Inger Lorre

Inger Lorre (b. 1964 Lori Wenning) is an American singer from Los Angeles, notorious for fronting the cult punk/grunge band Nymphs in the early 1990s. Her dark musical style and bleak lyrical approach can be said to combine influences from deathrock bands like 45 Grave, the arty alternative rock of Jane's Addiction, the cathartic punk metal style of the Rollins Band, and hints of grunge and David Bowie-style glam rock. She has also been in the band Motel Shootout, in addition to her only record with the Nymphs, though she has recorded a remarkable solo album entitled Transcendental Medication.

Inger Lorre grew up in and around New Jersey and in interiews she is often vague about anything that occurred in her life before relocating to Los Angeles, California. She told those closest to her that bad scenes and endless distractions marked her childhood. As a teen she hung out with older stoner kids, who fed her acid, cannabis, and beer. This began a long and painful obsession and eventual addiction to drugs and alcohol. At age 14, she was drugged and raped by the older brother of one of those friends. She was kicked out of four high schools for being a troublemaker and proclaimed music as her new religion. After finally graduating high school, Inger did an abbreviated stint studying art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, but ultimately school bored her.

After making her rounds in the Jersey music scene, Lorre and guitarist Jet soon headed west to California, as a four-piece. Two of the Nymphs' members went home to Jersey after only few months. Inger would not be defeated so easily. She quickly found her replacements in second guitarist Sam Merrick, drummer Alex Kirst and bassist Cliff D. Once on the Hollywood club scene, the Nymphs quickly found favor among critics and club goers. As the Nymphs' popularity grew so did Inger's drug and alcohol consumption as both were readily available at no cost at all times. It seemed those who didn't know Inger wanted to and would try to lure her into in to conversation by any means possible. Inger's sharp tongue, skimpy outrageous outfits, and classic beauty had every Los Angeles scenester's undivided attention, including Courtney Love's.

Love began to show up at every Nymphs performance around Los Angeles but never made contact until out of the blue Inger received a strange phone call from Love. Love told Lorre that she really liked her band and thought they should be friends. Courtney even went as far as to imply that she and Inger looked like sisters. This comment seemed to incite an ongoing cat-fight between Inger and Courtney Love. Things began to escalate when Love befriended Lorre's then-best friend, slept with her boyfriend and began trying to mimic Inger's onstage persona. [3]

Despite her ongoing battle with Love, drugs, and her increasing erratic behavior, things were looking good for the Nymphs. Labels began to take interest in the band's moody mix of punk rock and goth, glam and grunge. Back then, Inger's dream was merely to make an album for an independent label like SST Records or Alternative Tentacles. Instead by late 1989, the Nymphs somehow became the subject of a label frenzy that eventually landed a $900,000 contract from Geffen Records. The Nymphs gained notoriety with songs like Supersonic, Sad and Damned and Imitating Angels, which were later re-recorded by the band Extra Fancy. Inger even entered the world of Hollywood with a role in the film Bad Influence, in a scene set by another Nymphs' song , Highway, a song about young girls who loved serial killer Richard Ramirez. All seemed to be going amazingly well except for one crucial loose end, her new label wouldn't release the Nymphs' record.

Almost 2 years had passed since the Nymphs handed in their completed album. Unfortunately, It was during those two years that the Nymphs' luck began to change. Tom Zutaut, who signed the band, discouraged them from playing shows. Then, in the midst of recording their debut, the producer was abruptly taken off the project. The reason: W. Axl Rose needed him. Courtney Love used an angry message Inger had left on her answering machine on the song Sassy off Hole's 1991 release Pretty on the Inside.[4] Inger was losing her battle with drugs and alcohol and in an alcohol induced fit her patience finally ran out. On a late March afternoon in 1991, after getting quite inebriated Inger Lorre urinated on the desk of A&R man Tom Zutaut.[5] When the news surfaced tabloid magazines had a field day and ran features mocking Zutaut for getting a golden shower. Rolling Stone magazine quipped, "Talk about being pissed at your record label.? Even after what would be later referred to in certain circles as ?pissed off-pissed on? Inger struggled to get Geffen to release her album. Eight months passed and Geffen finally issued the Nymphs' album and even though they scored a tour with Bauhaus' Peter Murphy, the worst was still yet to come. While Inger was on tour her longtime boyfriend, Chris Schlosshardt bassist of San Francisco band Sea Hags, died of a heroin overdose. Shortly afterwards, Lorre suffered a nervous breakdown and broke up The Nymphs in 1992. An EP called The Practical Guide to Astral Projection was released in 1992, but it failed to chart.[6]


[edit] Solo Work
Continued heavy drug use eventually forced Inger back to New Jersey where she hid out for several years. A few spots here and there over time, where Inger popped up in various places, never evolved into a Nymphs reunion or second album. In 1995 she teamed up with Motel Shootout and released the single Burn, on old friend Long Gone John's label, Sympathy for the Record Industry. She entered rehab and worked toward permanent recovery.

She befriended singer Jeff Buckley and they began collaborating on music. Inger's vocals are featured on Angel Mine while Jeff played guitar, sitar, and mouth sax on the track. Jeff and Inger duetted again on the track Thief Without The Take contained on Lorre's album Transcendental Medication. Buckley also covered Yard of Blonde Girls co-written by Lorre, which appeared on Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Sadly, at the height of his popularity, Buckley drowned during an evening swim on May 29, 1997, before the album's release.[7] Though saddened by her dear friend's death, in 1999 a clean and sober (and somewhat more sane) Inger reemerged from New Jersey with her solo album, Transcendental Medication released on Triple X records in 1999. The album featured cover artwork by Mark Ryden.

In 2000, Inger moved back to Los Angeles where she painted and appeared in group shows around the city including the world renowned art gallery La Luz de Jesus on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. She made a cameo appearance in the 2001 indie film Down and Out with the Dolls, a raunchy, wry and in-your-face tale of the fast rise and fall of an all-girl, four-piece Portland rock band. She performed a cover of Black Flag's Slip It In with Henry Rollins on the 2002 album Rise Above.

On July 17, 2004 Inger played an acoustic show at Hollywood's The Knitting Factory, performing Nymphs songs, new songs and some covers. In 2006 a version of The Nymphs popped up in a few places. Lorre is said to have been working on an autobiography and a new solo album for several years but neither has reached fruition, and information is almost impossible to find.