In Conversation with AMY MEYER
Presented by Half-Moon Music // Interviewed by Ashford York
Los Angeles, California, USA
Saturday, 14 November, 2020

PART I

It feels like ever since your band came thundering into the mainstream consciousness with little to no introduction, there has always been the lingering murmurings of “Oh, It’s clearly a platform for the lead singer.” And you probably were always expected to make that jump to solo star but credit to the three of you, you have all done things on your own terms. You already have a solo album to your name, but Adam was in fact the first of the group to release a solo record which nobody expected, and your debut felt a little half-hearted almost like you didn’t want to be doing it at that time. But here we are, five years on since your debut solo record with your sophomore effort and it feels like this time around you’ve put your heart into it all, every single breath and beat and the listening experience is all the richer for it.
So, it has taken a while but here you are, solo star, free of the shackles of the band, it did take a while but those sceptics and critics were right in the end, huh?

Amy: [Laughs Sarcastically] I guess they were right all long, it only took six records with the band to get to that point. It feels great to be free from those shackles that the band put me in and finally get a chance to go out on my own and be the superstar that I always knew I was. It was only a matter of time, my friend. But now we’re here and now it’s all about me. It’s all I ever truly wanted from any of this.

You’ve had it from day one, I’ve seen it and I’ve watched it manifest itself in some pretty messed up ways. I remember watching from the side stage during your headline performance at the Field Trip Festival in … I want to say 2012 but my memory is not what it once was. The reviews the next day weren’t about how the band absolutely killed it in front of the biggest single audience they’ve ever performed in front of at that point and how it was such a faultless performance and how great you all did as a unit but about how it was the gig that made you a star, it was all about you and you guys have had that a lot over the years but you never let it distract you from your main goal.

Amy: No, absolutely not. It felt like such a burden in the early days and I know, I know, it’s all fucking first world problems but it was difficult to deal with during those first two albums because we were like eighteen or nineteen but once we understood how all that negative shit is just nonsense paper talk and our fans will see through it we learnt how to shut that out. I think we truly felt like, together on stage in front of our fans was where we truly controlled our own narrative and they understood what we were and what we were about, like they saw our closeness early on and between the five us at that time, you could see it was a family dynamic. I never wanted to be on any stage without them standing by my side and I think our true fans knew this. Of course things change and relationships change over time, but I’m sure we’ll get in to all that at some point today.

Oh absolutely, and I don’t mean to be somewhat of a masochist but that’s a part of the bands history that fascinates me a whole lot and we’ve got to obviously really get into that. But we’ll try to keep this as linear as possible, I know there’s a lot of ground to cover to get to this point where you’re at today, but I’m sure we’ll get there.

Amy: For sure, man. Let’s open up some old wounds.

They’re absolutely about to get opened, I’m sure. But how did you get here, to this point in your career where there’s a line drawn over the band aspect at least for now and you’ve gone silent for almost two years and not just not releasing stuff but literally not being heard from or seen in that time, to the point where some of weren’t sure if we’d ever hear from you musically again. A lot of the rumours were that you were absolutely done with this career, from the outside looking in it just looks like everything was demolished completely.


Amy: It definitely felt that way. I mean when we ended the band that was total burnout and exhaustion, there’s no other reason for that. I don’t think the music felt stale to our fans but to us the whole thing felt stale. We couldn’t bare the thought of going through the same repetitive cycle for another album and it felt like the right time to put a pin in it in terms of the group aspect. Obviously it was expected that all three of us would continue in the industry in some way, I know Jason’s aim was to be at home more with his young family and he’s got his own brand of clothing with his wife so he completely stepped away from the music world. Adam is a free spirit, he does little pieces of everything, producing indie records and moonlighting with bands and musicians that he’s close with and for me, I knew I wanted to take a break from everything and just live as normal a life as I could for like 6 months or so just to really re-charge.

I sort of took the break as an opportunity to really figure myself out for the first time in my life, I’ve done this since I was seventeen years old, I’ve been who I was meant to be. Not necessarily who I actually am and I’d say that in the long run, I certainly know myself a little better now, I’ve still got a lot to figure out but I guess in those two years or so, I took the long and most painful route to get to that. Constant grappling with my own mental health, the worst depths of depression, anxiety, dealing with death, getting to grips with my own sexuality that I fought against all of my life, a really fucking difficult breakup, complete loss of confidence and self-esteem, lack of motivation, exhaustion. The list goes on and on, my friend.

It does and I understand how that is, it’s that old adage of ‘it never rains but it pours’

Amy: Oh, one hundred and ten percent

It may come as quite a shock to fans of yours and people just observing from afar, it’s always so easy for them to point to all the things that you have in your life, countless awards and accolades, a name that actually even to this day carries weight in the industry, amounts of wealth that some people won’t see in their entire existence, a talent that people can only dream of and they’ll ask the simplest question of all. Why can’t you just be happy?

Amy: That’s depression though, isn’t it? Like, we’ve known each other for a while now. I know you’ve had the same struggles in your past, maybe even worse. We all wish it was as easy as reading a list of all of your positives in this life, but it’s not. When you feel low and you can’t figure that shit out, you don’t even have the energy to even think in that sort of rational way. It’s not specific to myself, I’m not the only one to ever feel this way or go through any of this. But in that moment, I absolutely am the only one that feels this way and it doesn’t matter what anybody tries to do or say to guide me out of that depression, they will fail. We all will fail. I’ve observed that it helps to have good people around you, but all they can do in reality is watch it happen and hopefully pass through.

I know that my depression isn’t a permanent thing in the sense that it’s with me constantly and never lets up. I know that mine is very much episodic. I can be fine for two weeks and suddenly the smallest thing can happen and something breaks inside of me and I’m very much in that darkness for possibly a couple of months. And actually people pointing out all the things you have to be grateful for, just makes it worse because that adds guilt and frustration to the fire.

It probably comes as a surprise to a lot of casual observers but those die-hards that over-analyse every lyric and read everything written certainly are aware of the struggles you’ve faced for almost your entire life. This isn’t just a recent thing, it’s something you’ve battled with almost for as long as you can remember, right?

Amy: Right. My parents spotted it at like, five or six. I think maybe even slightly earlier the signs showed but they gave it space and time until it was clear that this thing exists within me. My first episode was an anxiety related panic attack at the age of eight years old and the solution given to my parents at that time were childhood therapy which to a lot of kids would have seemed weird. But they sort of jedi mind-tricked me into viewing the weekly sessions as like home tutoring. There were a few of my friends at school that had additional home tutoring on weekday evenings so they used that as a way to make me think it was all pretty normal stuff. I think I always knew there was something up but you’re a kind and you never really know.

That was the starting point, but then things got complicated when you went onto medication. Anti-depressants or something similar from a young age?

Amy: Yeah, I know I was medicated from the age of thirteen. I can’t remember the name but I think it was something more suitable because I remember that we moved on to like full on anti-depressants from the age of sixteen, which I think hindsight and advanced knowledge will tell you is super detrimental to be put onto something like that under the age of eighteen but it was a different time. And that’s been a part of me ever since. I’ve relied on them and found comfort in them and battled against them and just had a completely volatile relationship with them. I still find that I push back against it and it’s the moments of clarity when you make yourself believe that they’re not needed that’s when you get yourself into the real trouble. It’s a fucked up existence especially for someone who likes to feel like they’re in control.

You kept it to yourself for the longest time though and when it came to light, you didn’t acknowledge it immediately. It sort of felt like your dirty little secret and I don’t know if that was due to the way it was revealed or anything. From a former band mate and best friend. It was super shady with a lot of anger behind it. Probably your most difficult period publicly would you say?

Amy: It was so fucked up, man. Like the worst period, without doubt. I hated every second of being alive at that period. And I don’t even believe it was because that information had been put out there. But it was the hurt of how it was put out there. From somebody that I was probably the closest with at least until the last couple of months in leading up to that. Myself and Justin (Mullen former lead guitarist of Riot! In The Boulevard) had been childhood friends, had gone through literally everything together. Was probably the person I trusted the most in my life. Cracks had begun to show in our relationship around album number three (“Crossroads” [2012]) he began hating everything we were doing and sometimes it felt like it was just to be an issue for the sake of being an issue. I get it, sometimes you’re not comfortable with the direction and all that sort of thing. I personally think he didn’t like how big we were becoming and the fact that the rest of us were happy becoming that big at the time.

So it was probably a build up of over a year of in-fighting and disagreements on little things, eventually after the fourth album, he and his brother Nathan decided to leave the band. It felt like a fairly friendly departure at the time, no real drama. They just quietly left and we even spoke about keeping in touch and that the door was always open.

See, immediately my analytical part of my brain is trying to piece things together and is looking at underlying jealously and resentment, knowing what was to come. For those that don’t know, a short while after their departure from the band Justin unexpectedly released a full statement of what was supposed to be explaining his reasons for leaving the band. It was more of a long winded tirade against your character. It was a shock to everyone I knew that were fans of the group.

Amy: Honestly I didn’t even take issue with the statement as a whole. It’s one man’s one sided opinion on something. It’s not my battle and certainly not my war. For me, it was the fact that he knew what my struggles were. He knew that I struggled with them daily and that I did have a fear of opening myself up in that way, struggling with depression from such an early age and taking medication for it was something that I was always made to feel ashamed of back then. Again it was a different time back then and the world is a lot more understanding on this sort of thing, but he took that as something that could damage me and I believe that was the intention. It sucks that this is how such a deep and personal friendship ended. But it’s a part of history now. Things have changed and I’d like to think we’ve grown up a lot since then, I believe we’re all very different people now.

Have you spoken to him since then?

Amy: I have. It took a while, it definitely took a while. It was a couple of years ago but like, it was a very brief conversation. Essentially it was a quick hello, how’s the family? Sort of deal. I’ve spoken to Nathan a few more times and we text back and forth every now and then, but there was never an issue between me and Nathan. He just sort of left out of loyalty to his brother which is cool.

It seems so bizarre to me that you just bumped into each other and didn’t even acknowledge what was said or even look for an apology or anything.

Amy: Yeah, I think because a couple of years had passed before we ever saw each other again let alone spoke. The anger or resentment from my side had certainly passed. We’re both older now and many of those negative feelings from that don’t exist anymore, at least not from my side of things. He may still stand by what he did, and if he did then it sucks that there’s been no growth. But I do genuinely believe maturity has has found it’s way to both of us. I mean, deep down. I’d love to have my friend back. I think it would be impossible to be as open and close as we ever used to be. But at least on a conversational level, that would be cool.

It must have been tough to lose two members of the band, especially when you were probably at the peak of your career as a group. What was the feeling within the band when it was just yourself, Adam and Jason left?

Amy: I’d quite like to think that there was never a possibility of the band just finishing. But spoke about it and whether we should look at recruiting two new members, but it was always a family vibe. We were childhood friends and bringing two unfamiliar faces into the group would have just felt a little strange to us all. I know Adam wanted the band to carry on, Jason has always just sort of gone with the flow of things and I was just a bit of a mess at this time. I had people suggesting that we all start to experiment on projects away from the band just to have something to fall back on and that’s when the solo album began. I didn’t want to do it but I made a decision based on panic and fear which is why you got such a half-assed record, but a couple of months later we were back in the studio as a trio and the band continued. It was probably the worst period of time for me, professionally and personally. It got super dark back then.