History:
Cain's ancestors were honky tonk players who roamed the Midwest and South before settling in a small town near Kansas City. Her musical playground consisted of a funeral parlor, the church where her mother worked as secretary, and her grandparent's tavern, where the jukebox paid homage to America's dizzying embrace of early rock & roll. By eighteen, Cain had built a savings playing organ for weddings and funerals and sought to make a fresh start. Having inherited the wanderlust of her father, a self-taught musician and sometime drifter, she plotted her escape and headed West on the interstate.
In California, she earned a degree in Art, studying mixed-media sculpture, voice and performance along the way. She founded a country music band steeped in early Loretta Lynn and Chuck Berry nostalgia and, as Bitsy Lee, garnered a reputation as a fiery "Exene-meets-Mae West" performer. Cain eventually dropped the pseudonym and reimagined her sound, adding 50's and 60's girl-group and indie rock influences (Eleni Mandell, Cat Power, PJ Harvey) to the mix.
With a crystalline vocal and direct lyrical style, Cain's emotional charms and unforgettable performances on the club circuit attracted the attention of Greg Eklund (The Oohlas, Everclear) and Geoff Walcha (Everclear, Kevin Garrett, Four Star Mary) who co-produced her debut release Interstate Hum ("moody, subtle and intelligent ... and just occasionally, a little bit Patsy Cline" Americana UK). With Eklund on drums, Jeff Palmer (Radar Brothers, Checksum, Sunny Day Real Estate) and Stuart Mathis (The Wallflowers, Five For Fighting, Jewel) joined the team on bass and guitar. Select tracks were licensed for feature films Broken Hill, Hurt and Rift and included on the Los Angeles Film Festival Summer Music Sampler and radio programs Songriver and Roots Revival.
In 2010, Cain recorded a small collection of folk rock/power pop gems entitled Picture Show. The self-produced project was engineered and performed by her band with guest performances by Chuck Lindo (The American Professionals) and East Bay Ray (Dead Kennedys) and polished by mixing/mastering team Geoff Walcha and Michael Hateley. A music video for Cain's rock ballad "Joanna" was directed and shot by Jeremy Passmore (Special) and debuted on YouTube preceding the record release. Her punk-tinged "Hole in My Whole World" earned a prominent placement in the raucous short film My Own Private Demon by writer-director Barbara Stepansky. Fresh on the heels of Picture Show, Cain began a collaboration with producer/musician Sean Hoffman (Loch & Key, American Music Club) on a cache of previously unrecorded songs and new material for her next full length record.
