Sunday July 24, 2010

Pizzas' Cover Photo

By Kim Isaza
newseditor@mdjonline.com

SMYRNA — There’s a family in Smyrna that wants to make all the world a Pizza place. Or more specifically, a Laughing Pizza place.

Laughing Pizza is the name of the family-style band that consists of dad Billy, mom Lisa, and daughter Emily, 14.

Their latest CD is called “Let’s Go Play,” and their videos are featured on several PBS stations around the country, including in Atlanta. They write songs with titles like “Love Makes a Family,” “Mommy Said So,” “Candybar,” and “Don’t Cry About Stuff.”

“These are pop songs for the whole family to rock out to. You want to do something that you can listen to and not have to blow your brains out,” Lisa says with a laugh.

Most of the songs have a high-energy upbeat tempo, much like their hotly-colored clothing. Their music and videos are regular winners of Parents Choice Awards.

“We love when parents say to us, ‘We had so much fun together at your show,’” Lisa said. “Some adults say, ‘I listen to your music when I’m by myself!’”

Lisa and Billy Pizza — that’s not their real surname, but it’s easier for their kid fans to use — are classically-trained musicians who have made names for themselves in the entertainment industry.

The New York City natives met on the TV show Star Search, and instantly became partners. They moved to Smyrna more than a decade ago, when Emily was a toddler.

Emily was born prematurely and with complications, and she was in and out of the hospital in her first two years of life. When things got better, the family made a visit to Lisa’s brother in Marietta. Soon they decided to stay, and found a house in Smyrna. Billy, who is into computers as much as music, took a corporate job.

“I was a consultant, I was always in Helsinki or some crazy place and we were away from each other all the time. Traveling the world on somebody else’s dime is a fantastic thing, and I enjoyed it,” he said. “But 9/11 came around, and I was on a plane landing in Boston on that morning, the same minute… They shut down Boston and they were raiding hotels. Finally I rented a car and drove home, and we decided that we wanted to do something together.”

Pizzas in front of the Pizza Mobile

“Music was a thing that we did. We were always singing and playing instruments. And when Emily was 5 or so, she was singing and dancing to Britney Spears,” he said.

“It was like, there must be millions of parents out there who aren’t comfortable with that, either,” Billy said. “For our own daughter, we saw a need for music that’s between Barney and Britney, and we still do. There are 5-year-olds at talent contests singing songs by Ke$ha, about drinking Jack and whatever. We’re from the music business. We’re not conservative prudes, but it’s a little disturbing. Kids get to be 20 by the time they’re 5.”

They made their home’s bonus room into a recording studio, and they record on their own label, Little Bean Family Entertainment, named for their yorkie-Poodle mix, Beanie.

One of their favorite tracks on the new disc is “This is My Life.” It’s an audience-participation song at live shows.

Everyday I’m learning / There’s so much I do at school/
I’m doing reading/ and my science class / That’s pretty cool
Growing up I think about / All the things that I could do /
I could be a writer, a teacher / Or a rock star, how ‘bout you?

“We did this music for Emily, but we didn’t know she was even going to be in the band at first,” Lisa said. “She was still little. And then she started showing incredible signs of being this talented kid and she wants to play piano, and then guitar and then flute.”

Emily, who now plays five instruments, shrugs and says with a smile: “I never meant to play this many. It’s just evolved. Bass is my newest.” Emily attended Casa Montessori school, in Marietta, until about fifth grade. She now studies online through a virtual school, and is advancing to 10th grade.

When she was 4, doctors discovered she had mild hearing loss in both ears, caused by an overmedication during surgery performed the day after she was born. She wears hearing aids in both ears.

Mom and dad are clearly in love with this child. Said Lisa: “She is so amazing. What has happened to her in the past year, year and a half, it’s become a mission to be this role model of a kid who likes being a kid.”
For Billy’s birthday this year, Emily wrote him a song called “It takes me back.”

“Each verse talks about a certain age and a song we used to listen to and memories it brings back… It made me cry! It was unbelievable,” he said.

Friends suggested the happy family would go through some changes when Emily became a teenager, but that hasn’t happened yet. “I don’t see myself doing that,” Emily said, of turning into a surly teen embarrassed to be around her parents. “I have a really good time. They’re two of my best friends. We’re normal, like any other family.” Added Billy: “We get along really well. For whatever miracle that is, it’s a great thing … We encourage whatever we can, for her to do a kid thing. We respect everybody’s alone time, because that’s really important. But we have a great time together.”

The business side of the work also interests Emily, and she attends all of the meetings with their manager and people who want to work with them. “I want to study business and economics in college. I know I want to minor in business,” she said. “I’m also really into anything environmentally friendly. We’ve actually met a couple of these organizations that are not only helping the environment, but doing things for kids around the world. I want to learn about that more.”

Most of their income comes from playing shows, which they do for a fee plus expenses, though they also perform at schools for free. “It seems so unfair that kids don’t get the experience of live music,” Billy said. They also do songwriting workshops, which “enables us to keep doing more music. It becomes self-supporting.”

The family that sings together...

At many of their shows, about 40 percent of the audience also buys merchandise, which is huge, Lisa said. Typically, entertainers have done well if 5 to 10 percent of the attendees buy a CD or T-shirt at a show, she said.

They self-distribute their music through iTunes and Amazon. When an order comes in for a CD or a DVD, one of them packages it up and takes it to the post office. “We’ve been holding out on the [distribution] rights because we’d like to make a deal where we’re going to get the marketing support,” Billy said. “My dream scenario would be, since we own the rights to the product, be able to distribute exclusively through one retailer, and get tour support, then spend 20 weeks going to stores supporting the release of our CD/DVD at those stores.”

They have had offers to do other projects and television shows, but it didn’t feel right. “We have turned down some powerful people who in theory could have made a career. But it was not what we wanted this to be. It wasn’t why we started this,” Billy said. Adds Lisa: “We want to keep our soul, which means we don’t want to vary from our dream” of creating wholesome entertainment for whole families.

And yes, their neighbors know they have rock stars living next door. It would be kind of hard not to, with the brightly colored Laughing Pizza van, which they drive to all of their shows, even those across the country, in the driveway. And they are happy — if not conspicuous — in their hometown. They live inside the city of Smyrna, close to the eastern edge.
“We’re one foot in Smyrna, and one foot in Vinings,” Lisa says. “We’re Smynings.”

Billy said, “The location of Smyrna is great. I do like the fact the city is really well run. We were away last summer and we had water gushing. The water guy came to door and told my mother in law that we were gushing the water, and we were able to get it taken care of while we were still out of town. Not every small town has that quality. The neighbors are very nice. And we did Taste of Smyrna like 7 years ago. But you’re always famous in your home town last.”