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Amy Wadge
Amy Wadge is a Bristol-born actress, singer and songwriter, known for her “amazing” (Big Issue), “tough-but-tender voice” (Venue Magazine) and her “emotionally mature lyrics” (Q Magazine). A critically acclaimed musician, Amy earned the title of Best Female Solo Act at the Welsh Music Awards, beating out the likes of Charlotte Church and Cerys Matthews to win the title two years in a row. I’ve been sent to interview the up-and-coming songstress on a rainy London evening at the Borderline, a popular London music venue.
The Borderline is empty and dark, and I manage to find Amy for a
quick interview before the doors open to let in a waiting audience. Amy
is a tiny woman, with a glorious mane of curly blonde hair and bright red
lipstick. Wearing a black and white striped shirt ala Jonathan Richmond,
she’s full of energy and raring to go; a last-minute meeting has been called,
and she has, unfortunately, only a few minutes to chat. We scurry like
mice down a dimly lit passage, walls filled with posters from shows gone by,
into a tiny box of a dressing room lined with wooden benches. “Ah, the
glamour of the music business,” she jokes as we get comfortable.
Amy credits her dad with her passion for music—she grew
up listening to everything he did, and that love of music lead her to learning
to play the piano and guitar as a child. She counts Elton John among her
favourite artists—she loved the Rose album as a child, “loved the
stories, songs, even the artwork,” and the first album she bought was John’s Honky
Chateau. Rufus Wainwright is currently Amy’s favourite
musician, and, smiling, she admits, “I want him to be my friend.” Her top
five favourite albums of all time include Bryan Adams’ Gold, Joni
Mitchell’s, Blue, Elton John’s, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (are we
seeing a pattern here?), Hourglass by James Taylor, and, of course,
Rufus Wainwright’s double album, Want.
Amy,
unlike hoards of other musicians and singers, actually writes her own songs and
has been writing, she says, “ever since I was a child…when someone would write
a diary, I would write a song.” Inspiration for her lyrics and melodies
comes from events that occur in her life, and in the lives of her
friends. Laughing, she tells, how, when she was younger, “My friends were
worried about telling me stuff because it would end up in a song.”
She was an actress for awhile, and earned a
degree from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama to pursuit an acting
career, but says that “acting always came second to music—music was always my
first love.” Amy’s current band includes; Aled Richards, the drummer of the now
defunct Welsh band Catatonia; bassist Bobby Kewley, who she met through her
producers and who has been in the band for about a year; and Henry Priestman on
keyboard and backing vocals. Henry, who “plays in the band from time to
time and also produced the new album,” was in the popular 1980s band, The
Christians. Onstage, a trio, including herself, usually performs, sometimes
accompanied by a backup singer.
Amy is in London to tour and promote her new album, No Sudden Moves.
She tours a lot and has played in numerous countries outside the United Kingdom, including Australia, Asia, France and Russia. “Touring is why I get up in the morning,” Amy says leaning
forward and pushing her curly hair away from her face, “to play live. I love
gigging.” The new album is “much more acoustic, with less rock”
than her previous albums, and, when pressed, she’ll admit that her favourite
song on the album is a cover of the song, Design for Life. “It’s caused
the most controversy and I love that. You either love [the song] or you
hate it.”
While her current tour will be over in just a few
short weeks, worry not—Amy will be touring again in September.
Interviewed by
Summer Song
June 2006
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