Michelle Leon discusses I Live Inside: Memoirs of a Babe in Toyland

A founding member of the band Babes in Toyland takes readers on the roller coaster ride of the rock-and-roll lifestyle and her own journey of self-discovery.

“Maybe you know the words to every Babes in Toyland song; maybe you’ve never heard the band’s music at all. No matter: by the end of this lyrical, tough, and moving memoir, you’ll not only feel like you know Michelle Leon, you’ll also want to talk and dance and listen to music with her. Most of all, you’ll want to recommend this book to anyone who’s ever wondered what it’s like to be a woman in the strange, sometimes brutal world of contemporary American rock & roll.”--Scott Heim, author of Mysterious Skin and We Disappear

“Her prose is stunning, her eye is wry, and her heart enormous; the result is a compelling memoir filled with pop culture, travel, intrigue, and a young artist’s quest to find her voice. I Live Inside is loud and clear, and I could not put it down.”--Laurie Lindeen, author of Petal Pusher: A Rock and Roll Cinderella Story

Babes in Toyland burst onto the Minneapolis music scene in the late 1980s and quickly established itself at the forefront of punk/alternative rock. The all-female trio featured a shy, seventeen-year-old Jewish teen from the suburbs on bass guitar--an instrument she had never played before joining the band.

Over the next few years, Michelle Leon lived the rock-and-roll lifestyle--playing live concerts, recording in studios, touring across the United States and Europe, and spending endless hours in stuffy vans, staying in two-star motels, and sleeping on strangers’ couches in town after town. The grind and drama of life in the band gradually wore on Leon, however, and a heartbreaking tragedy led her to rethink her commitment to the band and the music scene.

Leon’s sensitive, sensory prose puts readers right on stage with Babes in Toyland while also conveying the uncertainty, vulnerability, and courage needed by a girl who never felt like she fit in to somehow find her place in the world.

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Michelle Leon is a freelance writer, musician, and teacher. She was the bass player for the influential punk band Babes in Toyland from 1987 to 1992 and again in 1997. Michelle holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College. She lives on the east side of St. Paul, Minnesota with her husband, two children, and three dogs.