FromRevealing Jewel

My sister loves Alaska; she feels a deep connection with the land that raised her and the people that had an impact on her early years. But I suppose that is what most people would feel towards a place where they were raised by a pack of wolves on an 8,000-acre arctic mountain range without food, running water or any contact with the outside world, other than the weekly yodeling report from the neighboring mountain peaks -- or so the story goes.

Since Jewel's rise to fame, her background has been at times as much of a source of entertainment as her music. And some of the stories that have been spun out of a few bits of truth are just as creative as her songs. People seem to be truly interested in where she came from and what she was like prior to being a rock star. But finding answers from a reliable source has proven to be as challenging as getting Jewel to stand still long enough to catch up with her. In this section, we explore what stands out foremost in the minds of those who knew Jewel before stardom. It's as straight a scoop as could be found, and it has yet to be seen whether it cuts through the mythology or just adds to it.

Similar to our grandfather, who set out towards an unknown land in hopes of a better life, Jewel left Alaska and the familiarities of home. People that leave a place where all their roots are, and set out for a new sense of life and accomplishment, are the modern-day pioneers. Jewel fits the description. But her story doesn't start with leaving home. As you'll see, things had been building for quite some time, starting way back when, as kids, we performed as a family. If she hadn't left, she'd probably still be singing, still creating, no matter what her setting. But it was leaving that gave the story a chance to grow into what it is.

When all's said and done, Jewel is just another person raised in these strange times we live in. There is nothing different about her besides the fact that she focused extremely hard on her dreams and managed to manifest them into everyday life. Something anyone is capable of doing; it just takes faith and focus. Jewel knew this. Or if she didn't when she started out, she knows it now. And maybe by reading this others will know it to be true in terms of their own lives.

Atz Lee Kilcher

A New Way

Atz Lee

Homer has changed a lot, as all small towns do. It kind of took off as a place for people that didn't want to be called hippies. People who wanted to go somewhere else, where they could live off the land and not worry about whether or not they looked like everyone else. They came up here to have a self-sufficient lifestyle.

Before that, like with our parents' parents, the homesteaders in the '40s, there were a lot of people who were out for a new way of life -- kind of the same thing, only these were Europeans, and mixed ethnicities. People that wanted to start a new something -- a new way of life, a new community, a new family. Break away from old traditions.

Lee

It's a small town, Homer, but you would be surprised at all the cool people that live there.

West

The people are really charming. I got a strong sense of community when I went up there. I saw how that could have affected Jewel. But having said that, I could also see where that environment could be very confining, and I could see how she would have thrived coming to San Diego from that kind of environment. She could blossom here because the possibilities are limitless, for a young person having grown up in such a remote area.

The whole bay area, Kachemak Bay, is physically stunning, just beautiful to look at. Jewel's very much at home in that rugged environment. You can tell when you're up there with her that it's her church.

Sharon

In living the life she did, in nature, in solitude, there's a pureness, a lack of pretense to her now. She draws a lot from that.

A Family Entertainment Show

Shane

My mom and dad had two albums out, and they were really well known in the community -- both very outgoing, affable people. They had a family entertainment show, and we were all part of it.

Alan

Her father, Atz, is a great storyteller. And he's someone who takes being a professional musician very seriously, and I think he instilled that work ethic in Jewel.

Lee

I had just moved up to Homer from Los Angeles when they were performing a lot as a family. Someone told me, "There's an event going on at Land's End [a tourist resort]. The Kilchers are performing." Jewel was really the highlight of the show, but it was, honestly, one of the best musical events that I had seen in a long time, and I was coming right out of the music scene in L.A.

Lenedra

Jewel was very shy as a young child, so I was surprised when she said she wanted to sing with her father and me. I remember the first time she got on stage and she just took to it. It was a very noticeable thing. She just seemed to know how to do it. She enjoyed the crowd and played to the crowd immediately.

Atz Lee

We were all somewhat shy. It just depended on the situation. If we were in a store or at somebody's house, we were usually shy and kind of held back. But if we were onstage, we had a tendency to lean the other way. I mean, we would start off shy, with maybe the first few songs, then we'd warm up into ourselves. That's one of the reasons we liked music and wanted to be involved in our parents' music, because we could feel that looseness come to us as we started singing it.

Shane

I really couldn't deal well with my dad saying, "You didn't hit that note." That was kind of it for me. But Jewel stuck with it. She thrives on a challenge, especially if it's a matter of internal resources. She just knows she can muster whatever it's going to require.

Lee

She used to come to my cabin before it was finished, when it only had three walls, and she'd go upstairs and play. At the time it was just a big opening where the wall should be. I'd be out working in the garden, and friends would come and visit. They thought I had a stereo on. Her singing was ringing out over the fields. They would hear her from the garden and say, "Where did you get this music? What is going on?"

I'd say, "No. That's my friend Jewel. She's upstairs in the house, singing."

Shane

We didn't have much to do. Most of our lives, for example, we didn't have television. Whether it's because we were bored or whatever, she would sit in front of the mirror for hours and practice moving different facial muscles. She still has a lot of facial muscle control. She can twitch the eye muscle in her lower eyelid of her left eye. It's pretty cool. It sounds kind of funny, but it's really a good example of her self-control. She just knows she can do it.

We really grew up believing that, if being a successful artist is what you wanted to do, you could. If you committed yourself to doing it, you could do it. Jewel was able to focus on the things she wanted, and they would happen.

WOW WOW WOW

Lee

I have friends that I wrote letters to in those early years, and they've called me recently saying, "I just found this letter and in it you're talking about your friend Jewel, saying she's going to be famous." She was like 16 at the time. At first, she was maybe embarrassed by her age. I don't think she lied to me, but she just didn't tell me she was that young.

She lived on her own then, and she was very independent. She was talking about going to this school, Interlochen.

Lenedra

When Jewel heard there was a school that focused on art as well as academics she was very excited to go, because high school had felt like a waste of time to her. The thought of being able to study music and explore other kinds of art -- dance, sculpture, drama, painting -- sounded perfect to her because she had so many passions.

Shane

She still had the mind frame of "I could kind of live an artsy life if I want to." She thought she could sing for a living somehow. It's a really cool thing to go to school to do.

Lee

She really wanted to go. There was this whole issue: She needed to raise money. She put on this show to raise the tuition for Interlochen. She had these posters made. She went around and put them up, and she went around soliciting. I mean, she was really working hard. She had drive. She wanted to go somewhere and that was really evident.

Shane

I didn't have a real clear impression that she would be famous, or that music is what she would do. Not until I think she was getting ready to go to Interlochen, after she had just turned 16. Then she and some family members and friends put on the fund-raiser, and the city of Homer came and basically funded her going to Interlochen.

Lee

Everyone that came was amazed. I brought a lot of people, saying, "This is the girl I've been talking about." After the show, people's eyes were wide open. They could only say, "Wow." But they'd say it three times because they just didn't know how to express their amazement. "Wow, wow, wow."

Shane

To see her doing the show -- I hadn't seen her for a while, so it was a fresh perspective. And also she had really grown and developed while I was away at school. And to see the changes in her, and to see from a new perspective, I realized then: "Wow, she can really do whatever she wants." She had a fabulous voice, and she was writing some good stuff. That was where I thought she's really got the potential to do it all.

Some Folksinger Chick

Lenedra Jewel met Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers at a health institute in San Diego before she even began to pursue her career. She was sitting out on the curb in the parking lot with her guitar, playing, and this guy came up and said, "You have a great voice."

They struck up a conversation. He asked whose song it was that she was playing and she said it was hers. He said, "That's a really great song. Do you have any others?"

So she started playing songs for him. He was the first celebrity musician that Jewel met and certainly the first that she played songs for. He really encouraged her to do something with her music. Their friendship stems from those days, just as she started singing in the coffeehouses.

West

I was just going from coffeehouse to coffeehouse seeing what was going on. At that time in San Diego, there was a lot of good music in coffeehouses. But Jewel just stood out. You could tell, even at that early stage, that she was going places. And I would always make a special effort to be at the InnerChange on Thursday nights.

Bibi

I met Jewel at the InnerChange Coffeehouse. Some friends of mine lived a few blocks away, and they had started going every Thursday night to see her and they were trying to convince me to go. And probably after the tenth time of them saying, "You gotta check this out," I went and saw her set.

I'm like, "Well, she's good."

She sang a song in Swedish and I speak Swedish, so after the show I went up to talk to her in Swedish. Then I discovered that she only knew ten words of Swedish, the ten words that were in her song. We had a little laugh over it.

Alan

She came back to San Diego in '92, after Interlochen. At first she was waitressing, but she did start doing sporadic gigs, like Steve Poltz would invite her up to do a couple of songs during his sets. So her coffeehouse days really, as far as San Diego is concerned, are from late '92 to early '94 -- so there's almost a year and a half there.

That whole InnerChange time that's so famous really was approximately a year. It was a very brief time. She was doing other coffeehouses in the area, but she had a regular gig at the InnerChange that would just build and build and build.

Bibi

When I started going, you would have to show up about an hour before her show. Then it got to the point where if you wanted to get into the 9:00 show, you had to be there in time for the 7:00 show to stand in line. You'd be standing outside while she was doing her show. She played two shows every Thursday night. Sometimes the late show went for four hours.

Shane

Really, overall, from the time she decided to sing until she was kind of sensational was really a short period of time. One day she was working odd jobs and the next she was getting paid for playing her music.

Bibi

I went a few more times to see her at the InnerChange and we started talking. Then I found out I was moving into a little studio apartment in a canyon in Hillcrest, San Diego, and she lived right across the canyon from me. Somehow I told her I was moving and she told me where she lived, and sure enough, it was the street right across from mine, with a view of my tiny little studio. She lived in a house that was right across the canyon, and she had obviously already gotten her advance from the record deal because it was a pretty nice house. Not amazing, but still better than what I had as a little college student. She converted the balcony to a bedroom, enclosed with just a screen. I could hear her singing and playing her guitar, writing new songs. I remember hearing her write a song early one morning. It woke me up, and then that night she performed it for the first time at the InnerChange.

Once I found out we were neighbors, we just became friends. And then I met her mother, Lenedra. We just started going to have tea or coffee.

Alan

When I first got interested in Jewel, just for the hell of it, I contacted every sound guy I knew and asked if they had ever mixed a club show for this girl Jewel. At that time, her album wasn't moving. She had done the residency tour thing and then played all these ding-dong one-off places, so I thought at least a couple of my friends had mixed sound for her at one time or another.

Surprisingly, there were many of them that had mixed for her. I repeatedly asked, "Did you happen to make a tape?" And the mindblower was that they all had the same story. They all basically said, "Yeah, I have a tape, but the first two or three songs are missing." All of these guys told me the same story.

The reason was that they had no idea who she was and expected nothing. It was just some folksinger chick showing up and they're mixing for her. And they would get the mix set and be all ho-hum about it. Then they'd start listening to her and go, "Wow, she's really good." And that's when they'd pop the tape in and begin recording.

Shane

Once she decided that's what she really wanted to do, and went for it, Atlantic gave her a small advance, and she used it to help pay rent on a new place. And to buy a car. I think she bought Mom a car, too. But it's like, what did they get? You'd think they'd get something cool. They both got used Volvos.

We're a thrifty, practical family. She'd been living in a van and the van was dying. It wasn't running anymore and they needed another car. And the Volvo's a really good, reliable car. Its titanium alloy, high-tension steel frame protects you in accidents up to 120 miles per hour. Buy one now. [laughter]

Lenedra

When Jewel got her advance check from her record deal, she wanted to put it in the bank and not spend anything. I had to talk her into getting a place to live and a used car. She didn't really have either of those things. But she was convinced that the advance might be the only money she would ever make, and she wanted to save it. Jewel continues to be very frugal and prudent in her spending. It's a basic personality trait.

Paying Her Dues

Alan

I first saw her in 1995. She was part of a festival in Hartford, Connecticut. It was a radio station festival where there were all these alternative bands and Jewel. She really didn't fit in at all. It was just her, alone onstage, with just a guitar. I remember seeing her there so well, because she literally looked like she was 12 years old. She was wearing a Pink Panther T-shirt. When she first started, nobody was paying attention to her at all. About halfway through her set, people began taking notice. And by the end, people were just dumbstruck.

Bibi

Jewel and I went up to L.A. for a photo shoot, and we were driving home late at night. She had rented a car from, literally, Rent-A-Wreck. Both our cars were in the shop or something. So we were driving home in this Rent-A-Wreck, and her song came on. It was "Who Will Save Your Soul."

I hadn't heard it before, so it was really my very first time. But she recognized it right off the bat, and she was screaming and hitting me and saying, "OH MY GOD, THIS IS MY SONG! THIS IS MY SONG!"

It was on this program on 91X -- the Top 9 at 9. People had to call in and name all nine songs that were played starting at 9:00. So people were calling in and they would say, "Number three was Pearl Jam, and number two was Tori Amos, and number one was Nirvana."

And the DJ would say, "NO. WRONG."

And the next person would guess that her song was Sarah McLachlan. No one got it. And Jewel loved it. She was laughing because no one knew who she was.

Alan

In 1995, the album had just been released and was going nowhere. Jewel was doing what's called a residency tour. It worked really well for her. They would rotate the same venues each day of the week for a month.

Lenedra

At the time, radio simply would not play her, so our challenge was to integrate this folk-pop singer into the grunge world. We knew that building a fan base was the route to take. We did that by sending her on figure-eight tours, where she would rotate through a series of cities on a weekly loop. She did San Diego, Chico, Portland and Seattle. She would hit the same place in each city every week, and the crowd would grow from just a handful of

people to standing room only by the end of the month.

Bibi

I went a couple of times when she was just touring in the van. I went out just to visit her when she was doing one of those residency tours. I just flew out and met her in Connecticut once and traveled down to Washington, D.C., with her. At that point it was just her friend Jerry, the doorman from the InnerChange, who was driving her around.

Alan

Once she got out of California, there was quite a distance between the cities. So it was literally do the gig, then drive all night to the next gig. They just had a rental car. Just Jewel and a friend traveling together.

Monty

Jewel went out on the road with a friend of hers who was kind of acting as the tour manager, driving her around. But because of the emphasis on promoting Jewel, rather than just going out there and doing a concert tour, she was often traveling on her own. They would put her on a plane somewhere, and the guy who was driving would be left to catch up by road. Sometimes she'd be picked up at the airport by a radio rep from Atlantic, taken to a radio station and then dropped at a hotel, and then she'd be sitting around there waiting for this guy to pick her up and take her across to the sound check.

Bibi

I think at the time her album had been released and still no one was listening to her. She was playing in these coffeehouses on the East Coast, driving through snowstorms. She would show up, and there would be like three people there drinking beers. She would get up there with her purple polyester pants and her vinyl jacket and her little pigtails and play for like half an hour, forty minutes. And she would play like there were a thousand people there.

A lot of times I was sitting there thinking, "Oh God." I felt so bad for her because no one was listening. She was selling out Spreckels Theatre in San Diego, which has about 1,500 seats, so she had achieved some level of success, and she was used to playing larger venues at that point. And, plus, she was playing all kinds of places when she was growing up. She would just be like it was something she had to do. I think she knew that she was paying her dues.

Seeing Spikes All Over

Alan

The first year the album went nowhere. A year afterPieces of Youwas released, it hadn't gone gold.

Shane

There was this resistance. A lot of radio stations said, "We will not play a young girl folk artist with a guitar." She was a bit different. She was coming in at a peak time when man was king on the radio. Nirvana and things like that.

Excerpted from Revealing Jewel: An Intimate Portrait from Family and Friends by Alpheus Publishing Staff
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

We're the #1 textbook rental company. Let us show you why.

Revealing Jewel : An Intimate Portrait from Family and Friends

9780743475402

0743475402

Supplemental Materials

Summary

Supplemental Materials

Excerpts

Rewards Program