soon after Lissie’s debut album Catching A Tiger peaked at #5 on the Billboard US Folk charts, as it also went certified gold in the United Kingdom. Every album she released goes from pop to rock to folk to country, as she effortlessly goes from one genre to another. Lissie built a cult following with her unique style and clean sound.
She’s even found a fan in filmmaker David Lynch, who included her music in Twin Peaks: The Return in 2017 — coming 26 years after season two ended in 1991. Lissie’s song “Wild West” was featured on the premium cable TV show, as she also made a cameo with her band in the first episode of the new season.
“In the midst of just starting to get into David Lynch, he started tweeting about my band, particularly this live video he had found of us online. I ended up talking to him on the phone when I was in Germany in 2010. He came to my concert in L.A.,” Lissie said about Twin Peaks to PopDust.com. “Then I went to his house and we had coffee and caught up. He became a fan just when we were getting into him and it was almost spooky. Then we had gotten asked to play at a casino in Snoqualmie Washington which is where the hotel and the waterfall are too.”
In addition, Lissie’s also part of the body positive movement in music that empowers women to love and embrace their bodies and self. In her 2013 song “Shameless” for her album Back to Forever, she chronicles her frustrations with mainstream culture that makes her self-conscious and question her identity with lyrics like, “I stole your magazine/ The one with the beauty queen on the front/ I see her look at me, I swear that it is mockingly/ What the fuck?/ And you decide what I should like/ But I don’t buy no hype.”
Lissie’s newest album Castles drops on March 23. She’s also going on a tour throughout Europe starting in Glasgow, Scotland on April 6.
