Nicole Ann Bell (born September 8, 1991, in Scarborough, Toronto), better known by her stage name Nicole Dollanganger, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, artist, and musician. She has been releasing music as Nicole Dollanganger since 2010.
Early Life
Nicole Dollanganger was born Nicole Ann Bell in Scarborough, Toronto on September 8, 1991, to Wesley "Wes" Bell, an avid ventriloquist doll collector, and Susan "Susie" Bell, an avid early 1900's carnival doll collector.
Dollanganger mainly grew up in rural Whitchurch–Stouffville, Toronto; a small town known for it's agriculture and annual strawberry festival. Over the years, however, she also bounced to and from Southwest Florida. Around 2010-2011, she graduated high school in Toronto, Canada. Before becoming a singer, Dollanganger stated that for a brief time she wanted to be a novelist.
After graduating, Dollanganger enrolled at Ryerson University where she studied film. "When I was in film school", Dollanganger said, "the first professor I met more or less immediately had a large talk with us about the weirdness in the West when it comes to portrayals of sex and violence in art. She believed that sex was a normal act and shouldn't involve shame, censoring, guilt, regret, etc., etc. and films that celebrated sexuality were fine. She was probably one of my first introductions to this idea that sexuality – and, in particular, female sexuality – could be explored without shame. That it could be honest and that honesty didn't make it vulgar. Up until I met her I had a very warped understanding of how sexual I was allowed to be – of what was appropriate for me. This embarrassment around it [is] completely unnecessary."
In the early months of 2014, Dollanganger dropped out of Ryerson University and had "since been making a living off of music/merch sales and working part-time".
Career
Dollanganger began posting music to Tumblr and MySpace in 2010. Until 2016, her music was strictly only available for purchase on Bandcamp, with the exception of a few homemade CD-Rs and cassettes. In May of 2014, she signed to Yellow K Records; however, no projects were released through the label. In April of 2015, Dollanganger flew to LA to meet with Grimes and James Brooks when Natural Born Losers was in it's demo stages. In August of 2015, Grimes publically announced her creation of the Eerie Organization - a platform to "to fucking put [Natural Born Losers] out." Natural Born Losers was then the first album recorded outside of her home. In 2016, she signed with Run For Cover Records and reissued two of her albums.
Personal Life
In 2012, right after Curdled Milk's release, Dollanganger went on bed rest for a year. She states, "I could probably count on my hands how many times I left the house throughout that year, actually". Dollanganger continues, "and after that period, I was a completely different person. Everything in my life had changed and I think for the first time I kind of came into myself". In 2013, she stated that she had beaten anorexia nervosa and anorexia athletica. In 2015, on the Rhinestone Cowgirls Tour, Dollanganger began dating Matt Tomasi.
Discography
Albums:
- Curdled Milk (2012)
- Flowers of Flesh and Blood (2012)
- Ode To Dawn Wiener: Embarrassing Love Songs (2013)
- Observatory Mansions (2014)
- Natural Born Losers (2015)
- TBA (2017)
EPs:
- Unreleased (2013)
- Columbine (2013)
- BabyLand (2014)
- Greta Gibson Forever (2015)
- Covers (2016)
- Cute Aggression (2017)
Singles:
- My Funeral Boy (2013)
- Ode to Danzig (2013)
- Christian Woman (2016)
- Chapel (2016)
- Have You Seen Me? (2016)
- Beautiful and Bad (2016)
- Observatory Mansions II (2016)
- Cute Aggression (2017)
Tours
See a full list of concert dates here.
- Rhinestone Cowgirls Tour (2015)
- Alex G Tour (2016)
- Summertime In Hell Tour (2016)
- Citizen Tour (2016)
- Forever Tour (2017)