Michal is a singer/songwriter who's played classical piano since the age of six and wrote her first song at the ripe old age of thirteen. Her free-spirited parents were spending a year on a kibbutz, in the ancient Canaanite city of Ashkelon, Israel, where Michal was born and named after the Biblical wife of David. She has come a long way in her 19 years, geographically and emotionally. "My parents are both into the visual arts and my sister's a ballerina. Having grown up surrounded by the arts, it never occurred to me that I'd be doing anything else than what I'm doing."
Her family moved to New York City when Michal was one. Growing up on the edge of Harlem on Manhattan's West Side, she studied classical piano on a scholarship. As Nirvana exploded on the scene, she was inspired to create her own songs at an early age. "Nevermind was the first album I ever bought. I cranked it when my parents went out and screamed along to 'Lithium.' We got more than a few complaints from the neighbors."
After starting high school, Michal desperately wanted to become part of the music program. Luckily, she's the kind of girl who doesn't take no for an answer, admitting "My high school choral coach didn't think I could sing, and I couldn't even get into the jazz chorus, but somehow I was determined to be a part of it. So I talked my way in by playing piano as an accompanist. I also learned to play drums so I could be in the school band, and I played piano in the orchestra and chamber music groups."
By this time she felt restricted by the formality of the classical world. After teaching herself to play guitar and sing, Michal rebelled by turning to the freedom of rock 'n' roll. "It wasn't until I picked up the guitar that I was able to find a new outlet in the local rock scene. So one way or another my life has always been filled with music." She quickly became part of the Greenwich Village Anti-Folk scene, a fertile breeding ground for edgy new talent, finding a home at clubs such as the Sidewalk Cafe on Avenue A.
"I always felt alone in high school. Most of the kids were really mean to me and I didn't understand why. I hung out in the 'freak hallway' with the kids who smoked pot and didn't go to class. When I discovered the downtown music scene, I finally found a place where I fit in. Everyone had the same obsession with music as I did. High school became more bearable." During her senior year she worked as a sound technician at Sidewalk Cafe, and played more and more gigs at local venues.
One of her favorite haunts was the now defunct Tramps Cafe. "I introduced myself to the owner, Steve Weitzman, and made sure that he knew who I was. He let me hang out backstage and he passed my demo around to his friends at different labels. Soul Asylum played the club a lot in the early nineties. "The first album I bought may have been Nevermind, but the first album I stole was Grave Dancer's Union."
After one of Soul Asylum's concerts at Tramps, Steve introduced Michal to front man Dave Pirner. "I was so afraid of him, but I gave him my tape anyway, convinced it would end up in a dumpster behind his hotel. A couple of weeks later he called me. Dave expressed serious interest in producing my material and we talked for hours. I ended up asking him to go with me to my senior prom which was a week away. He told me he'd get back to me on that. Ten minutes later the phone rang and he said 'my mom gave me permission to go.' The prom was awful. Kids that hadn't talked to me in six years were suddenly falling all over me. Then the DJ started spinning 'Runaway Train.' And that's when we made our exit."
Michal was happy to graduate. "My high school years ended and I had survived. I was playing out constantly and started to build a following. I played this one gig at 2am on the last day of the CMJ Music Marathon in '97 at a club called Arlene's Grocery. It seemed as if the entire industry came out to see me play. I started to get a lot of serious label attention and ended up signing a deal with Columbia Records a week before my seventeenth birthday. I didn't know what I was going to get for my birthday, but I never expected a record deal! I told my parents that I was deferring matriculation to Yale for a while."
Her debut album, Sky with Stars, on the RPM Records/Columbia label was co-produced by Michal and Tony Shimkin. Additional tracks were produced by Dave Pirner. The album was mixed by her longtime idol Chris Lord-Alge. Seventeen magazine's Heidi Sherman had this to say about the album in the magazine's July 2000 issue: "Sounds like: A more eloquent Fiona Apple, with a stronger voice... she hits her stride when she makes melancholy sound majestic... Michal may have been weaned on Chopin, but she was saved by rock 'n' roll."
"I work harder than anyone I know, but I am so blessed and I would rather be exhausted than bored. I don't know if what I'm doing is the responsible thing to do--I probably should have gone to college and gotten a legitimate job, but I'm really happy following my passion and I can't imagine doing anything else."
