Everybody makes mistakes. Nouela Johnston’s was signing a record contract when she was barely 18 years old without reading the fine print. In 2004, Johnston was the lead singer/keyboardist for Mon Frere, a piano rock trio that won that year’s EMP Sound Off! competition (an annual youth-oriented battle of the bands). With that victory and some positive local press, Mon Frere secured a record deal with Tacoma-based Cake Records. But in 2007, after an EP and one full-length, Johnston abruptly quit the band, announcing the breakup via MySpace—no explanation, no last show. Nothing left except a pricey contractual obligation to Cake Records.
“I broke up the band in the worst way possible,” Johnston says, sipping a cup of tangerine-ginger tea at a busy Ballard coffee shop. “I just freaked out. I was like, ‘I don’t want to play the show we have next week. I don’t want to talk about this band ever again—it’s done.’
“You’re not supposed to do that if you want to continue a career in music, and I did it. I called the label and was like, ‘I want out; I don’t want anything to do with this.’ And they were like, ‘Well, you owe us thousands of dollars.'”
Mon Frere were finished, but Johnston was unable to legally release any new material without first buying herself out of the Cake contract to the tune of $5,000.
“They gave us a contract ‘memo,’ like the bullet points, and we signed that,” she explains. “We didn’t actually sign a full contract, so [when I quit the band] it was a shit-ton of legal messes.”
So she started working as a musician for hire. She played keyboards in Say Hi for about a year—touring the United States and Germany—and she appeared as a guest keyboardist and vocalist on the Fall of Troy’s Manipulator, playing a few shows with them as well. She also had a short stint as the touring drummer for the SoCal-based rock band Creature Feature.
But all the while, Johnston was writing new songs of her own. She called her new solo project People Eating People (the product of trying to come up with the worst band name possible, she says), and it was everything that Mon Frere were not.
Mon Frere were a rock band with touches of punk and blues—heavy drumbeats, distorted guitars, and overdriven keyboards—and their age-appropriately juvenile lyrics dealt with stuff like blood, vampires, and orcs (asked what those songs were about, Johnston laughs and says, “I don’t even know”).
Johnston’s first batch of People Eating People songs didn’t hide behind heavy distortion or punk-rock posturing. The lyrics were direct, inspired by whatever was eating her at the time, including unrequited crushes, shitty so-called friends, and self-centered assholes.
“I wrote the songs to make myself feel better,” she says. “I wrote ‘For Now’ because I felt like shit and I decided to write a song that I would enjoy listening to. I’m not like that, as a person, I don’t talk about dramatic things. I think [People Eating People] has helped my brain; it’s helped me feel better about myself.”
The project also finds Johnston returning to her roots as a classical and jazz pianist. Both her parents are musicians—her mother has a doctorate in piano performance from Juilliard, and her father is a composer who currently teaches music on a South Korean army base—and Johnston was giving piano recitals by the time she was just 4 years old.
“I was getting tired of spazzing out onstage every day,” she says of her decision to end Mon Frere. “I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life.”
Once she had a small batch of new songs, Johnston recorded a demo that made it into the hands of Nabil Ayers, founder of the Control Group (and current label manager for 4AD), who offered to put out her full-length record if she wrote more material. With his legal advice, and $5,000 of her own money, Johnston finally got out of her contract with Cake Records, and the Control Group released People Eating People’s self-titled debut full-length last November.
The album is her finest work yet.
“I Hate All My Friends” begins every bit as pissed off as its title implies, with Johnston pounding against the keys, playing a fast and fiery melody, while all but screaming the lyrics. Her touch softens toward the song’s end, slipping into an almost piano-lounge vibe before building back up to a final crescendo of piano and drums.
“For Now” starts more preciously, with Johnston playing dainty, fluttering piano notes as she sings about longing for an unrequited love. The preciousness evolves into powerfully emotive passion on the chorus, with Johnston belting out, “One day I’m gonna make you love me!”
Johnston says that sharing such personal songs with strangers is something she’s still getting used to.
“Playing [these songs] live for the first time was terrifying,” she says. “Clearly, the songs are about my life, so it’s very strange to get onstage, knowing no one in the audience knows who you are and has ever heard your music before, and be like, ‘I’m going to tell you the most personal things in my life.’
“I still get nervous,” she continues. “But the more people who come to the shows and know the songs makes it a lot less nerve-racking.”
Johnston—who has the words “FUCK YOU” tattooed on the inside of her bottom lip—is a bit of a firecracker both on and off the stage. More than once she’s scolded the crowd for being too loud or shushed them in the middle of a song. “If they’re loud and obnoxious, my brain freaks out,” she says. “Then I start saying mean things to the audience.”
When she recently played the Showbox at the Market for the first time, opening for the Presidents of the United States of America’s sold-out show, at the end of “For Now” she chided, “Thanks to everyone who wasn’t talking. I can tell everyone in this area is pretty awesome.” Gesturing in the opposite direction, she said, “Everyone in that area is ruining my Showbox dream.”
While it’s easy for the quieter numbers to get lost in a noisy bar, these songs are undeniable. “Rain, Rain,” both the best song on the album and the most striking live, is a spirited pop number about letting go of past mistakes (like, say, old record contracts). It starts out with delicate and bright staccato piano notes that land like little raindrops, building to a flurry of notes and the confident declaration “I deserve to be washed clean of this.”
When Johnston plays the song live, she sings it with a huge, sincere smile on her face. It’s a poignant statement of where Johnston is now as an artist—she’s paid her dues and is ready to begin anew. Releasing the best record of her career isn’t a bad place to start. 
Awesome article, and Nouela is well-deserving of the praise. But is it really fair of Megan to be covering her all the time when the two are friends? It casts doubt on her assertions, though they’re all completely true.
Awesome article, and Nouela is well-deserving of the praise. But is it really fair of Megan to be covering her all the time when the two are friends? It casts doubt on her assertions, though they’re all completely true.
I’ve been writing about local music for about 10 years–I’ve become friends with some of the people I’ve written about. It wouldn’t be fair to ignore someone’s talent simply because I call them a friend–friend or not, this record is fantastic. And you seem to agree. So I don’t really see the point in questioning my motives or ability to write a fair article when you clearly feel that I did.
I’m sorry. Megan. pep is right. We can no longer eat cupcakes together. EVER AGAIN.
This record is Fantastic. I will fight you PEP impostor.
It’s less about your ability to write a good article than the effectiveness of that article. I think it’s just good form for a journalist to at least say something to the effect of “full disclosure: we’re friends.”
Again, for the cheap seats: this is just me posing a question about journalistic integrity. It’s totally not a diss to Nouela or even to Megan.
mom?
Hey Nouela, I was really glad to read this story today. Best of luck with everything. I remember seeing you at the EMP sound-offs and really digging your voice/keyboards. Someone in my CD pile, I’ve got the silver CDR with ‘mon frere’ scrawled on it with black felt tip..
Nouela is one hot potato. I would run away with her to a distant land where we could shoot bb guns at our pop cans, pick flowers, sing songs, and make special romance. One day perhaps…
Since when did this become a Communist regime? Music critics can write about whoever the fuck they want without it being an issue of integrity. They’re not reporting news. There’s no equal coverage rule. Nouela is topical- awesome new album, sold out Showbox show, etc.
So if a critic likes someone personally and musically, and they happen to be doing something significant, not to mention the best work of their career, that critic should refrain from giving them the recognition (even you admit) they deserve, on the basis of what may be but actually isn’t an unfair bias towards that person and their music? Not quite.
There isn’t an ethical question here. There is an aesthetic one. And we all agree that Nouela’s music is amazing, so problem solved.
I was so happy to see this article in the Stranger this week. I was at the PUSA show and was very irritated with all of the people talking through your set. You were wonderful and I can’t wait to see you again soon.
To start: I saw PEP for the first time at some random chop suey show and had no clue about what to expect from Ms. Johnston post Mon Frere. I was loved what I heard, I listened to the songs on myspace repetitively and when the album was released I opted for the mp3 release as to have instant gratification.
Also, of any music writer at the Stranger Seling’s taste runs closest to my own and I love her style.
To continue: The first comment on this post didn’t seem inflammatory or abusive at all. And the article, while incredibly well-written, did seem biased even to a person who didn’t know that Johnston and Seling had a personal relationship. PEP deserves only good press but lip service almost detracts from the validity and cred, if you will, of the album.
To finish: My comment is a borderline diatribic rant but isn’t the point of having a forum like this one to allow opinions to be shared and question to be asked? Why jump to a defensive and dismissive stance? Why not acknowledge the fact that you felt insulted without dismissing somebody’s (valid) point out of hand. I mean, seriously, I know I’ve read reviews in publications like Pitchfork that lead or end with “by the way, I know this person” or even, “so, I went to college with the drummer’s brother in the nineties.”
Seattle is a little-big city, if you happen to have an interest in local music you meet people but why not say so… shit, even if it wasn’t in the article why not say, “Hey [commenter] PEP, you’re right, sometimes I eat cupcakes with this artist but she still kicks ass.”
I met Megan through the stranger. Through interviews, shows, etc. We didn’t go to college together, we didn’t know each other before my first band’s write-up. I really don’t think it’s necessary for her to warn the stranger readers that we eat cupcakes together once every few months. And that’s what comment threads are for anywhoooo, so YOU can warn the readers! yay.
If rock writers didn’t hype their friends who made music (or worked at labels), we probably wouldn’t have Patti Smith, Richard Hell, The Pretenders, Factory, Sub Pop, and about five hundred other great artists or companies. For a long time, the press’s fervent but minority voice needed to move things along beyond the intentions of “authentic” but inessential “non-connected” bands. And sometimes writers back the wrong — inessential — bands too. But People Eating People is a great band, and have a great record. If Megan didn’t do it at The Stranger, someone else would have (as in Eric, who recently did as well). But someone needs to make sure it gets done, and if it’s someone who knows the artist well, it’s beyond obvious that that coverage has some benefits for the reader. Contrary to passed along notions and supposed ethics by the sideline punters.
No offense, PEP. It’s a good question and people need to ask it more often. But the answer is a lot more complicated than it seems. I don’t know any great rock writer who doesn’t hang out with artists; I don’t know many great musicians who don’t have some friends who write for the music press. People are nervous about this kind of thing, but I grew up in a milieu where ten people did everything — play the show, cover the show, promote the show, review the show, review their friends’ records, write songs about their writer friends — and it was all kinds of what mainstream would think was “incestuous.” Think of the music scene more as a creative pool than a series of fixed positions. And when something isn’t as good as People Eating People being hyped, and someone not as great and boundary-respecting as Megan Seling writing about it, then it’s a good idea to question it. Even questioning it now was OK. It’s just not that problematic due to the quality of the coverage and subject.
That, my friends, is called a troll. Do not feed the troll.
A simple disclosure of your relationship to someone, if it goes beyond the typical music critic knows the players and operators in the scene socially bit–that you are friends more than just friendly–is critical in keeping your readers trusting you. Every one knows that rock critics cover their friends, but you just have to tell people, it doesn’t lessen the praise.