"POSITIVELY STEAMING!" - London Times

"Bands like this are too good to miss." - Country Music People (UK)

"Hard core country with a rock’n’roll attitude." - Los Angeles Weekly

Suzette and the Neon Angels

A Texas-born Honkytonk Queen!

Born in west Texas and raised in San Antonio, Suzette Renée Lawrence began revealing signs of her honkytonk tendencies at a very early age. By 6 years old, she was playing guitar and harmonizing with her mother, and by 13 she had taught herself to play the upright bass by picking out notes on a piece of paper colored with charcoal strings and drawn-in frets. Nevermind that most girls that age have never even heard of a doghouse bass.... As always, conformity did not matter to Suzette; it was a passion for roots music that drove her to perform.

During her teen years, Suzette played regularly to swirling crowds of two-steppers as a member of her family’s bluegrass band, The Backwoods Volunteers. The band played weekly throughout Texas and at bluegrass festivals across the U.S., performing alongside such masters as Bill Monroe, Ralph Stanley and Lester Flatt. Eventually the Backwoods Volunteers were produced by San Antonio’s Augie Meyers, famed keyboardist for the Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas Tornados. The Backwoods Volunteers released an album on Augie’s Zazz Records.

Traveling abroad during college, Suzette was a lucky witness to the early days of the Punk Rock movement that was taking place in London and her time spent there made an impression that she carried with her to Austin, Texas, where she formed her own "cow punk" band, The Effect. Looking back, it’s easy to see that this was a time of intense innovation in music and a blurring of musical boundaries like had never been experienced before. Suzette’s love of Tex-Mex, honkytonk, rockabilly and bluegrass started to blossom into a high-energy sound that could only have been conceived in Texas, yet to this day remains uniquely her own.

Moving to Los Angeles in the early ‘90s, Suzette formed her current band The Neon Angels, a group always inspired by rootsy music: hillbilly, honkytonk, cowpunk, bluegrass and rockabilly. Los Angeles at that time was particularly alive with unusual talent and served as an incubator for both musical experimentation and reverence for roots music. Suzette quickly found herself a central figure in the country-rock scene at the legendary Palomino Club, where she rose up through the ranks alongside the likes of fellow neo-traditionalists Dwight Yoakam, Jim Lauderdale, and Lucinda Williams. Suzette appeared on the cover of the highly-regarded "Town South of Bakersfield Vol. 3" compilation album, released on Restless Records. Suzette’s track, "He’s Breakin’ My Heart" was included in that year’s Grammy nomination ballot in the category of "Best Country Performance By a Duo or Group with Vocal" and received extensive airplay in the U.S. and Europe, as well as stunning reviews.

Suzette and the Neon Angels now began to tour Europe and across the United States. Highlights include performances at the Rodeo Bar in New York City during the CMJ Conference, performing live on BBC Radio to 40 million listeners, headlining at Les Diablerets Country Music Festival in Switzerland, playing a music festival in Berlin Germany, packing The Continental Club in Austin during SXSW, and playing on Billy Block’s Western Beat show in Nashville and repeated performances in London at the Borderline and Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

Now making her home in Nashville, Tennessee, Suzette hosts the monthly Alt-Country Hoedown. Similar in model to L.A.’s legendary "Ronnie Mack’s Barndance" the Alt-Country Hoedown only allows rootsy music and is a showcase for bands that do not adhere to the typical Nashville slick pop sounds. Only rootsy music is allowed and the Hoedown features the best in today’s performers of roots music - with vivacious hostess Suzette insisting that all mainstream trappings be checked at the door. For many Nashvillians and tourists alike, it is these regular meetings of the honkytonk faithful and Suzette’s unapologetic, blistering rave-ups that keep the true legacy of Music City alive.

"Honkytonk rocker Suzette Lawrence is a fine songwriter and singer who surrounds herself with competent musicians. Equal parts country and rockabilly with a taste of Tejano thrown in, she is an energetic and exciting entertainer," praises entertainment authority Creative Loafing. From London to Lubbock, from Berlin to Austin, Suzette and the Neon Angels are continually building upon their rabid underground following with their blistering versions of rockabilly and Bakersfield standards, along with Suzette’s sock-it-to-‘em originals.

New Album Coming in 2006!

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