Early life Johnson was born in New Westminster, British Columbia and raised in nearby Coquitlam.[4] The sixth of ten children, Johnson says her family embraced the arts and being creative. One brother is an actor and screenwriter, a sister is a stage actress, and her brother Brendan is a singer-songwriter and music producer with whom she often collaborates. From age three, Johnson often sang for her large extended family. By age seven, she was receiving vocal training, participating in festivals with her local youth choir, and giving solo performances at school and community functions. She entered talent contests and festivals, winning a National Anthem Contest at the age of 11, with her rendition of the Canadian National Anthem, "O Canada", heard on national television. This resulted in radio and television interviews, as well as interest from management. That year, she was voted Best Anthem singer of the season by the Vancouver Sun.[5] Locally, Johnson was often referred to as the "West Coast Celine"[6] and sang the Canadian National Anthem at games for the NHL's Vancouver Canucks and the NBA's Vancouver Grizzlies. She performed at charity events and fairs around the province, in addition to the BC Summer Games. She opened the Variety Club show singing a duet with Bob McGrath, sang the first set of songs at the Molson Indy (a major car race), and entertained on New Year's Eve at Planet Hollywood at the age of 12.[5] Career 1999–2003: Beginnings and So Weird Although Johnson was only focused on a music career at the time, she decided to pursue a career in acting at the age of 11, where she "walked into an acting agency and told them [she] wanted to sing". She landed auditions for commercials and a television pilot entitled "Most Talented Kids".[7] Johnson auditioned for the Disney Channel original series So Weird, which was casting for a lead actress who could also sing for the final season of the show. At the age of 13, Johnson replaced the lead character in the Disney Channel series So Weird for the show's final season. Johnson portrayed the lead role of Annie Thelen, which combined her acting and musical talents.[8] The role featured her singing alongside Mackenzie Phillips.[9] She showed an interest in songwriting, co-writing one of the songs for the show.[citation needed] On July 22, 2000, Johnson was featured in Billboard for the first time, she went on to be featured in sixteen different issues. [10] Her highest ranking was number two in "The Top 10 Favorite Artist Picks" for "The Most Popular New Talent on Broadband Talent Net" as of June 2, 2001 after 33 weeks on. Her song "Dream About You" charted six different times and came in at number one in "Radio Play Favorite Song Requests" for "The Most Listened-to New Tracks On Brandband Talent Net" on November 11, 2000. Her song, "Wishing On A Star", came in at number five in the same issue. Also "Sunshine Reigns" charted at number three on July 22, 2000. [11] In the year 2000, a song performed by Johnson entitled "Everything (Feels Like New)" was featured in the Disney Channel Original Movie The Other Me, starring Andrew Lawrence. A full studio version of the song was never released.[12] After the cancellation of So Weird, Johnson continued her interest in songwriting, co-writing with her brother Brendan Johnson. Several labels offered her contracts, but she held off, wanting more creative control and a hand in the songwriting. In 2001 Johnson teamed up with the production/songwriting team of Johnny Elkins and CJ Vanston. A song performed by Johnson entitled "Transparent Lies", was recorded for a compilation album titled 'Fill Your Head'. The album was compiled in order to help students with their SAT scores.[13] Her work with Vanston and Elkins featured a more bubblegum pop sound than what she preferred and ended around 2003. Johnson continued to work with her brother Brendan on demos. These were the types of songs included on the demo CD she sent to the executives of Instant Star with her audition tape.[citation needed] In 2002, Johnson shared the stage with David Foster, Michael Bublé, and Ed McMahon at a David Foster Foundation fundraiser.[14] 2004–07: Instant Star and Acting Roles This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Alexz Johnson with other members of the Instant Star cast. Image courtesy of Epitome Pictures Throughout 2004, Johnson made various appearances on Canadian television series including The Chris Isaak Show, The Collector, and Cold Squad. In 2005 she made guest appearances in the made-for-TV films including Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, as well as the role of Angel DeSousa in the Lifetime original movie Selling Innocence. In 2004 Johnson sent in an audition tape to the producers of Degra**i: The Next Generation for their upcoming show Instant Star. They were specifically looking for a Canadian teen actress/vocalist to play the lead role, Jude Harrison. The first audition tape Executive Producer Stephen Stohn received was Johnson's, and he was convinced she was perfect for the role.[15] After its first season, Instant Star was nominated for three Gemini Awards (the Canadian equivalent of the American Emmy Award) in the category of Best Children's or Youth Fiction Program or Series, including a nomination for Best Performance (Alexz Johnson). On August 28, 2007, the show received three more Gemini Award nominations, in the category of Best Children's or Youth Program or Series, including another for Best Performance (Alexz Johnson, in the episode, "I Fought the Law"). Johnson sang all of the songs that her character Jude, on Instant Star performed on the show. She recorded soundtracks for each of the four seasons of Instant Star: Songs from Instant Star, Songs from Instant Star Two, Songs from Instant Star Three, and Songs From Instant Star Four. She wrote or co-wrote five of the songs on the first season's soundtrack, including "24 Hours", "Let Me Fall", "Criminal, "Skin", and "That Girl", which Johnson had written before when she was fourteen. Most of the original recordings for the originally planned debut album were written by Johnson in early 2005, but she had yet to find a major label to help create and release the songs. In early 2006, Johnson announced she was leaving the indie Canadian label Orange Records that released the first two soundtracks to Instant Star, in search of something to showcase her as an artist and not her fictional counterpart, Jude Harrison. Johnson auditioned for the role of Julie Christensen in the thriller Final Destination 3. She showed up at the audition in an all-black, punk rockish outfit, later claiming that she was in a bad mood. The casting directors concluded she was a better fit for the role of Erin Ulmer, a character with a bad attitude. Her performance attracted praise from some critics, including one (writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer) who said: "The characters are so loathsome, you're glad to see them go. Except for two: the goth couple Ian (Kris Lemche) and Erin (Alexz Johnson). He's a cynical know-it-all, like Dennis Miller with black fingernails; she's like Parker Posey with raccoon mascara.."[16] In 2007, Johnson starred in the Lifetime movie, Devil's Diary, for which she received a Leo Award nomination, in the category of Best Lead Performance by a Female in a Feature-Length Drama.[17] 2008–09: Starting her music career On August 26, 2008, Johnson was nominated a third time for a Gemini award. On October 21, 2008, she won the Gemini Award for Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program or Series, for the Instant Star episode "Let It Be." Johnson continued with Instant Star for four seasons, and expected to return for a fifth. This was interrupted when CTV and The N both pulled funding following the fourth season, which led to the cancellation of the series. This allowed Johnson to go back to focusing on her music. After a showcase in New York City, Johnson met with several labels and producers and chose Capitol Records, which allowed her to work with Paul Buckmaster, though her brother was the main producer of the material at the time. In writing songs for the album, she worked with UK writers Martin Terefe and Sacha Skarbek as well as producer/songwriter Brio Taliaferro.[citation needed] On June 25, 2007, Johnson appeared on MTV Canada.[vague] She confirmed that all of her songs had been written and recorded. She planned on shopping for a label over the next few months and hoped to release the album in the winter. On February 15, 2008, she announced in her MySpace blog that she had signed a record deal with label Epic Records (part of the Sony BMG group), expecting the album to be released in the fall. Having heard the first six songs, Stephen Stohn, in his MySpace blog of February 16, 2008, commented that, "they are just incredibly good – very different from the songs you've come to know through Instant Star, much more rhythmic, with almost a world beat." In an interview in 2008,[18] she described her upcoming album as "pop with eclectic world rhythms and influences", citing influences from "older artists" such as Paul Simon, Kate Bush, and Annie Lennox, and saying that she was "trying to find a way to make those great older songs younger." The producer for the album became Greg Wells after Johnson was introduced to him through his brother Rob Wells, one of the songwriters for Instant Star. The new arrangement with Epic Records also affected the line-up of artists for the Instant Star 4 soundtrack, as the record label allowed her a maximum of four songs on Instant Star 4. In her MySpace blog of February 15, 2008, Johnson indicated that she was planning an extensive tour around her new album, saying of her songs that, "I can't wait to perform them live! Looking forward to seeing all of your faces!" Johnson also began working with multi instrumentalist Luis Conte and legendary strings expert Paul Buckmaster. Five songs were posted on her MySpace page by her record company on June 11, 2008. These songs were supposed to appear in her upcoming album and were entitled: "Easy", "Swallowed", "Chicago", "Golden", and "Running With the Devil". Johnson appeared in the hit CW series Smallville episode "Legion", as the super h**ne Saturn Girl. The episode aired on January 15, 2009. She was the second actress from Instant Star to appear in the show, the first one being Laura Vandervoort. She also appeared in the TV-movie version of the Lois Duncan novel Stranger with My Face, in which she plays twin sisters who were separated at birth. She stated that the filming—which included a dramatic scene in which her two characters conflict through astral projection, leading to a fall off a cliff and into a waterfall—was so mentally and physically demanding, that she felt like she could never take on another role like it again. It premiered on Lifetime Movie network on August 29, 2009. The director of Stranger with My Face, Jeff Renfroe, greatly praised what he saw when working with Johnson and her costar Andrew Francis. "They're both young actors who came from the school of working from the gut and not trying to intellectualize everything."[citation needed] In a February 2009 interview with the Times-Colonist, a newspaper in Victoria, British Columbia, Johnson said that her album was completely finished, noting that she was simply waiting for changes to be finalized with the new head of her label, Amanda Ghost, who had worked with Johnson on the album. She hoped to have the album out by September 2009, followed by tours through parts of Europe and North America.[citation needed] Before the album's release date, Epic Records removed Johnson from their Artist Lists. Johnson later gave clarification on her website that launched August 11, 2009,[19] saying "Epic has released over a third of their artists from their contracts and, la dee da... I'm one of those artists..." She also later clarified in an interview that the "head of the label who signed [her] ended up shifting to a different company. It led a lot of artists on Epic astray."[7] She confirmed that due to losing her deal with Epic, she would be releasing a different album independently with her brother Brendan producing. She said she hopes that her unreleased debut album with Epic would see the light one day, noting that for now, the songs are still tied up in the arrangement with Epic. The songs from this unfinished album; along with several other songs during Alexz's time with both Capitol & Epic have leaked in full online. 2009–11: Voodoo, Reloaded and internet promotion The independent release will be by the company which also runs her website – Laydee Spencer Music, Inc. On August 27, 2009, Johnson released a list of songs that are going to be on her album in alphabetical order, and later requested fans to go through the clips of five upcoming songs on her site, and to recommend which should be the lead-off single. The tracks posted were: "L.A. Made Me", "Hurricane Girl", "Voodoo", "A Little Bit", and "Trip Around the World". On December 1, 2009 it was announced that her debut album Voodoo would be released on March 30, 2010. The debut single, Trip Around The World, was released on February 2, 2010 along with a music video shot by Michael Maxxis. Johnson shared in an interview that her favourite songs of Voodoo are "Look at Those Eyes", "Voodoo", and "Gonna Get It".[20] Later in 2010, Johnson informed her fans through her Twitter account and her official website that all the songs from Voodoo would be remixed by The Demolition Crew due to lack of airplay. The Demolition Crew undertook to make the songs more radio-friendly. Reloaded, as the remix album's name is, was released on April 26, 2011. The first single, "Boogie Love (The Demolition Crew Remix)" was released on January 10, 2011 while the second one, "Look at Those Eyes (The Demolition Crew Remix)", was released on March 29, 2011. While awaiting the release of Reloaded, Johnson became a trending topic on Twitter for four days. This was due to the ABC Family television series Pretty Little Liars, playing "Time to Be Your 21", a song performed by Johnson in the series Instant Star, in the season finale. While trending on Twitter, she garnered attention from Demi Lovato and Nelly Furtado. Lovato has spoken several times about Johnson being her inspiration to start a career in music, while Furtado spoke about her single "Look at Those Eyes" calling it "an event". With the help of the Twitter trend, Johnson made the homepage of several online sites, including L.A. Times Ministry of Gossip Blog.[21] Johnson created a YouTube account where she posts videos of herself performing along with her brother Brendan James Johnson, and Jimmy Robbins. On June 22, 2011 Johnson held two live concerts on Stage It for fans around the world. The concerts were performed online via webcam along with her band "The Bed". On June 24, 2011 it was announced that Johnson was the new voice of television series Degra**i: The Next Generation Season 11 new opening theme song. The idea came naturally as Demacio "Demo" Castellón was producing the track and asked her if she could contribute to it.[22] 2011–13: The Basement Recordings, Skipping Stone and Live From The Skipping Stone Tour Johnson has revealed that she is writing for her next album and hoping to enter the studio by the end of the Summer to start recording. Johnson and her brother, Brendan Johnson, released a digital album of demos entitled, The Basement Recordings, on August 26, 2011. In October, via Twitter, Johnson announced her plans to release an EP featuring new material, and confirmed on October 29, that she was in New York filming the music video for her new single Skipping Stone. Johnson confirmed that her EP, Skipping Stone would be out on January 24, 2012. She also confirmed that it would originally be a digital release, and following her Kickstarters Campaign, a physical release would follow. The video for Skipping Stone was released in December. Beginning on January 24, 2012, Johnson launched a Kickstarter Campaign in order to raise funds for her upcoming U.S tour. She set her goal for $30,000 in 60 days. For different money denominations, Johnson is offering prizes. Examples include, digital downloads of her upcoming EP, Skipping Stone, signed T-shirts and CDs, signed scripts and clothing from Instant Star, concert tickets, personalized emails and phone calls, live performances, dinner and a broadway show, etc. Johnson unexpectedly reached her goal within 24 hours, confirming her ability to tour during the summer of 2012. Johnson reached $50,000 on day three, allowing her the opportunity to expand the tour and travel overseas. All money donated goes toward touring, recording, merchandise, and anything music related.[23] The sequel to the 2011 demo album The Basement Recordings, named The Basement Recordings II was released on May 1, 2012. On February 22, 2013, Johnson released the third installament of the series, The Basement Recordings III. On October 26, 2012, Johnson released a trailer for The Skipping Stone Tour Documentary which chronicles her summer on tour. Johnson released the documentary, a live album, Live From The Skipping Stone Tour, and a photo book containing photos from The Skipping Stone Tour on December 4, 2012.[24] 2013–present: Spring tour, Heart EP and Let 'Em Eat Cake On July 5, 2012, Johnson hinted via her official Twitter that she was beginning official work on her second studio album. She initially planned to release it in the first three months of 2013. On August 22, 2012 Johnson posted a video from a recording session for the upcoming album.[25] It was said that the album would be produced by David Kahne. Alexz has also worked with Bleu, Boots Ottestad, Wax Ltd, Jamie Hartman, Theo Katzman, and her brother Brendan James Johnson, who produced her debut album Voodoo, on writing for the upcoming album. Johnson launched a North American joint tour with Charlene Kaye in the spring of 2013. Misty Boyce and Jay Stolar also joined Johnson and Kaye.[26] However Johnson later announced that she would ask for her fans to fund her next studio project through pledgemusic.com. According to the site, Johnson has managed to gather 150% of the money needed for the release of her second album. People who pledged money on the album will receive digital copies of the album (as well as multiple bonuses depending on the amount they paid) on an undisclosed date. On Christmas Day (December 25), Johnson released the lead single from the album, "American Dreamer," [27][28]exclusively to pledgers, with the song's being released to iTunes the following week. On January 29, 2014, Johnson released a 4-track EP, the Heart EP, exclusively to pledgers. It includes the already released "American Dreamer" as well as "This Is Heartache," "Nothin' On Me," and "Thank You For Breaking My Heart."[29] Johnson later re-released the single and EP digitally with new cover art, and a physical edition of the EP became available for her later tours. While the EP was originally intended to be an album sampler, Johnson clarified in an interview that the EP will stand alone as its own work and that the album will feature all new tracks. Johnson was part of a European tour in support of the album in early 2014, opening for Ron Pope and Wakey!Wakey!.[30] Following this tour, Johnson opened for MAX on a North American tour. Natty Cakes has confirmed the album's name as Let 'Em Eat Cake and that they had been working on the album cover. Pledgers received digital copies of the album on October 7, 2014. The album was officially released a week later. Alexz announced the Let 'Em Eat Cake Tour! Tour! which will last from October till December. She will be joined by Jared & the Mill as well as Patrick Droney as a special guest. Beginning in February and ending in March 2015, Alexz completed a five-week Residency at The Hotel Cafe in Hollywood, CA.[31] Influences and Musical style In an interview Johnson said, "I love pop music, but kind of eclectic, creative pop." She has said her influences include Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Paul Simon, and Annie Lennox.[32] She has also given respects to Jason Mraz, The Civil Wars, and Sara Bareilles.[33] Johnson as of March 3, 2014 was quoted in an interview with Fearless Radio saying "I love interesting voices. I love Rickie Lee Jones, I think she's an amazing lyricist and song writer. Annie Lennox is a "strong woman and she wasn't afraid to be really eccentric and who she was." "It's nice to see singers that find sensuality and s**uality and femininity and all those key words, I feel like it's nice to have that, not so obvious, it's nice when it comes from a different place, and I feel like it's important that that is out there as well in the music industry." Philanthropy This section of a biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) During 2001, Johnson worked with World Vision, and had a section on her official site where fans could order shirts with a design done by Johnson and featuring her autograph. There were production problems and the shirts were never sent out. Johnson made an apology on her site and provided refunds to everyone who ordered one.[34] In 2002, she performed as the opening act at Wayne Gretzky's celebrity dinner and auction, held in Edmonton, Alberta, to raise funds for the Ronald McDonald children's charity. During the peak of her run on So Weird, Johnson ended up performing and visiting the Nashville Kids Fair where she also hosted the event. During her time in Nashville, Johnson visited ill children in a local hospital. The trip was made as a part of an outreach by Disney Channel, and Johnson visited the children with the dog who starred in the Disney original film Air Bud.[35] During 2002 and 2003, Johnson focused on her music, and decided to perform with several charitable organizations. She worked with David Foster, opening for his charity events for the David Foster Foundation. After the season premiere of the second season of Instant Star on The N she also did a public service announcement for Second Harvest, which had been a**isting victims of Hurricane Katrina. On November 21, 2008, Johnson was a special guest performer for a Women in Leadership (a Vancouver organization promoting women's role in the media) foundation called SuperWomen & Friends—A Red Carpet Gala.