prairie sienna lunla
goes by prairie lunla stage name lashburn sexuality fluid occupation musician
july 2017 something to tell you 1. want you back 2. nothing's wrong 3. little of your love 4. ready for you 5. something to tell you 6. you never knew 7. kept me crying 8. found it in silence 9. walking away 10. right now 11. night so long
2013 days are gone 1. falling 2. forever 3. the wire 4. if i could change your mind 5. honey & i 6. don't save me 7. days are gone 8. my song 5 9. go slow 10. let me go 11. running if you call my name
the lunla story starts off as a lot of good stories do, with a pair of high school sweethearts who met in the 80s when big hair and michael jackson ruled the world. miriam presley and john lunla sealed their fate in senior year, when an invitation to prom turned into a surprise pregnancy and a baby nine months later. the two were married straight out of high school, just before miriam started showing, and the first of their three daughters was born at the turn of the decade. both came from modest families and didn't have the means to go to college and pay for childcare all at the same time, so john went full time at his weekend job stacking shelves at the local grocers and miriam began training to be a hairdresser in her mother's salon, coordinating their schedules so that someone could always be at home for their daughter. far from struggling, the lunla family were happy and went on to have two more baby girls within the first few years of their marriage, eventually completing their family of three when a difficult final pregnancy left miriam unable to have any further children.

the lunla family didn't have much, but a house inherited on lashburn street in san fernando valley gave their three girls all the space they needed to grow up happy and safe. the large house had been in miriam's family for years, and her grandmother had passed away just before she gave birth to her first daughter. her grandmother had gifted her the house to raise her family in and, despite the fact that it was run down and in desperate need of repairs that they never quite had the money to pay for, it served them well throughout the girls' childhood. their grandmother had been a music aficionado, and a house full of battered old musical instruments was what originally sparked a passion in the girls to perform. by the time she was in middle school, prairie knew how to play the drums and guitar and was in the middle of teaching herself the piano. the house was never quiet, but it was exactly how the lunla family liked it.

when she was 16, the three sisters began making something more formal out of their shared love of music. the beginnings of a few songs started to come together, not in any serious capacity but as something they could enjoy as a family, and they played a few local shows at county fairs and even a couple of weddings of the people they knew. after graduation, prairie briefly considered attending college before being pulled away by a sense of wanderlust and the opportunity to be a roadie to a fairly well known band who gave her a taste of the touring life and a thirst for live music. watching the crowd from the sidelines night after night stirred a sense of ambition in prairie that had never been there before, and after a couple of opportunities to fill in for absentee drummers, she was truly hooked on the idea of playing to audiences bigger than local county fairs could provide. by the time she came home, she was eager to convince her sisters to share in her dream and the three of them began taking the idea of becoming a band seriously, naming themselves lashburn after the street they'd live on their whole lives.

lashburn scored their first serious gigs in 2011, touring as part of the support for edward sharpe and the magnetic zeroes and kesha through the connections that prairie had made during her time on the road. the trio put out their first ep in 2012, a quietly well received complication of the few polished songs they had, and they signed to management in 2013 before putting out their first album, days are gone. that year they played glastonbury festival and guest starred vocals on tracks for kid cudi and major lazer, broadening their horizons and fanbase as their album quietly picked up traction. exposure through appearances on mainstream shows like saturday night live as well as a worldwide tour helped create a huge amount of buzz behind their name, and by the time 2015 hit they were touring with taylor swift and were generally widely well known even if their music wasn't yielding them an array of number one hits.

after a couple of years off, the girls are returning this summer in full force with a new album, a festival lineup and a tour. in the meantime prairie has adjusted to life in her own house (which she shares with her sisters, because some things can't ever change) and a sense of financial freedom that she never envisioned achieving through music. the girls have a coquettish reputation with the media, all three have engaged in revealing photoshoots and are known for suggestive instagram posts which are equally criticized and applauded by their fans. despite this (and perhaps most importantly) they have unrivaled levels of fun, and as long as that remains to be the case, prairie is happy to continue as they are.