Source: Veruca Salt Official Website
NAME: Louise Lightner Post
ROLE IN BAND: Singer, songwriter, guitar goddess
BIRTHDATE: December 7, 1966
BIRTHPLACE: St. Louis, MO
RAISED: St. Louis, MO, lived in New York, NY, and Chicago, IL
EDUCATION: Barnard College in New York, majored in English
CURRENT HOME: Los Angeles, CA
RESUME: A few singing groups as a youth, joined John Cusak's "New Crime" acting group. Co-founded Veruca Salt in 1993, still remains in the band.
PREVIOUS JOBS: Waitress
BACKGROUND: "My dad calls me 'Woosa'. When I was little, he used to sing to that song to me: 'Every little breeze seem to whisper Louise/Birds in the trees seem to twitter Louise'. I'm from St.Louis, Missouri. I guess I'm kind of like Dorothy from 'Wizard Of OZ'. I fall asleep in the poppies a lot, and get sidetracked by sweet creatures, and take pity on them, and then start to need them for my perfectionist, and a Sagittarius."
B I O G R A P H Y
My name is Louise. I sing and play guitar for Veruca Salt. I was born in St. Louis, Missouri, where classic rock is a food staple like mashed potatoes or meat. My first records were by Ringo Starr, The Mamas and the Papas, as well as David Bowie's Changes One, Pink Floyd's The Dark Side Of The Moon, and the Beatles' Abbey Road. When I was little I idolized Michelle Phillips and Stevie Nicks. Then came Prince. At 18 I discovered the Velvet Underground and moved to New York City. A friend lent me her acoustic guitar and I started writing songs as a remedy for a broken heart.
In 1989 I made a mad bolt for Chicago with the intention of starting a band, but ended up in a theater company. After that terrifying experience, playing guitar in front of people was a breeze. I found my spiritual soulmate in Nina Gordon in January of 1992, and we embarked on this journey involving spiders, nightmares and car wrecks. It took us a year and a half to find our rhythm cohorts, Steve and Jim, and to deem ourselves ready to play a show.
Nina and I write the songs separately and then bring them into rehearsal, where they are opened up for arrangement ideas, other parts, etc. We appropriated the name Veruca Salt from a character in Roald Dahl's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. She is the demanding little girl who is punished for her overwhelming greed by being thrown down the garbage chute--not to be confused with Violet Beauregard, who chews the experimental gum and blows up into a blueberry.
With the band Nina and I have the luxury of making sense of our lives through song. Someone recently said that American Thighs as a whole seems to mark a loss of innocence. There's some food for thought.