Ilsey Juber

6:30PM--The NoHo Arts Center Black Box Theatre-11136 Magnolia Blvd. At the age of 22, Ilsey Juber is no stranger to the music industry. Born into a creative family, her father was the lead guitarist of Paul McCartney and Wings, and her mother, an accomplished television and theatre writer. Ilsey's own professional music career started at the age of 13, when she began drumming in the Los Angeles area with local jazz bands. At the age of 15, she picked up the guitar and began writing and singing her own material. One year later, she sold her first song for an online promotion campaign. Ilsey explains, "My strongest musical influences are from the decades before I was alive. The biggest being The Beatles, it was a requirement in my family that you could recognize a Beatles song if it came on the radio or you were punished. I don't think we ever listened to anything other than the oldies stations. I loved all the Motown hits as well. As I became a teenager I was heavily influenced by the folk singers of the 60's and 70's. I listen to absolutely every kind of music now, as long as it has a clear idea of what it is and a message."

She soon began to make important industry connections and co-wrote the first single "Runaway" with friend Taryn Manning for the recent Boomkat album, A Million Trillion Stars. Taryn then introduced Ilsey to Terrence Howard, who called her "a mix of Jim Croce and Stevie Nicks." They quickly bonded and began working together, co-writing the first single "Sanctuary" off his debut album Shine Through It (Sony Records), which debuted at 31 on the Billboard charts. Ilsey also recorded vocals on his song "Love Makes You Beautiful." Ilsey reveals, "Collaborating with Terrence is like collaborating with another part of myself, a part that I never knew existed but was there all along. When we write songs I'll sing something and he'll think he heard something that I didn't say, but we'll both realize that the mistake is the right lyric. It works the other way around too. It's not supposed to work but it does, like the two of us, such different people who could not be more different but have somehow managed to find the beauty in each other."

Her impressive list of collaborations continues, co-writing with Will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas for his solo projects and the upcoming new Black Eyed Peas album. She has also recorded her own material with Greg Ladanyi and Randy Jackson. Ilsey explains, "I write songs because it's the clearest way for me to understand myself. I often have to go back after I've written something and analyze it as one would in a literature class in order to understand what I've said. I don't think when I write, I just let the song live and it tells me where it wants to go. Sometimes I'll laugh when I listen back to what I've written because I'll realize that I had no idea something was affecting me until I hear it in a song."

Ilsey Juber is currently on tour with Terrence Howard.

QUOTES

"Ilsey Juber, who sings with Terrence Howard on tour, has a remarkable voice." —Lisa Robinson, Vanity Fair

"She blew me away, this 20-year-old girl who is like a mix of Jim Croce and Stevie Nicks...She needs to be heard, so I made an album to accomplish that." —Terrence Howard in USA Today

"Ilsey came in [and we] let it take off. Now, I could've been a megalomaniac — 'no, I want it like this' — but we wouldn't be here." —Terrence Howard in Rolling Out