Petra Luna is the artist who can make you laugh, cry, riot, and reflect, but most of all, she can make you think. As a performer, she commands her audiences effortlessly, and the scope of her talents is seemingly endless. Her voice is intoxicating and powerful. She sings in many languages, is an amazing dancer, can perform any musical style, refusing to limit her creative directions. One minute she can be screaming and rapping in a rage-filled frenzy, and the next can be delicately handling a gentle ballad. This artist loves humor and is full of surprises. Her loyal fans are always curious to see what her next move will be. The cause always closest to her heart has been fighting child sexual abuse and she incorporated this theme into the subject matter of her music, which appeared to be an amazing motivating factor for her listeners. In 2007, her fans started calling her the "Artist for the Abused," and it just stuck. Petra is a true "indy" artist. Major labels have approached her, but when they insisted on taking all of her song rights and sought to make her conform to commercial standards, she refused, and kept going to the beat of her own drummer. Today the major labels are crumbling, but Petra Luna remains well intact and true to her form and fans.
Petra Luna is of Spanish/Mexican mixed with Irish/English heritage. As a child, her older siblings raised her on the Classic 70s Rock and Disco. At six years old, she was producing live shows with her friends and performing them for an after-dinner, family activity. Bored and growing up in a small town in Illinois, Petra learned to sing in her car with her friends while "jamming" to 80s Techno Pop and Hair Bands. She never took music seriously until she met her long-time friend, Lori Barnes, who was assigned as her roommate at an Illinois State University dormitory. Lori, who loved music and aspired to be in the music industry herself, played her records and Petra naturally sang along. The next thing you know, Lori had Petra in her brother's garage band, singing on stage for the first time. The night of her first performance, Petra received a standing ovation. From then on, it was all about music. After forming a series of garage bands, she and Lori loaded up the truck and moved to Chicago. There, Petra first joined professional bands. She loved her first real singing jobs, performing Jazz, Dance, Gospel, Blues and Rap. She eventually graduated college with a Bachelor’s with Honors Degree in Vocal Performance and Audio Production/Engineering from Columbia College. Barnes also graduated and eventually landed a job at Warner Brothers Records in New York City.
1st CD release in 1995, a cover single of Janis Joplin's “Mercedes Benz” by Barbara O, on Bellephon Records Deutschland, produced by Adam Schairer of the 70s duo “Adam and Eve.”
After college, Petra decided that she needed to know more about the technical side of her trade, so she bought herself into a professional recording studio business with her then-partners, Roberto Roth and Hayssam Boumoujahed. In the studio, she worked as an audio engineer and writer, while starting to produce her own demo tapes of original music. Also, at that time, she became interested in helping others. She volunteered as musical director for the now nationally-known children's television show "The Happiness Club," and wrote a song for them about the homeless. Roth, being the first to record and develop Petra's studio voice, persuaded German Producer Adam Schairer to record and release her first dance single on the major European label Bellaphon. The single sold over 45,000+ units and received extensive airplay throughout Europe. Roth and his then-young family soon afterwards returned to his native country of Germany and Petra temporarily moved with them to record her first CD. In Germany, Roth was able to build his resume and worked with Dieter Deirks, producer for the Scorpions, and Connie Plank, producer for the Eurythmics (Annie Lennox). He soon introduced Petra to other great producers who also recorded songs for her debut CD, like Peter B. Herrmann, who worked with Harold Faltermayer; Frank Farian, who produced the gold single and platinum album for Claudia Jung for EMI Records, and Izabel Varel for BMG Records; and production team Ray Clarke and Eric Del Mar on Warner Brothers, 2YX and Edel Records. When Petra returned to the US, she resumed her professional singing career and started making waves as a runway and print model in Chicago and New York. Her self titled debut CD “Petra Luna” was released on the American label, Novo Records. Soon after, she formed an all-girl singing/dancing group to promote the CD. They hit the touring trail in the 90s and became a wildly popular group in the American Midwest. One single off the CD titled, "You Used To Say," eventually became a hit in Southeast Asia.
2nd CD release in 1998, Titled “Whatever” by Luna P. on GEMA Records, went "GOLD" with 45,000+ units sold throughout Benelux, with extensive airplay in Europe.
Petra has always been a workaholic, which was a great distraction from the real problems in her life that were beginning to surface in negative ways. As the 90's came to a close, those problems finally caught up to Petra. She had been abused her entire life and never received proper treatment for it. In 2000, she reported her then fiancé to the police for child abuse and was unable to break his own abusive grip on her. Depression and thoughts of suicide soon filled her days. When Petra finally found the strength to leave her fiancé behind, she decided that her life needed to change drastically. Reflecting on the fact that her debut CD had been filled with the pain and sorrow from abuse, she started to get angry and write songs for a second CD. Roberto Roth had moved to Los Angeles at this point and was working for Smooth Sounds Recording Studio in Van Nuys, California. Chicago native Jerry Jackson was the studio owner who had worked with The Staple Singers, The Temptations, Peabo Bryson, Dance Mania, Kayne West, Twister, Snoop Dog, Sting, La Face Records, Mary J. Blidge, The Marley Family and Spinderella from Salt & Pepper. Since Jackson agreed to produce her second CD, Petra moved to California. There she also had the opportunity to collaborate for this second CD, with writer and producer M Doc, whose resume included working with Madonna, C.C. Peniston, Michael Jackson, Maverick/Warner Brothers, A& M, Sony and Indasoul Records sponsored by Coke. Things were looking up for Petra but all was not as it seemed in the 2000s. She soon learned that running from her problems was not going to make them go away. Her sorrow and depression inevitably returned.
A year after she reached Los Angeles, Petra decided she could no longer live as an abuse victim. She met an amazingly talented therapist and dedicated her life to recovery. She dumped her last abusive boyfriend and completed her second CD she called "Empowerment." Inspired by the fact that she overcame her abuse, she felt she could inspire others to do the same and produced songs for this CD filled with the feelings she experienced on her journey to recovery. She went from survivor to "thriver!" She formed another singing/dancing group in 2003 and rocked the L.A. live circuit for three more years. A single from the CD called "Pero Lo Amo" (meaning "But I Love Him" in Spanish), hit #1 all genres, gaining her a nomination for best Hip Hop Song and Best Female Artist on the world's second largest internet radio network, KIAC, based in the US. She later placed other songs from the Empowerment CD in Independent Films and Public Service Announcements pertaining to her cause to fight domestic abuse. Throughout the rest of her 8 years in Los Angeles, Petra was one of the most requested, top-paid, live singers in the city. She had a busy studio session schedule and had become a smash hit in the International community, with her multi-lingual abilities.
In 2008, Petra formed a non-profit organization to fight child abuse and had signed all the music publishing and proceeds from the sales of her upcoming new music, over to her new organization she named the P. Luna Foundation. Since Petra made the decision to dedicate her life to her Creator and her cause to fight cruelty abuse and inspired so many other people to join her, her advocacy fans have elected her by petition to be the leader of the world's largest anti-abuse Internet network called the “War On Abuse Movement.” Today, the Movement, with its empire of web sites, receives approximately one million hits per year.
In 2009, Petra moved home to Illinois for one year to be with her aging parents. While taking time out from big city life, Petra built the foundation of her new nonprofit organization and redesigned all of her own web sites. In 2010, she moved back to California, but this time she moved to the city of San Francisco, to continue her career. At that time, she also completed her newest CD releases. Since her second CD “Empowerment” was focused on domestic violence, she dedicated her new releases to child sexual abuse and animal abuse. Her musical tastes were varied in those years, so she recorded a two-part release. The first release was an Extended Play short CD with Ballads, Easy Listening and Spiritual music called “Angels” that was released in 2010. The second EP CD for her more hardcore fans who love her Rock/Rap material called “Angels of the Sword” was released on New Year’s Day 2012. In 2009 she also decided that helping young people that were seeking advice from her about the music business was too hard to keep explaining so she wrote a book about it called “The Music Business and its Realities for Today’s New Musicians.” It was published as a soft copy and as an Ebook in August of 2011.
Since the P. Luna Foundation was founded in 2008, Petra had devoted her life to the newest aspect of her cause to help males who were victims of child abuse. Her organization started a new grassroots campaign called Male Abuse Awareness Week every December 1st though the 8th, and a new web site for this effort at help4guys.org. This campaign is meant to address the crippling effects of past child abuse in males, and how those effects impact our society as a whole and the cycle of abuse as it is passed down from generation to generation. The campaign held its first live fundraiser event in San Diego CA on Dec. 5, 2011. Also that week, the charity released its first press release that was pickup by 5 national news outlets online. In 2012, they held a red carpet event in Los Angeles and in 2013 they held an awareness concert in San Francisco’s Union Square. The foundation continued for a few more years and its Twitter page is still followed by CNN, NPR and Barak Obama. At the end of 2015, Petra dissolved the Nonprofit but the cause of Male Abuse Awareness lives on to this day.
In 2016, Petra joins the fight against sea mammals in captivity and continues her performing career. At this point, she speaks English, Spanish and Italian, can sing in 10 different languages and decides to make breaking down cultural berries with World Music her next venture.
Petra Luna dreams of leaving a legacy that follows in the footsteps of artists like John Lennon and Marvin Gaye and be a musician who had a real message for humanity. Through all of her talents as musician, songwriter, artist, advocate, activist, she had become a legend in her cause. Keep watching this artist. She will never cease to amaze you.
No comments:
Post a Comment