STAR-BULLETIN / 1998 Na Leo Pilimehana members, from left, Lehua Kalima Heine, Angela Morales and Nalani Choy, pictured at the 1998 Hoku Awards ceremony, survived the music biz by taking charge of their career.

Na Leo finds harmony
in many ways

The trio’s savvy handling
of business and artistic
affairs bolsters its success

This year has been a big one for Nalani Choy, Angela Morales and Lehua Kalima Heine. On the personal side, they attended their 20th high school reunion and caught up with friends they'd known as seventh-graders at Kamehameha. Professionally, it's been 20 years since their group, Na Leo Pilimehana, took top honors in the KIKI/I-94 "Brown Bags to Stardom" talent contest, won a one-shot record deal and recorded "Local Boys," bringing instant fame.

Symphony Pops Featuring the Brothers Cazimero, Na Leo Pilimehana and the Honolulu Symphony Chorus: In concert: 8 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday, and 4 p.m. Sunday Place: Blaisdell Concert Hall Tickets: $30 to $75 Call: 792-2000 or Ticketmaster at 877-750-4400, or order online through www.ticketmaster.com

But there's another significant anniversary coming up for Na Leo in March. It was in March 1995 that the three friends decided to take full control of their career and found their own record label.

It was a difficult decision.

"We weren't sure that we wanted to do it on our own because we weren't quite equipped to do that yet," Choy said during an interview earlier this week while driving from one appointment to another.

"We didn't really know how to do it all," she said, but that didn't stop them from releasing "Flying with Angels" in June that year, and dealing with Sony Records representatives in Japan. "That was the other thing that pushed us."

Ten years later, Na Leo is the biggest "girl group" in local music, with a worldwide fan base and a history of savvy business deals and promotional agreements. And they're as popular as ever here at home. Consider, for instance, their Christmas concerts this weekend with the Brothers Cazimero, Matt Catingub and the Honolulu Symphony. Initially, two shows were announced but, no surprise, a third show was added.

One of the highlights will be a fully orchestrated arrangement of "Blackbird," the Beatles song that Catingub arranged and recorded for Na Leo's latest album, "Find Harmony," released in late August.

The album's title might explain Na Leo's perennially popular three-part vocal arrangements. They were friends and dorm mates at Kamehameha for several years, and have found harmony and balance over the years in their personal lives and as business partners.

Choy, who has a degree in business, handles "the administrative and business stuff including contracts" while also keeping the group on track with its goals.

Morales oversees such technical aspects of their career as licensing agreements, copyrights and mechanical licenses, and tour management. Kalima's primary contribution is as a songwriter, although Choy and Morales also participate in the creative process of writing, arranging and recording.

Such unity has served them well as they've made their way in a business traditionally dominated by men, including producers, arrangers, engineers, studio musicians and executives. Choy has dealt with men here, on the mainland and in Japan, and found that while some are open to treating women as equals, many more aren't.

"Sometimes you need to be nice, and sometimes you need to be not as nice. One of the things that I think has been a benefit and a hindrance is that they call us 'the local girls' even though we're 20 years into the business. (It's) kind of nice to still be called a 'girl' when you're our age, but still, it can be hard to be taken seriously.

"When you walk in the room, they are looking around for your manager -- 'Where's the guy who takes care of everything?' Sometime it's hard to be both the manager and the artist."

Na Leo learned early to protect themselves. It is all too easy for young artists to end up with nothing to show for their hit records but bittersweet memories. Choy says they were luckier than they realized. Na Leo Pilimehana rode the success of "Local Boys" and the hastily recorded album released by the producer/record label owner they'd signed with. They got some radio play, did some local club gigs and then moved on with their lives.

Choy had promised her mother than she wouldn't let the group keep her from going to college, and found that "getting up early in the morning (for class) was tough."

Na Leo continued to play gigs that were so low-end that the trio had to haul their own sound gear, but more success, she says, would have tempted her to put school on hold.

"(It) might have held us back from going on to college or taken us down the wrong path."

Things changed when the trio met Riki "Mr. Little Riki" Sugimoto, another local record producer, in 1992. Choy had graduated from college, gotten married and started a family. Sugimoto eventually convinced them to get back together and record again.

"It took him about a year (to convince us), but I think we had had a long enough hiatus that we were a little hungry to come back and do it 'cause it had been about eight years (since "Local Boys"). I don't think we would have initiated a comeback (at that time)."

The trio found themselves back in the spotlight when the DOE announced that a song they'd recorded, "Friends," could not be sung at graduation ceremonies because the lyrics contained references to "the Lord," "the Father" and "God." The song won Na Leo a second Hoku Award in 1995.

By that time they'd launched their own record company and were on their way. Their first album on their own label, "Flying with Angels," received four Hokus in 1996, and they've since become one of the winningest acts in Hoku history.

As for memorable marketing ideas, Choy came up with the idea of releasing a "limited edition" individually numbered album with gold lettering, "Anthology I," in 1996. The album got plenty of press when it was released, and more when it sold out. The group got still more press for the same project when it was announced that an un-numbered unlimited edition with silver lettering was on the way.

"Originally it was just gonna be a one-time limited edition thing and a one-time thing. What happened was it sold through so quickly -- the first 50,000 copies (sold out) -- the record stores were like, 'You can't take this off the market!' That's when we came out with the silver one."

Na Leo also bought the rights to their first two albums, "Local Boys" and "Na Leo Pilimehana" (which they renamed "Friends" to capitalize on the song's popularity), and thus became owners of their entire catalog. A special commemorative version of "Local Boys" was reissued with two newly recorded "bonus tracks" in February.

"I think it was a blessing, the way the career worked out, that we didn't really have it all upfront but then later on we were able to get it back and do something with it," Choy says of their acquisitions.

The trio's attention to such nonmusical aspects of the music business as marketing, advertising and design extends to such things as album art and the things that Japanese music buyers associate with Hawaii. A decision to downplay the word "Pilimehana," for instance, created a shorter name that mainland Americans and Japanese fans find easier to pronounce.

LOCALLY, the trio stands among a handful of women with successful hands-on experience running their own record label. (Genoa Keawe founded GK Records in the 1960s; Raiatea Helm's new album, "Sweet & Lovely," is the first release on her Raiatea Helm label.)

"Having good music is one thing, but you really need to figure out how to let people hear your good music. There are a lot of very talented musicians out there who don't get exposure they deserve, and in the Hawaiian music business, it's harder than ever."

Come January, the group will be releasing a new "virtual vacation DVD," then plan to spend more time in Japan cementing their move from Sony Japan to JVC, and will be playing dates on the mainland and in Europe as well.

And, Choy adds, gender differences become noticeable on the road for a woman with children.

"The men are kind of doing their own thing, and we're calling home every 45 minutes trying to make sure the kids got up and are ready for school. ... It's just way different being a mommy and a wife and then trying to be a musician on the road."