Photo: Shanti Lleone
Shanti Lleone
Shanti Lleone
“‘Where are you from?’ has perplexed me,” says currently Milwaukee-based singer Shanti Lleone. It’s a question she has had some difficulty answering.
“I went to middle school and high school here," Lleone says of her tenure at Milwaukee High School of the Arts. “I don’t talk about it because I went to 13 different schools and lived in eight states and a couple countries,” she continues. “But my mom has lived here,” she adds, “and because of her, I have had a home base here for my adult life.”
Lleone currently sings with two local bands—'80s centric pop/rock revivalists 11. One Louder and the country-oriented Road Crew—and is half of an eclectic covers with duo with Michael Inloes as Shanti & Michael. That twosome concludes an intermittent, slightly COVID-19-interrupted (she caught a mild case) run of dates at Nashville North (1216 E. Brady St.) on Saturday Oct. 22 from 3-6 p.m.
The reception from audiences for shows in the three-act hustle she maintains has had a healing effect on Lleone, whose memories of Milwaukee had come mitigated by a less than ideal childhood.
“I really think that the biggest reason why I have not been able to say that Milwaukee is home is because of the abuse I had when I was here," Lleone confides regarding treatment she received from her father. “Just seeing the places I lived or went to school brought up really terrible memories. I have been working on re-creating the way I see this city.” Being a bringer of goods vibes with fondly remembered music has aided that process. “Meeting the people at the shows has really helped,” she offers of finding her current environment amenable. “Kind people. People who care about other people and doing things in a positive way, good people. That has really helped me feel more at home.”
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Pursuing Pop
“Home” has been a floating, even literally so, concept for Lleone even into her adulthood. After stints in New York City and Los Angeles pursuing pop music fame with her classically trained voice, she spent time as a cruise ship entertainer. Her 18-month experience that took her to 26 countries in the late 2010s turned out to be intensely fulfilling and aesthetically galvanizing.
“I had a phenomenal experience working as bandleader, lead singer and keyboard player for a band that was put together by the creators of the hit Broadway show Rock of Ages,” she says. “We had a massive outpouring of appreciation and support from fans. I have worked with celebrities for years, and this experience was musically what really gave me so much satisfaction in my heart, just amazing.” She had wanted to bring the same kind of show to Milwaukee, but a bout of apparently travel-related illness that nearly took her out—"I was on my death bed for eight months”—has thus far kept her from fulfilling that goal. Upon recuperating, she spent a few months living in Paris before coming home to help out her mother.
But what was that Lleone said about working with celebrities?
Deals Unsigned
“I have had five record label deals. I never signed. The first one was with Ruff Riders; the last one was with Interscope,” avers Lleone. And though she has yet to ink a recording contract, she has been in the proximity of professionals from a wide swath of pop and hard rock. “I performed with Yes and members of Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper. I have recorded with producers and written with writers of Christina Aguilera, Black Eyed Peas, Diane Warren, The Pussycat Dolls, Macy Gray, LMFAO, Lady Gaga, and on and on.” Within that whirlwind of activity, she also won a songwriting award in a competition sponsored by music trade magazine Billboard and place in the International Songwriting Competition, So, with all her demonstrable talent and resume credits, why hasn’t Lleone ascended to greater notoriety?
“I have been held captive in a room for three days by a top exec of a major label. I have been pinned down and sexually attacked by a major, known producer. I have been asked countless times if I would ‘make music with them’ to determine if we could make music together: sexual requests,” she says. Of those unsavory carnal encounters and other ethically lax dealings she has in the music business, she declares, “The industry if full of a matrix of people connected in a multitude of ways through shady deals, practices, lies and greed such that if you make a ripple it can break an entire webbing of foundation for you and you will be pushed out. There is a ton more I can say about this, but this is perhaps not the best forum.”
Others who have gone through what Lleone has may have professionally given up on music. Personal resilience and a realization of the good have motivated her beyond the personal and professional horrors to which she has been subjected. “I believe that most people, anywhere, want to feel and find avenues to express their love, pain, sadness through a collective musical experience,” she affirms of the power and joy of performing nowadays.
As for the recording deals she left unsigned in light of where she is artistically now, she philosophizes, “The real challenge— and in truth, the real job of an artist—is to find their own voice. And getting a deal won’t do that unless you found it before you get it. I got deals so easily and so quickly and never developed my own voice as an artist. I am doing that now.”
