Lauren DeMichiei (dee Ma shay) or Shay for short, is a music producer and songwriter based in Pittsburgh. While in the studio, Shay collaborates with brilliant sound artists, engineers, classically-trained musicians, and software-based beat makers. The instruments, musicians, and sounds she chooses, vary as much as the genres she touches on: rock, trip-hop, pop, alternative folk, and hip-hop. Shay has spent over twenty years songwriting and performing as a front-woman, guitarist, and a solo musician; (more on that in Media.) She’s performed at legendary venues like Toronto's The Rivoli and Pittsburgh's Shadow Lounge and has shared stages with folks worth naming dropping: songwriter and composer, Sam Phillips and Cleveland's art-rock duo, mr. Gnome. When she was just known as Lauren DeMichiei, Shay grew up on a steady diet of music fed by: 80’s pop tunes pumped through her mother’s record player, her father’s love for sci-fi and television classical scores, the syndication of Disney’s Merry Melodies and Warner Brother’s Looney Tunes, and the proliferation of movies that valued comprehensive and elaborate symphonies for their soundtracks. As a child in addition, to her daily dose of the boob tube, Shay found the melodies of Gregorian chant inspired church masses reverberating through her sonic space. At 16, she picked up an acoustic guitar inspired by her Stepfather’s interest in the hobby, and the happenstance of a high school guitar course popping up, ran by a young music teacher named, Joy Hess, who appears as a guest musician on Shay’s upcoming album. Inspired by female songwriters like Jewel and Joni Mitchell, Shay began to write her own songs.