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Shelly Peiken
Shelly Peiken was born in Freeport, Long Island, New York, and was interested in music even as a child. "When I was five, I had a little toy piano I played by ear. When that didn’t go away, my mother bought me a real one," she explains. Growing up, she loved the music of Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Hall & Oates. But her favorite was Carly Simon. "She was my biggest songwriting inspiration because she was extremely confessional and honest and personal. I wanted to make my own record, similar to the way she would tell stories."
Peiken enrolled at the University of Maryland. She didn’t enroll in a lot of music classes – just the "easy ones," she laughs. Her major was fashion design. "But every day after classes I ran up to the fine arts building and locked myself in a room with a piano. I’d write songs and fantasize about having a career, never realizing that people actually do." After college, she sought employment in the garment district in New York but realized it wasn’t what she wanted to do. "So I got a job waiting tables and played at clubs and hotel piano bars."
Peiken played in a band but found that too confining. "If you’re an artist, you need to know exactly what you want to say. I was doing a little bit of everything, which is a really good thing if I wanted to be a songwriter, but it wasn’t so good if I wanted to be an artist. People listening to me didn’t know where I was coming from."
Peiken got her first big break when Taylor Dayne recorded one of her songs on her first album. "That was lucky because it went platinum," says the songwriter. "It seemed so easy, like all albums go platinum. I was so wrong." Before she would have another hit in the U.S., Peiken had a number of successful songs in other countries. She first graced The Billboard Hot 100 in 1992 with "You’re All That Matters to Me," a Curtis Stigers song that peaked at No. 98 and spent one week on the chart. In 1997, she had her biggest hit to date when she wrote "Bitch" with Meredith Brooks. The single spent four weeks at No. 2.
"Right at that time, I was pregnant with my first and only wonderful child," says Peiken. "I had to step back and say, ‘Maybe the universe is trying to tell me that my number one is not a song, it’s my child." But Peiken was not to be denied her turn at the top of the chart. Ron Fair, then in RCA’s A&R department, heard her demo of a song called "What a Girl Needs" and grabbed it. His only suggestion: change "needs" to "wants." "We took a leap of faith and followed Ron’s suggestions," Peiken recalls. Christina Aguilera’s recording of "What a Girl Wants" went right to the top.
Peiken was home, reading a "Winnie the Pooh" book to her daughter when the phone rang. It was a friend at Arista who had been following the chart closely because Santana’s "Smooth" was No. 1. He called Peiken to let her know Aguilera’s single had knocked "Smooth" off the top of the chart. "I said, "Don’t get me wrong. I want to jump through the roof. But I’m reading a "Winnie the Pooh" book to my daughter and I can’t do it now. She’s still my number one. When I put her to sleep at 8:30, I’m going to go wild."
Peiken signed with peermusic in November 2000. "I was being pursued by big corporate publishers and I wasn’t sure that was a good fit for me. Peer is a small company and I felt a lot of love from them. I also loved that they have offices in a lot of cities and look after themselves. They feel a lot of pride in what they do and they work hard. It’s a good match."
Peiken had another No. 1 hit when she was a co-writer on Aguilera’s "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)." Peiken’s other hits include "Almost Doesn’t Count" for Brandy and "Human" for the Pretenders.
Shelly's current releases include "Stumble" by Natasha Bedingfield (Unwritten), and "Dancing Alone" by Ashlee Simpson (I am Me.) Shelly completed cowrites with new Epic artists FeFe Dobson (Island/Def Jam), Ashley Parker (Blackground),Sara Paxton as well as Less Than Jake (WB) for their upcoming releases.
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Stumble
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Natasha Bedingfield
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Love Me For Me
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Ashlee Simpson
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