User:Heather Porcaro/sandbox

= Heather Porcaro = Heather Porcaro (b. June 8, 1978) is an American recording artist, music producer, film director, and actor based in Los Angeles, CA. She has written original songs featured in film, television, and live theater, has produced numerous others, and directed videos for several notable musicians over the past decade. Her debut singles will be released independently in late 2020, with her forthcoming full-length pending release in 2021.

Porcaro’s music combines influences of varying genres and cultures. Her work is known for intersecting the modes of theater, film, and music, and symbolically blurring the lines between art and life. Her extensive network of supporting artists begins with four generations of notable Pop and Jazz musicians in her immediate family, who have challenged and refined her approach to artistry. She cites inspiration from artists like Tom Waits, The Talking Heads, and Jonathan Richman in songs representative of “the surreal experience of life.” Her work boldly dances the line between epic drama and nostalgic whimsy, with impeccable artistry and contagious energy.

Family and Early Childhood
A fourth-generation musician, Heather Porcaro grew up immersed in the industry from a young age. Granddaughter to renowned session drummer Joe Porcaro, she grew up watching him perform with longtime friend Emil Richards, a pair that have been called “pillars of the percussion community in Los Angeles,” (Bozzio, “The Art of Drumming…”). In his lifetime, Joe Porcaro played on thousands of film scores, tv shows, and albums, supporting notable acts such as Natalie Cole, Don Ellis, Stan Getz, Madonna, and Pink Floyd, both independently and as part of “The Wrecking Crew.” He was a founder of both the Percussion Institute in Los Angeles (PIT), and the Los Angeles College of Music (LACMA), instilling his family with insurmountable standards for music.

Heather Porcaro’s father, Steve Porcaro, is a founding member of the Grammy-award winning band, Toto. Born the same year the band formed, she says “in many ways, Toto felt like a brother to me.” When Heather was in preschool, her father worked with Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson, and wrote the song “Human Nature” (later featured on Jackson’s Thriller) inspired by a bullying incident Heather experienced at school. Steve Porcaro pushed Heather relentlessly to find her own artistic voice and exercise technical skills that far exceeded the common standard. It came as no surprise that by age four, Heather was picking out melodies of her own on the piano.

After a divorce with Steve Porcaro, Heather’s mother remarried Ron Aniello, Grammy-nominated musician, producer, and owner of a recording studio in Los Angeles. From the time she was eight years old, she was exposed to Aniello’s work with musicians such as Bruce Springsteen, Shania Twain, and Lifehouse, and Heather contributed backup vocals for Aniello’s work with Wanting Qu, resulting in multiple Chinese hit singles.

Heather’s father later partnered romantically with American actress Rosanna Arquette (The Executioner’s Song, Desperately Seeking Susan, Pulp Fiction), introducing Heather to the inner workings of the film industry and leaving a lasting effect on her artistic perspective.

Her closest friendships from adolescence to early adulthood were nonetheless influential. Sierra and Planet Swan, daughters to Marlu and Billy Swan (Country Singer-Songwriter with the Billboard #1 hit, “I Can Help”), introduced her to the sounds of Sun Studios and the Tennessee music scene. She carpooled from school with Sheherah White, daughter of Barry White, in Barry’s gold Rolls Royce, and learned the significance of R&B and Hip Hop from the White family. Later, friendships with musician Aaron Embry and his brother Ethan developed into a romantic relationship with Ethan Embry (actor and television star, Sneaky Pete, Vegas Vacation, Empire Records) that carried her to the set of That Thing You Do! (1996). There, she began learning filmmaking and earned membership into the Screen Actor’s Guild, developing her passion for blending theater, music, and film.

Education
Growing up in a family and social circle of professional musicians, Heather’s rigorous study of music was less a chore than a lifestyle to her. She learned drums from her grandfather, Joe Porcaro, bass from family friend Carol Kaye, and piano from session musician Terry Trotter. She studied at Colburn Music Conservatory in Los Angeles, while living with her father who challenged her to master one Beatles’ song per week as “rent” for her stay. “There was actually a time in my life when I couldn’t go out with friends because I had to stay home and perform a Beatles’s song for my dad,” Heather laughs. It wasn’t long before Heather became determined to distinguish herself from her family of Pop and Jazz elite. The 90’s era of rebellious, gritty culture influenced her to move towards a more avant-garde aesthetic.

Heather developed a studio skillset while alternating time spent in both her father’s and her stepfather’s recording studios. She learned to record herself and began demoing songs, eventually gaining notoriety for scoring films. When she was approached to write original music for a theater production in San Francisco, she packed her bags and moved upstate, and began studying at the San Francisco Music Conservatory. Heather calls herself a life-long learner, highly committed to developing her craft.

Professional Career
Heather Porcaro kick-started her career in the mid-2000’s, when she caught the attention of Tony Berg, record producer and A&R representative at Geffen Records. Berg produced albums for Andrew Bird and Phoebe Bridgers among many others, and he and his engineer at the time, five-time Grammy award winner Shawn Everett, played enormous roles in developing her music.

Porcaro’s interdisciplinary background opened diverse opportunities that contributed to an unexpected rise to recognition in the Korean and Chinese audience. Through supporting, managing, and eventually running her own recording studio with her husband in Los Angeles, she co-wrote the song “The Way” for legendary Chinese pop star Faye Wong, and contributed heavily to Chinese recording artist Leah Dou’s debut. Porcaro recorded and produced Leah, who went on to earn a record-breaking 25,000 sales in three days, and filmed and directed her music video “My Days” at the request of Max Hole at Universal Music in London. The “My Days” music video became one of the most watched videos in China, driving Porcaro’s professional involvement in film and Art Direction. Throughout this time, Porcaro continued to write her own songs, though she had few intentions for them at the time.

Shortly after, Porcaro was unexpectedly diagnosed with Acoustic Neuroma, a rare condition with a coincidental appearance in her father, for which the required surgery risks the loss of hearing in the affected ear. After watching her father endure the condition with damages to his own hearing, Heather was compelled to narrow her focus. The result is a collection of singles to be released in 2020, for which she called upon a notable array of friends and family in the music industry to help propel the projects’ forward momentum.

Heather Porcaro’s newest collection of singles, “OH NO!”, “All Hands on Deck”, and “Charleston”, signal the artist’s transition “back to [herself] as an artist,” she says. The collection was produced by session guitarist Tim Young of the Late Show with James Corden, and Scott Seiver, touring drummer (Tenacious D) and soundtrack writer on The Hate U Give, HBO’s The Bronx, USA, and Fox’s The Great North coming 2021. It also features writing contributions from Michael and Ben Ford of the Nashville band Airpark. Heather calls the project one of the most collaborative she’s ever created -- in spite of having largely come to fruition during the isolating Covid-19 pandemic. 2020 will see all three of these singles released independently, as well as her first music video, “All Hands on Deck,” directed by filmmaker and musician Ariana Delawari.