[1] She was raised in the San Francisco Bay area of California, and in 1991 she received a degree in music business from San Francisco State University after designing a special major to suit her interests.
Dern also attended UC Santa Cruz and Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts.
[1] Dern was inspired by country music, as well as more pop influenced acts such as Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor.
She met Dave Gibson, former lead vocalist of the Gibson/Miller Band, with whom she began co-writing music, before marrying him in 1997.
Its lead-off single, "Gettin' Back to You", spent fifteen weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks (now Hot Country Songs) charts and peaked at number 43.