Rain was born in Hollywood to a couple of young theater students whose divorce was nearly as quick as their Las Vegas wedding. Some of her earliest memories are of her mother, Melody, recording demo tapes in their living room – one of which, “Kind of a Woman,” made its way to Nancy Sinatra. By the time the 45 RPM single arrived in the mail, Melody had joined a fundamentalist hippie cult in Redondo Beach, where Rain spent her young years until Melody’s early death from the then-little-understood Toxic Shock Syndrome, launching Rain into a haphazard California & Colorado childhood that spanned nearly 25 houses and a dozen schools, with an actor/writer dad who moonlighted as an oyster fisherman, a chef, an ecstasy dealer, and a traffic school instructor.

Raised amongst artists and musicians, Rain gravitated naturally to writing songs and to activism, participating in anti-nuclear demonstrations and proudly getting arrested at UC Santa Barbara while protesting investment in apartheid South Africa. Settling in Ojai, California, she mortified her hippie father by marrying a young lawyer. When she was diagnosed at age 22 with rheumatoid arthritis, a degenerative illness that damages the joints, she lost the ability to play guitar, and stepped away from music to focus on her health and raising a family.

But music couldn’t stay away, and Perry learned to delegate the instrumentation to musicians who were better players than she ever was. She formed her own label Precipitous Records to release her first homegrown album, Balance, as well as producing a local music festival and a concert series. Her song “Yosemite” won Grand Prizes in both the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and the ROCKRGRL Discoveries Competition, and Tom Russell recorded the song as a duet with Nanci Griffith.

Her father’s death from cancer spawned the loving, clear-eyed Cinderblock Bookshelves, a memoir that took the form of an album and a play (and a recently released radio drama) which was Perry’s first of multiple records produced by the great Mark Hallman at the Congress House in Austin, TX. Perry’s career received a boost when the creators of the CW Network’s Life Unexpected chose the final song on Cinderblock Bookshelves, “Beautiful Tree,” as their theme. In a surreal twist, Perry was cast to play herself on a One Tree Hill-crossover music festival episode.

Perry is also proud to count many stellar artists as collaborators and special guests, including Perla Batalla, Julie Christensen, Matt the Electrician, Eliza Gilkyson, Jon Dee Graham, Danny B. Harvey, Sara Hickman, Chuck Prophet and Victoria Williams.

In 2016, Rain produced and directed The Shopkeeper, a documentary about the impact on the music business of the streaming economy, featuring Ani DiFranco and a host of Austin artists, and appeared at dozens of screenings and panels to talk about artists’ rights.

At home in California, Rain co-founded Ventura County’s CFROG (Climate First, Replacing Oil & Gas) in 2014. In 2017, the Family Separation Policy spurred Rain to form Every Child Returned, a multi-state vigil in front of facilities holding separated children and babies. She co-managed a Houston field office for Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate campaign and worked as a Digital Organizing Director for Mission for Arizona in 2020. She currently serves as Board President of The Townies, Inc., a storytelling collective in Ojai, CA.

“…strong songwriting, fine voice and a penchant for a kind of intelligent adult pop music informed by folk, country, rock ‘n’ roll, blues and soul music…” – Sing Out!

“FOUR STARS: confessional folk-rock at its best: wise, specific, sometimes harrowing, funny in places, smart about personal mistakes and truly grateful to those who made her the fine artist that she is.” – Los Angeles Daily News