We chat with rising house artist Amey St. Cyr about her new release, what inspires her and her career up until this point!
Hi Amey! Can you tell us a bit about your background as a musician?
I studied at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama when I was 19 and met actors like Chris Ecclestone, Jason Issacs and Rufus Sewell while they were still students. My career was thriving in the early 90s. I got to sing BVs on The Stone by Babble, formerly The Thompson Twins and BFORD9 by Baby Ford and toured America and the length and breadth of Britain with them. I was also in an Acid Jazz type of band which played at the Jazz Cafe and supported Jamiroquai at his gig at The Garage in the early 90s.
It sounds like all was going well. What happened?
To cut a long story short, my band was offered a deal by Acid Jazz records on the Monday and I discovered I was pregnant on the Thursday of that same week! I decided to go off and have my baby and return to the deal after. Unfortunately for me 3 months after I had my daughter i came down with postnatal depression and it took me quite a while to recover, so the band broke up.
That must have been a tough time for you.
Yeah, it was. I started using drugs and alcohol to cope with this devastating loss, although all was not lost as I had my beautiful baby girl. But the upshot of it all is that I’m now over 12 years clean and have totally recovered from a difficult mental health condition and have risen from the ashes like a phoenix to create this EP.
What have you been up to more recently- aside from releasing your EP!
I’m also an actress who appears in Krept and Konan’s – My Story, Big Narstie’s – They Don’t Know and soon to be released Mackey Gee’s – Active which we shot last week. I was also recently a guest on my daughter’s radio show on NTS. She invited me on to talk about my journey to help reduce some of the stigma around mental illness.
Who would you consider your musical influences?
I have always been interested in dance music. My mother used to listen to Motown and Steve Barnard’s Reggae Time on Radio London back in the day so the beat in music has always been there for me. I also have a love of dancing, shaking a leg. I first starting dancing at family weddings and parties where reggae would always be played and as time passed I became a fan of bands like Chic, Sister Sledge, Atlantic Star and Change.
What about house music? ‘Wild World’ has a very ‘clubby’ feel to it.
Definitely. I love the atmosphere of a club – the lights, the darkness, all those gyrating bodies, the beat, the bass and the uplifting vocals. I’d also listen to pirate radio stations back in the day like Kiss Fm and I currently listen to House Fm which plays dance music old and new. So with my love of dance music and my love of dancing, House music was the obvious choice of genre for my first solo release.
What’s the message of your new track?
I describe Wild World as a comment on ‘social inequality’, which are the buzz words on any thinking persons lips at the moment, mixed with positive beats and uplifting lyrics to help us all out of the doldrums in these challenging days of austerity.
Thanks for talking with us!
Check out her track on the links below!
Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/ameystcyr
Youtube: https://youtu.be/PGkUm2mzXnI
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ameystcyrmusic/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stamelia