Laurie Miller - Athena eZ

Laurie Miller was born in Muncie, Indiana in the Chinese year of the Pig.

She first started playing the violin at the age of three, and then added the piano soon after. Learning classical piano, and music theory, she began writing music at seven. She started playing bass guitar her senior year of HS, and played in the Stage jazz band.

Since Laurie's father was a professor at Penn State, she studied Theatre Arts with a dance emphasis earning a BA degree. Next, she moved to California, and went to CCAC, and earned a BFA degree in Graphic Design.

At CCAC she played in her first band - Speed Shift - more of a Heavy Metal band, and Jeff Fogerty (John Fogerty's nephew) played with them at their first gig. The next band Laurie played in, Just By Chance, combined R &R classics, and Laurie played some of her originals. The guitar player Mark McGee (Viscious Rumors/Greg Allman's guitar player), played with them when not touring. Larry James, guitar player for Zydeco Flames and with Johnny Ottis, taught Laurie Motown songs.

Laurie lived in Oakland, and Money B and DJ Fuse from Digital Underground lived next to her for six years. Tupak used to hang out in the laundry room, since he was a member of Digital Underground before he went solo.

At her last gig in the Bay Area she played with Ricardo Scales, a pianist, at the Four Seasons in San Francisco. There she met and played with some great players... Narada Michael Walden, James Levi, etc.

A couple of months before leaving the Bay Area, Laurie formed her first original band - Theatre of Meat, and played the Berkeley Square & the Nightbreak. After moving to Seattle, due to a divorce and being a single mother of a four year old named Michael, Laurie formed her original band Missing Children with Mikey B.

They played all the major clubs in the Seattle area for three years, and released a CD called Wants & Needs. It is on the funky side. Unfortunately Laurie's partner had a psychotic episode and ended up in a mental hospital.

After the bands demise, Laurie played bass in several cover bands, T-40, blues, R & B, and jazz. Now she knows about 3,000 cover songs. Laurie also had an acoustic band called Laurie Miller & Soul Kin. They have an acoustic CD, to be released. Unfortunately Beth the violinist died of breast cancer this year.

Laurie also continues to pursue her watercolor artwork, having her first solo show in Jan. of 2003. She plans to have posters of her work made to be sold online soon. She also has about 1,000 poems written, and is organizing them into poetry books with her illustrations. She is already published in several poetry compilation books.

Laurie was backed for the start of her recording of her next project Athena eZ, and she is currently releasing her new CD - Fornicated Infinity. It had already had a lot of Internet Radio airplay, and can't wait till it is printed in Nov. 2003.

Laurie currently has a new funky band called the King Cockroaches which is along the lines of Primus, Fungo Mungo, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. They have their fist gig in Seattle in Nov. Finally a band with music I really like.

Recording due in 2004.

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