biography.html

Here's a long story....
I was born Lana Renee Lynn Spilsbury in Mesa, Arizona on July 12th, 1974 to Ron and Linda Spilsbury. I was their second girl, born two years after my sister Lisa. We lived in Tucson, then I moved out to San Diego after I turned twenty one. That's where Last of the Juanitas was formed (the rock band I played bass guitar in for a decade!) and where I started playing country music. It was me trying to learn chords on guitar by playing along to old country records, and having late night after hour parties with a few of my girlfriends singing backup harmonies and teaching me old bluegrass songs. I got hooked. After we moved up to Portland, I had written a few of my own songs, and the Juanitas boys encouraged me to start a real country band. Bryan, Johnny and I grabbed Dylan Reilly for harmonica, Catreena Stone for backup vocals, and Jude Webber to play bass. So then there was The Juanita Family and Friends.
We were babysitting some equipment for our recording engineer friend, Pat Keneally, and he volunteered a recording session in trade, so we made our first recording. It had a few of my songs and a bunch of old covers. There were 200 copies made, on cassette, and Last of the Juanitas handed them out on tour. (One of the songs was eventually used on the soundtrack for indie horror flick "Charm"). Every once in a while I run into someone who has a copy, and I'm surprised. There's one tape left that I know of, and it goes back and forth between Dylan and me. I don't know who'se got it currently.

    We have gone through some lineup changes. Lord knows it isn't easy to have everyone avaiilable for one of my hairbrained shoestring tours. Especially when there's that whole trying to pay the rent thing involved. Thankfully, I've never had a huge problem getting a crew together for tours, though. Most of us feel like we're suffocating unless we've got the freeway breathing life into us. And screw rent, anyway. But whoever the lineup may be, we have fun and I appreciate all the talented folks I've been able to play with over the years. The most solid lineup for a while has been Johnny on drums, Dylan on bass, James Curley on guitar and mandolin, and Jeremy Terry on slide. Plus we've had the pleasure of having some awesome backup singers, Ms Holly Morgan and Ms Emily Butler for local and regional shows. Both ladies as well as Cari Dolyniuk sang on the CD. It was Dylan, James, Johnny and me over in Europe with a flown-in Holly for the BBC session. And Jeremy has circled the US with us a few times. We've also had Ben Wildenhaus to play piano or slide when we can, and sometimes my sweetheart, Chris Coyle on drums, and for tours. I've recently added Mr. Kevin Wharton on bass for some Washington shows. Confused yet? OK! Moving on...
    Best thing about this band is getting to play music and travel with my best friends. I'm also pleased to see the diversity of our fan base. We’ve played all kinds of places, to folks from all walks of life. It makes us all incredibly happy to look back and realize that we've played the 4th St house in San Pedro to punk rockers, and also throughout the Pendleton Roundup out on Main Street to cowboys! We believe strongly in the power of music to bring people together, and have seen it work first hand. It’s huge to us!! Singing a song like “Burn your house down” in front of a roadhouse crowd in Phoeba, Mississippi, or pulling out a gospel number for a bunch of indie kids at an art space, it really is an incredible feeling. We're in this thing for life. I'm lucky to be surrounded by friends who are each so special to me. Playing music with these folks is just too damn fun, and I'll never give it up!
     But here's where it all really started.........

My dad was a crew member during the filming of Honeysuckle Rose. My first trip on an airplane took us out to Austin for a few weeks where we stayed with Dad at the hotel, and got to meet the band and cast. Pretty neat. I remember dancin on my dad's feet at that rehearsal. And Paul English riding up on his motorcycle. They were teaching Amy Irving some of the songs for the film. Everyone was so sweet to us. I remember my mom being really happy about how humble they all were, and kind to the crew families. A virtue that I can certainly apreciate now that I'm grown up. Thanks ,Willie and Family! Thanks, Mom and Dad!