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Listen As Alternative Singer-Songwriter, MEG MYERS Discusses Her Debut Album, Her Love for Ryan Adams and Enya and Much More!
Posted On 06 Oct 2015
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Tag: All Access, All Access Music Group, Alt-J, Andy Rosen, Artist Interview, Atlantic Records, AWOLNATION, Broods, Daughter In The Choir, Dire Straits, Dr. Rosen Rosen, Enya, Feather, Heart Heart Head, Hell, I Really Want You To Hate Me, Lemon Eyes, Make A Shadow, Meg Myers, Monster, Motel, Nashville, Pixies, Police, Randy Travis, Royal Blood, Ryan Adams, Smokey Mountains, Sorry, Soundcloud
Over the past two years, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Meg Myers has earned both a devoted fan base and critical praise thanks to the deeply cathartic songs on her two EPs, 2013’s “Daughter In the Choir” and 2014’s “Make A Shadow”.
Fans and the media have also been won over by the intense nature of Myers’ live performances, which have included support slots with Pixies, Alt-J, Broods, and Royal Blood, Awolnation as well as this year’s sold-out headlining shows. Both onstage and on her recordings, Myers displays a richly powerful voice that can slide from a feathery trill to an anguished howl on a dime, making it the perfect instrument with which to express her brooding lyrics on ferocious anthems like “Monster” from “Daughter In The Choir” and “Make A Shadow”’s “Heart Heart Head” — a live favorite that closes with the sound of Myers’ feral screams.
Last month, Myers released her debut full-length album “Sorry”, via Atlantic Records. As she has in her previous work, Myers continues to explore the tension between light and dark, sweet and bitter, and love and hate on the layered guitar-synth soundscapes she creates with her collaborator, the songwriter-producer Andy Rosen, known as Dr. Rosen Rosen.
“The songs still have my dark vibe musically, but I’ve discovered that my writing has changed and evolved into something a little more hopeful,” she says. “While I was on tour, I got sick a lot and didn’t sleep much and I started feeling really low. Singing these dark songs, even though I truly connect with them, began to feel really heavy and unhealthy. So when I started writing, it was like I was trying to find something positive. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to need hope. What’s cool to me now is giving that to people. I’m still very emotional, but I’m starting to incorporate a bit more joy and a ‘We can get through this’ kind of vibe into my writing.”
Music has always been an emotional release for Myers. Born in Nashville, she spent the first five years of her life in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains where she was raised by a truck driver father and Jehovah’s Witness mother. After her parents divorced, her mother married a fellow Witness, who moved the family to Ohio. Her mother and stepfather worked for a cleaning business. When she was 12, Myers and her siblings were taken out of school when the family moved yet again, this time to Florida, where they bounced from town to town throughout her teen years. During this period, Myers began singing, writing songs on keyboard, and teaching herself to play guitar. She played bass in a band she started with her brother. “I had a huge need to express myself,” Myers says. “Music was always an escape from reality. I was forced to be an adult at a really young age. Music was the only safe place that was my own, where I could say whatever I wanted.”
Listen below as All Access speaks with Meg about her debut studio album, her songwriting process, her great love of Ryan Adams and much more! Enjoy!