She co-founded the alternative rock band Veruca Salt and played on their first two studio albums, American Thighs (1994) and Eight Arms to Hold You (1997).

After leaving Veruca Salt, she released two solo albums, Tonight and the Rest of My Life (2000) and Bleeding Heart Graffiti (2006).

Nina Rachel Gordon Shapiro was born November 14, 1967, in Washington, D.C.[1] Her father was a law student at the time of her birth.

She was raised along with her brother, Jim Shapiro, in several different locations, moving between Washington, D.C., and Madison, Wisconsin, before settling in Chicago when Gordon was a teenager.

[4] In 1993, they enlisted bassist Steve Lack and Gordon's brother Jim Shapiro, a guitarist who joined as the band's drummer as a favor to his sister.

Veruca Salt released a self-funded demo tape and shopped it to labels while playing a handful of small club shows.

The second single, "Number One Blind," written by Gordon and Shapiro, peaked at #20 on the Modern Rock charts, but did not do as well as "Seether".

The band was inspired to work with Rock after hearing Metallica's "Enter Sandman" over the house PA system before a Veruca Salt concert at an outdoor music festival.

With Scott Miller, she co-wrote the song "The Softest Tip of Her Baby Tongue," which appeared on The Loud Family's 1996 album Interbabe Concern.

[6] She worked with James Iha on the Smashing Pumpkins song "...Said Sadly" (the b-side to their 1995 single "Bullet with Butterfly Wings"), and also recorded duets with Fig Dish and Triple Fast Action.

Band members later admitted that the recording process for this album was more tense than the previous one, and the creative differences between Gordon and Post increased.

The album peaked higher (Billboard Top 200 at 55) than American Thighs, but sales dropped off when the second single "Shutterbug" failed to chart, despite a high-budget video and Saturday Night Live performance.

Soon after leaving Veruca Salt, Gordon demoed solo material in Boston with friends Kay Hanley and Michael Eisenstein from the band Letters to Cleo.

The first single, also titled "Tonight and the Rest of My Life," did well on radio and was later included in commercials for hit films such as Chocolat and The Notebook in addition to an appearance on an episode of Charmed.

[5] After Gordon finished promoting Tonight and the Rest of My Life in late 2001, she took a break and began writing material for her second solo album.

To tide fans over, Gordon released b-side material from Tonight on her website and a demo for a song called "The Time Comes," which was featured in the independent film Stealing Innocence.

During this time, Gordon was performing at Largo in Los Angeles, for "Bring the Rock" nights, covering songs by N.W.A, Skid Row, Backstreet Boys, Phil Collins, and others.

Still seeing promise in the material from Even the Sunbeams, Gordon booked producer and long-time friend Bob Rock to record an album in 2005.

The fifth Veruca Salt album, Ghost Notes, contained songs about the original members' breakup and eventual reunion.