From BENEE to Boh Runga, many great Aotearoa New Zealand musicians have called Los Angeles home over the years.
LA has been home to Lisa Crawley, another great Kiwi singer-songwriter, since the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic, and basing herself in the sunny California city has led to some incredible — and unexpected — opportunities.
Crawley is the latest guest on Making Music, Making Ends Meet, a series focused on musicians during the cost-of-living crisis, and she told us about her life overseas.
“Playing Mandy Moore’s piano hand double on ‘This Is Us’ was pretty surreal,” was the first big reveal.
“Playing cocktail piano at a small dinner party unexpectedly turned into a singalong with Jack Black and his bassist John Spiker, which eventually led to me making my latest record with John,” was another.
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“I met my frequent collaborator Rob Kleiner at a sync songwriting conference, and we’ve since written and recorded a number of songs together,” she continued.
“I met my music video director, Will Cook, around a piano while playing jazz standards, and playing in a corporate band has even led to working as a musician on television shows.”
As Crawley told us, “LA has this incredible way of making all my musical worlds overlap.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Crawley reflected on her jet-setting lifestyle as a working musician, which has taken her to Japan, England, Australia, the US, and far beyond.
“I’ve moved countries, lived with a lot of uncertainty, missed family events, and invested money back into music instead of more traditional milestones like buying a house,” she admitted.
“I’ve spent countless unpaid hours writing, recording, promoting, organising tours, and learning what feels like an endless number of songs. I don’t really see them as regrets — they’ve been conscious choices — but there have definitely been sacrifices along the way.”
Read her full feature here.
