Amy Studt
You have a new single ‘Nice Boys’ do out soon. Tell us a bit about this track?
I wrote nice boys with my very good friend Andy Crutwell-Jones. I had been getting some interest over the album but the official word that I got back was that they thought it was missing a more ‘obvious’ single, I was in a bit of a huff about it, so we got together I was like “f*ck it! They want a single? I’ll give them a bloody single!” we didn’t really hold back on the old ‘send you crazy’, irritating hook line chant side but it turned out really well and I am glad we did it now.
For the single you got the track remixed a few times. What was it like to get your work remixed by such artists?
It was pretty cool. I have worked with Spike before on the first album so it was nice to work with him again. As for WaWa and Adam K and Soha I just kind of let them get on with it and do their stuff. It’s pretty strange hearing my song done in such different ways.
The video for “Nice Boys” looked like it was a lot of fun to make. Do you enjoy making videos?
Making videos is one of my favorite things to do. It was good fun! I can’t believe I have done 7 videos now. Natricia Bernard did the dance choreography and Paul Minor directed it. They are brilliant!
I noticed that the band have a myspace and facebook just to name a few. Do you feel that these tools have become necessary now?
Pretty much. Everything is online now. And if your not online it is pretty hard for people to discover you, to have your videos seen or even just to get your music heard.
Are you ever active on these sites?
I go on sometimes and I try and answer as many as I can.
You recorded your first demo at 14. Was music always a part of your life as a young person?
Always! My parents are both musical and so is my brother so music was everywhere and it was just something I just always did. I was singing before I could speak and I have old recordings of me age 6 making up songs. Music was something all of us did together; sing around the piano, my mum playing piano and singing and my dad and brother playing violin or guitar or trumpet or whatever was about.
How have things changed since your first album those years ago?
I feel like a very different person. I have learnt a lot. I have less friends now but I have better ones. I am more self aware and less carefree. Things are changing all the time. The last year was a hard one but this year feels like it’s going to be a really good one.
How do you think the rest of the year will look for you?
Hopefully with more singles, videos and live dates. Hopefully it will all go well!
By John Siwicki
Amy Studt – My Paper Made Men
England’s answer to Avril Lavigne, Amy Studt, was signed to Polydor after recording her first demos aged just 14. Hits included ‘Just A Little Girl’ and ‘Misfit’, but subsequent singles were greeted by diminished sales, and Studt was promptly dropped.
‘My Paper Made Men’ is the Myspace-aided comeback. At 22-years-old now, Studt’s angst is now a little more adult; on digital-release single ‘Furniture’, for instance, she sings about an empty grown-up relationship. But it’s still angst, and wholly predictable stuff that seems wholly targeted at the adolescent girl demographic. Apart from some cut-and-paste strings and keyboard intros, there is also little musical experimentation here, especially considering Studt is described as a multi-instrumentalist in her various hyperbole-laden biographies available online. The long and short of it is that on her melancholy piano ballads, Studt sounds like either Vanessa Carlton, or Amy Lee from Evanescence without the nu-metal edge; and on her rockier guitar anthems, she sounds like Avril Lavigne without the pop songs.
By Ryan Daff
Amy Studt
You wouldn’t need to search far through the archives of our tabloid press to find examples of the pressures and life-changing impact that is the result of being a teenage sensation. However, this isn’t a feature about Britney Spears and for some, early exposure to the glare of the media and public attention, is definitely not fatal. For the London based and Portsmouth born songstress Amy Studt, who is on the brink of her second album (‘My Paper Made Men’ released 28/04/08), it has just given her music more personality and bite.
For sure, the amiable Amy has had moments whereby she contemplated walking away from it all after her debut album release ‘False Smiles’ in 2003, spending a little time serving coffee. But music and Amy seem to have a deep connection, as anyone who has heard even just one of her songs will be able to testify. Having built up a unique friendship with her loyal fan-base, it wasn’t going to be long before the creative impulses took over and a return to what she does always had an air of inevitability about it. Amy took the time to allow some foraging into her influences, moods and general mindset. You get the impression that she has certainly done this before!
1. You have selected ‘Chasing The Light’ as lead single to your 2nd album ‘My Paper Made Men’. It is a song that contains gripping vocal tempo changes and is the most moody and searching offering on the album. What is the story behind this number and does it represent the restlessness you felt when you contemplated giving up music after your debut album?
I think there are plenty of other songs on the album that could contend with its moodiness but yes, I see what you mean that it is one of the more aggressive. To be totally honest it has nothing to do with how I felt when I contemplated giving up my career. Maybe it has hidden
meanings and it’s really about that and i don’t even know it! ‘Chasing The Light’, is simply written about facing up to what needs to be faced, allowing yourself to feel what needs to be felt and coming out of it stronger in the end.
2. The above mentioned song contains the cutting line “Why go through life with eyes wide shut?” Is this a question that you are asking people in the music industry? Do you think you’re getting more philosophical these days?
That question was directed at some of the types of people that I’ve met along the way. It is to do with some of the people I’ve met in the music industry but not about the music industry as a whole. Some people from different genres I’ve found to be pretty narrow minded; trendy-snobs, rock-snobs etc.
I think if you like something then you like it, don’t be afraid that it doesn’t fit into your own idea of what’s cool and acceptable. I don’t know about philosophical, I just write about my life and my imaginary life, it’s pretty simple, I will let everyone else analyse it.
3. Has the way you approach song writing changed between your two
albums?
I wrote using my imagination more, rather than only sticking to real experiences this time round. I found it less restrictive. I may start with something true but then I build around it new layers of other
truths and un-truths. I find it gives it much more depth and it’s not quite so flat.
4. Stand out second album track ‘Sad Sad World’, contains a P.J.
Harvey lunge. Has she been an influence on you and do you think it is
the closest you get to your debut album vibe and sound?
Each of the songs on my album has a different feel and style but it is the title track for me that set the tone for the rest. That particular song does seem to sit nicely with her as a comparison. I think you naturally absorb bits of the things/people/experiences that affect you, that you collect through your life and they become a part of who you are. So it doesn’t surprise me that comparisons are being made.
5. On your myspace site you regularly give your fans the chance to ask you questions. Do you feel that you have a unique bond with your followers? Do you think musicians should be more accessible in this day and age?
I have a great relationship with my fans. Some of them I have been in contact with for nearly 7 years. I’m not sure how i feel about musicians being accessible. I think it depends on the artist. For some, yes. If you’re selling your ‘realness’ it is important. But for others, I think it’s nice to keep an element of the unreal about you. Sometimes as an artist you are creating this other world for people and becoming too real can shatter that illusion which i think is important to keep. It’s important to keep some magic alive.
6. A few years ago you toured with Razorlight under a pseudonym. Did this give you a chance to experiment more and do you have any plans for other projects at the moment? Do you feel that it gave you more freedom to express yourself?
I felt it gave me a chance to build my confidence and see what people actually thought of my new music which was nice. As for other things, I am always open to new projects and, if anything I think is worth it comes my way, then of course I will be up for it but. At the moment I don’t have anything hiding up my sleeve. Other than being horribly clichéd and saying I’m interested in acting. I would like to work on small indie films, surrealist, experimental movies ideally if it ever came to it.
7. Which of your songs sums up your current mood and why?
None right now, if only I wrote a song about being tired…
8. Are you alarmed by the ability of certain media and press institutions to make a band so big via the vice hype? Do you think that we rely too much on tastemakers in music?
I think it’s up to the individual to think for themselves and make their own minds up. Debates about who’s hot, not, bad, good, who you should hate, love, whatever, I try and ignore.
As for people who rely on tastemakers? To need someone to tell you what to like is weird and backwards and freakish to me. and I can’t imagine myself having much to say to a person like that.
9. Does you live sound differ to your sound on record? How would you describe your live sound and how do you want to leave people feeling after they have witnessed an Amy Studt live show?
I would hope that they would be moved by it and left wanting to hear it again and again. As for the differences, there are a few but my record is pretty live sounding in general so it’s not dissimilar to what you get at one of my shows. Live is always more exciting though.
10. Finally, who is your all-time Bournemouth resident and why? Do you get offended by people and articles that refer to you as a Londoner?
My all-time Bournemouth resident is my friend Jose (that’s the Spanish pronunciation, with an H), an old friend who is one of the few remaining friends of mine that still live there and that i am still in
contact with. I don’t mind people calling me a Londoner because I feel like a Londoner now. I’ve lived here 8 years. I guess that’s almost long enough to call yourself one. I’d be proud to be a Londoner.
By Dave Adair
Amy Studt – Chasing The Light
In the fleeting winds of change and trends, the name of the feral, searching muso Amy Studt that was blowing around freely in 2003 stopping for three top twenty singles, has probably been buried under the avalanches of KT Tunstall, Kate Nash and Amy Winehouse. Her name will not, on this evidence take long to float back into people’s thoughts.
This is due, in no small part, to the fact that Amy Studt has selected her most piercing, frantic and delving snippet of her current mindset, ‘Chasing The Light’ to burst back into recognition. Giving her 2nd album, ‘My Paper Made Men’(released 28/04/08) a welcome push in the process. Vocal elasticity is both prevalent and striking, as the range flits from a slow Rachel Yamagata/Kathryn Williams lucid beginning, before making a striking and gripping climb to an Amy Lee (Evanescence) pitch. It is an impact that is helped along by adept percussive versatility that creates a ladder for the vocals to clamber up.
This song, rather like Amy’s career so far (after he debut album release she shunned the limelight for a while and went to serve coffee for a living), acts as both a beacon and a warning. The vocal tones and lyrics highlights the strength of hope and its pitfalls, but one thing is made clear;
“Don’t go through life with eyes wide shut”
There is certainly a renewed vigour to Amy Studt and, the early signs are there to suggest that she has found a great way to channel it.
By Dave Adair