Quick Q and A with Amy Speace (April 2010)
 by Kathy S-B  ·  24 April 2010

We’ve been waiting a long time to present Amy Speace at the me&thee coffeehouse. We’ve long admired her songwriting and incredible energy and stage presence. Amy recently left the east coast to live in Nashville. It’s been an adjustment but she seems to be taking it in stride as you can read below.

Amy just participated in a much-heralded tribute to the late Alex Chilton of Big Star while at South by Southwest in Austin. She shared the stage with Mike Mills from REM, M Ward, Susan Cowsill and the Watson Twins.

Learn more about Amy on her website. Here’s a poignant video of her classic song, “Weight of the World.”

We’re delighted to hear that you’ll be playing at this year’s WUMB Music Fest. We’re totally psyched about having you on a main stage and gaining new fans here in the Boston area. Any previews on hand at the me&thee on April 30?

I’ve been writing a lot, so I’ll probably preview some new material that MA fans haven’t heard yet. I’ll be going back into the studio in the Fall so I’m starting to take these new songs out on a short leash, so to speak. . . . Plus, obviously I’ll play songs from “Killer In Me” and “Bright Street.”

How is life in Nashville? How does it differ from the NY scene?

Nashville and NYC are so different. NYC is a major cosmopolitan city, all buzz and energy. Nashville is like a laid back small town with a few tall buildings. You need a car in Nashville. There’s no cobblestoned old quarter like The Village here. The pizza isn’t really that good and I haven’t found a good bagel yet. I miss 2am Chinese Food and a cheap Korean nail salon on every corner. But we have incredible barbecue and I love my neighborhood and the cost of living is so much more reasonable for a musician that life is just… well, easier. I had a bit of an adjustment period at first. It’s quieter here, for sure. No garbage trucks beeping their backup noises at 5am. Parking is no issue. I have trees that flower and a backyard and songbirds. And a house of my own, room to walk around in it and a nice backyard. I live in East Nashville, so there are pierced and tattooed people everywhere, which makes me feel at home. I haven’t seen a Stetson or a pair of Wranglers in my ’hood over here. It’s young and more “alt” than across the river and I like it that way.

The scene? Both NYC and Nashville are business towns, so the “scene” is really diverse. I’m on the road so much that I don’t really play in Nashville all that often, similar to how my life was in NYC. There’s no venue here in Nashville that’s like NYC’s The Living Room (or Passim), a singer-songwriter listening room place. The Bluebird is cool but it’s more geared toward writers. So you’ll go there and might not know the names of the performers but you’ll recognize the songs from the radio. There’s nothing like The Bluebird in NYC. I love to hang at The Family Wash in East Nashville because every night I’m there I meet other musicians. People are friendly here and the musician community is really really strong here. It took me years to find a niche in NYC, to find an artist community down on Ludlow Street. Here, it took a few days. It’s just more, I don’t know, open. Maybe that’s because I did my ‘time’ in NYC…

We hear a lot about all the music business that goes down in Nashville. Are you hoping to write tunes for other musicians as well as for yourself? Not exactly sure how that all works!

I write for myself. I never write a song thinking “I’m going to write this to pitch it to Taylor Swift or Reba or whomever. I don’t listen to commercial country radio. But if a song of mine gets to someone . . . I’m open to that. I am exploring co-writing. Have been for years. There’s a handful of people I love to write with. But I also do most of my writing alone, honing my own craft, still in search of that elusive truth and honesty place deep in my own core. I’m not necessarily here to find a publishing deal but I am exploring publishing opportunities. All in good time. I moved here mostly to change things up personally, and because my management is here, but also to have a better quality of life. I can afford to live in a house here, not just a tiny studio. My car insurance is cheaper. Everything is cheaper. And Nashville is very centrally located. Plus, when I’m off the road, there’s a creative flow in the air and its quieter and less distracting than NYC so I’ve been able to get a lot of writing done. And living. And biking. And cooking.

Much has been said about your time in a Catskills cabin writing your newest CD, The Killer in Me. It is apparent that you were in a pretty dark and isolated time in your life and you came out at the other end. . . . so is it weird that you are now singing those songs again but your head is in a different space? Know what I mean?

You have to find your way to the songs separate than the place that you wrote them from or else you’re just being self-indulgent. There’s a universal pathos in all songs that you have to find and then just deliver the song. If it’s a strong enough song, and hopefully it is by the time you’ve recorded it, if you’ve done your writer’s work, then the subjective germ that song emanated from originally folds into the more objective, universal truth of it and you don’t have to live in that dark place again in order to deliver the truth behind the song. Which is to say, I lived through the darkness, I wrote about it. I try to find the light when I sing those songs now. That way, someone else can see their way through it too.

You were “discovered” by Judy Collins’ manager at a South by Southwest gig and then got signed to Judy’s Wildflower label. Did you know this manager was present in the audience before you did the gig or did you find out afterwards?

I found out afterwards. She had come to see Gurf Morlix, who was playing after me. Then, later that afternoon or the next day, I can’t remember, I was on the rooftop of Maggie Mae’s on 6th Street in Austin at the Paste Magazine party and this woman came up and offered me a shot of tequila and we had a drink together. I didn’t recognize her, had no idea who she was but she seemed to know my friends and so we hung out. One of my friends slipped her a CD of my demo’s. When I got back to NYC, I had a gig at The Rodeo Bar and this woman came with some other folks and said hello and told me she worked at Wildflower Records and asked me who was putting out my next CD. I said, ‘Me’ and she offered me a record deal right there, in between sets. Goes to show you what good quality tequila can do for a girl’s career. And it’s a real lesson in that old adage about being present and taking every opportunity because you never know who’s going to be there.

I understand that Judy is covering your song “Weight of the World.” What’s it like to have a folk icon singing your tune???

*(*&$#&*(!_ unbelievable. I‘m stunned every time I hear her sing it.