Alexzandra Spencer Johnson Biography

Alexzandra Spencer Johnson is a Canadian actress and singer/songwriter best known for her performances in So Weird, and Instant Star.

Instant Star is shown on The-N network. In its Friday night time slot, it is the most popular cable network show among female teens in the USA, and second only to Degrassi among teenagers generally. Around the world, 120 countries have bought broadcast rights to the show.

The show originates in Canada, and is produced by Linda Schuyler and Stephen Stohn, who also produce Degrassi. After the first season, Alexz Johnson was nominated for a Gemini Award (equivalent to an Emmy Award in the USA) for her acting. Two seasons of the show have been completed, and a third season begins production in July, 2006.

Alexz Johnson also sings all of the songs on the show, and has recorded two soundtrack albums: Songs from Instant Star and Instant Star 2 Alexz Johnson wrote or co-wrote 5 of the songs on the first album and is currently writing and recording all of the songs on a solo album apart from the show, for release later in 2006.

Alexz Johnson was born 4 November, 1986 in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada). She is the sixth child in a family of ten children. One of her sisters is a stage actress, and her brother Brendan is a musician who works with her in co-writing their songs.

From the age of three, Alexz would frequently sing for her large extended family; and by the age of seven, she was receiving vocal training, participating in festivals with her local youth choir, and giving solo performances at school and community functions. She entered many talent contests and festivals, and won a National Anthem Contest at the age of 11, with her rendition of the National Anthem being heard on national television. This resulted in numerous radio and television interviews, and interest from management. That year, she was also voted Best Anthem singer of the season by the Vancouver Sun.

Locally, she was often referred to as our "West Coast Celine", and sang the National Anthem at games for the Vancouver Canucks (NHL hockey) and Vancouver Grizzlies (NBA basketball team, now based in Memphis), as well as singing at charity events and fairs around the province, and also the B.C. Summer Games. She opened the Variety Club show singing a duet with Bob McGrath, sang the first set of songs at the Molson Indy (a major car race), and entertained on New Year's Eve at Planet Hollywood at the age of 12.

With an outgoing personality, she also moved into acting, where she excelled, landing auditions for commercials and a showcase for a pilot called "Most Talented Kids". At the age of 13, she auditioned for the Disney television series So Weird which, for the final season of the show, was looking for a lead actress who could also sing. Alexz was offered the job immediately after her audition. This role was a tough assignment, because many fans of the show had already become accustomed to a different story-line, were not happy that the show had shifted from a "darker" to a "lighter" tone, and were upset that the previous lead actress Cara DeLizia was moving on as the show approached its final season. Nevertheless, the show retained its popularity, and Alexz built up a fan base on the strength of both her acting and her singing.

She also showed an interest in songwriting, and wrote one of the songs for the show. After the show ended, she continued her interest in songwriting, co-writing with her brother Brendan. She also learned guitar. She worked as a demo singer on various projects, completed a demo of her own music to shop around to music labels, and opened for David Foster at his charity events.

In the spring of 2004, a new opportunity arose, thanks to Linda Schuyler and Stephen Stohn, co-producers of the TV show Degrassi. While attending one of the performances at Canadian Idol, Linda Schuyler had the idea of developing a TV series which would chronicle the ups and downs of the musical career and personal life of the winner of an Idol-type contest. They launched a three-month nation-wide search for someone to play the lead role, and Alexz was chosen to play the lead role of Jude Harrison in the new show Instant Star.

Alexz, while still starring in the ever popular Instant Star, decided to audition for the role of Julie Christenson in the hit thriller Final Destination 3. As it turned out, she showed up at the audition in an all black, punk rockish outfit, later claiming that she had also been in a bad mood. The casting directors concluded that she would be perfect for the role of Erin Ulmer, a character with a bad attitude. This was not a large part, but she played it convincingly, right to the gruesome end. One critic, from the Philadelphia Inquirer, singled her out for praise by saying she was "like Parker Posey with raccoon mascara".

To date, Final Destination 3 has grossed $102 million at the box office, ahead of Final Destination 2 ($99 M) and just behind the original Final Destination ($113 M). The video release of Final Destination 3, expected this summer, should push it over the top as the highest-grossing film of the franchise.

In a sense, the choice of Alexz to play the lead in Instant Star was ironic, because her own career has been much more gradual: she has been working her way up in the business over a number of years. However, Instant Star has given a major boost to both her acting and musical career: people who like the music are tuning in to the show, and people who like the show are buying the music.

Produced by the same people who produce Degrassi, and with a talented cast and set of writers, the show quickly won a following in Canada, where it is broadcast by CTV. But like Degrassi, the show found its largest audience in the USA, where it is broadcast by The-N cable network.

For information on the show, please see the separate entry for Instant Star.

Each episode of the show introduces a new song which is central to that episode. Usually, the lyrics pertain to what happens in that episode, but sometimes the song performance itself is a highlight of the episode, and the lyrics are incidental. There are 13 episodes in each season, giving a basic set of 13 songs in the soundtrack for each season (but the first season has one "bonus song", giving a total of 14 songs for the first CD).

For more on the CD's, please see the separate entries for Songs from Instant Star and Instant Star 2.

Alexz is currently working on her own solo CD (apart from the show), co-writing the songs with her brother Brendan, who also plays the guitar. As yet, little is known of this CD, other than that she has been working on it for several months in Los Angeles.

Many fans who remember Alexz from the show So Weird also remember how much they liked her singing in that show. Unfortunately, the songs she sang then are not generally available. Two of the favorite songs from that show are "Annie's Song" and "Push Me, Pull You".

Alexz is also listed as a member of Jakalope, a Canadian industrial band, on the same label as the Instant Star soundtrack CD's (the Orange Record label). Katie B, the lead singer of Jakalope, sang most of the back-up for Alexz on Instant Star 2.

Because of her early start in the music business, Alexz has been giving concerts for over a decade. She is at her best in front of an audience, as shown by her performance of four of the songs from seasons one and two of Instant Star at a preview event - Backstage Pass - on The-N, just before the broadcast of the second season of the show. From the first season CD, she sang Skin and Let Me Fall (both of which she co-wrote); and from the second season, she sang Another Thin Line and My Sweet Time. While they definitely like what they are hearing on the CD's, many fans would argue that the live versions of these songs are far better - more emotion and more power.

In the live performances, Alexz is accompanied by her band from the show, Spiederman Mind Explosion, which consists of three members who do double duty as actors and real-life musicians. They are: Tyler Kyte ("Vincent Spiederman" - "Speed") on lead guitar; Christopher Gaudet ("Wally") on bass; and Ian Blackwood ("Kyle"), on drums.

Alexz first enrolled in singing lessons at age six, and took classical vocal training (including opera) for at least eight years, much of it from Joseph Shore, a well-known opera singer and music educator in the Vancouver area. She is said to have a four-octave range.