Albums: Instant Star TV Series Soundtrack, Songs From Instant Star Two, Songs From Instant Star Two

Alexz Johnson (born November 4, 1986) is a Gemini Award-winning Canadian actress and singer/songwriter known for playing the lead role of Jude Harrison in the hit teen drama series Instant Star, where her performances have been three times nominated for a Gemini Award, winning the award in October 2008. She is also known for her roles in Final Destination 3 and So Weird, and for her portrayal of Saturn Girl in Smallville. Johnson first enrolled in singing lessons at age 6, and took classical vocal training (including opera) for at least 8 years, much of it from Joseph Shore, an acclaimed operatic baritone and music educator in the Vancouver area.

She is said to have a four-octave range. She also showed an interest in songwriting, and co-wrote one of the songs for So Weird. After the show ended, she continued her interest in songwriting, co-writing with her brother Brendan.

(They are currently working on Alexz's solo album.) She also learned to play the guitar. She worked as a demo singer on various projects, completed a demo of her own music to ship around to music labels, and opened for David Foster at his charity events. Soon after the airing of Instant Star Season 2, two songs were leaked online.

Both songs feature Tyler Kyte who plays "Spiederman" on Instant Star. The songs are entitled "Skips" in which Tyler plays piano and sings background vocals, and "Soft Spoken" written by him and sung as a duet with Alexz. After Johnson appeared on So Weird, there was interest in signing her to a record deal, but she preferred to wait for the right deal which would allow her more creative freedom.

After recording the soundtrack albums for Instant Star 1 and 2 with the Orange Record Label in Toronto, she negotiated a deal for a solo album with Capitol Records. However, with the merger of the Capitol and Virgin labels within the EMI Group, there was a shake-up, leaving her without the support she had anticipated for her solo album. The arrangement with Capitol records was in place long enough to affect the line-up of artists for the Instant Star 3 soundtrack, as her record label allowed her a maximum of four songs on Instant Star 3, for reasons which remained unexplained.

Most of the work on the solo album has been completed. She worked on it for several months in 2006, co-writing songs with her brother Brendan, who writes and produces music. There are two updates on her early work on the album from Stephen Stohn the Executive Producer of Instant Star - one saying that "she's written stacks of songs for her CD" (June 17), and the other saying that he had listened to some of "the rough demos" (November 8) which, in his view, were "absolutely stunningly amazing" In writing songs for the album, she has also worked with UK writers Martin Terefe (KT Tunstall, Jason Mraz) and Sasha Skarbek (James Blunt), as well as producer/songwriter Brio Taliaferro (Sugababes, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, James Blunt).

On June 25, 2007, Johnson appeared on the Canadian version of MTV. She confirmed that all of her songs have 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.

She said she was in no hurry for it to be released. As of October 2007, as confirmed by her current management -- Watchdog Management -- she remained without a label, but was very close to finding a new home for her music. On February 15, Alexz Johnson announced in her MySpace blog that she had signed a record deal with label Epic Records, part of the Sony BMG group.

With the songs already written, Alexz Johnson is currently half-way through the studio work for the album, and expects to be finished recording by the end of March, 2008. Having heard the first six songs, Stephen Stohn, in his MySpace blog of Feb. 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." The producer for the album is Greg Wells - a Canadian (from Peterborough, Ontario), who now lives and works in Los Angeles as a producer / instumentalist / songwriter.

As noted in Stephen Stohn's blog, Wells has previously worked with Pink, Natasha Bedingfield, Michelle Branch, Jewel, Mika, and Celine Dion, among others. In her MySpace blog of February 15, 2008, Alexz Johnson indicated that she is 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!" On June 11, 2008, Johnson posted five new songs ("Swallowed", "Running With the Devil", "Chicago", "Easy" and "Golden") on her MySpace site.

Noteworthy are the few songs written with Johnson's album in mind that have leaked illegally online and are up for download on various fansites: "Mailman", "Steal My Love", "It Isn't Like You", "Shout", "Spin", as well as "What Rock Have I Been Under". Late-2008 a video was being circulated that featured Alexz Johnson in NYC working with song-writer Toby Gad, with whom she wrote her song "Steal My Love" with. Most of the song has since been leaked online.

Gad has worked with singers Beyoncé, Fergie, Brandy, The Veronicas, Jojo, Keke Palmer, and Miley Cyrus among others.

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