The Herald - The Herald Magazine
COVER STORY
Singer-songwriter Amy Macdonald talks tattoos, transport and tying the knot
AMY Macdonald was on stage in Germany, playing with her band and entertaining yet another appreciative audience, when she glanced at the front row. “There was a group of girls who come to a lot of my gigs,” she says, laughing at the memory. “They made life-size paintings of not just me, but all of the band too. As the show went on they didn’t just unveil them all at first, they did it bit by bit. So, we all had a life-size painting of ourselves.
“It was amazing that they spent so much time doing that. We got them up on the stage and showed the whole crowd. To me that’s the crazy side. I always just try to write things that mean something and that move me. Almost all my songs have a story behind them and they’re all about a certain thing. People appreciate that. I don’t write songs about being on tour because it’s not what people can relate to.”
Macdonald is an engaging interviewee as she sits in Glasgow’s Malmaison hotel, a glass of sparkling water to hand. Her new album – Under Stars, her fourth since 2007 – is out this month. In March she embarks on a European tour that includes dates in Edinburgh, Inverness and Aberdeen. The last two have already sold out. She’s sold more than nine million records worldwide since her acclaimed debut, This is the Life.
Under Stars marks a departure for the singer-songwriter. “I had never written songs with anybody in my life. I’ve got that
typical musician thing where everything, 90 per cent of the time, is suffering from crippling self-doubt. And 10 per cent is being on stage.”
Though it has been almost a decade since This is the Life, Macdonald still finds it challenging opening up and writing with others.
“The thought of sitting with somebody and telling them my innermost thoughts and ideas was enough to bring me out in a cold sweat. It was something I’d never done but my bass player, Jimmy [Sims], is the exact same.”
To get over this, the pair decided to write the songs as though they were playing for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. “As soon as we did that it made it so much easier and it made me relax. Within the next two hours we wrote the track Automatic, which is on the album. After that it just kind of clicked.”
Macdonald takes a lot of inspiration from her friends’ lives. Dream On, for example, is a song she wrote for a close friend who was going through a rough patch. “She got made redundant and her mum was unwell and everything seemed to be going to absolute rubbish for her,” says Macdonald. “It was awful and I was wishing there was something I could do. But then she got a job interview and that changed her whole outlook and she was suddenly Mrs Positive.
“It was amazing and inspiring that she could have all this mess going on around her but this one tiny glimmer of hope brought her back. That inspired me to write Dream On. It sounds like a massive, positive, upbeat, happy song. But the verses are tinged with sadness and then the chorus is the dreaming, where she got her little bit of good news.
“It’s amazing because she’s in a great place now. Her mum is totally fine and she got the job and has been promoted a couple of times already. She loves the song. She tells everybody that’s her song.”
While Macdonald outwardly embodies the rock-chick persona – today she is wearing a black-and-red stripey top and black leather trousers – she has never felt the need to rebel and is close to her family and friends. However, her mother does not share her daughter’s passion for fast cars, which earned her an appearance on Top Gear in 2013. “She’s been telling me how I’m wasting my money and how I should sort myself out for the future but I’m just like, ‘Bugger it, you only live once.’”
Although Scotland has some fabulous roads, Macdonald says the country’s dreich days can be an issue. “The Scottish weather isn’t really conducive to a high-powered, rear-wheel-drive car. I’d probably end up in a ditch,” she says, laughing. “But it’s great being able to drive and getting a connection with a car. Getting the exhilaration and excitement of being lucky and able to drive on tracks and things like that. You can do what you want. It is an amazing feeling and buzz but a great release as well.”
Cars seem to be the way the 29-year-old lets her hair down. Certainly, she has never felt the need to indulge in the celebrity lifestyle. “I’ve never been into the whole sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. It’s not really me. We’ve been through so many economic downs and crises, people who are coming to shows have spent their hard-earned cash.
“If I’m out every night drinking and giving some half-assed show, it’s so disrespectful to the people who have worked hard so they can come and watch you.
“People tell me I’m not cool but I don’t care. To me these people are there to support me so I’m going to give something back. It means something to me to put some effort into the folk who have allowed me to do what I do.”
However uncool the hipsters may think she is, Macdonald has an impressive tattoo sleeve on her arm. Even with a fear of needles she has managed to cover herself in art work ranging from love hearts to skulls.
“When you are somebody that’s creative it’s another way to get those juices flowing,” she says. “I always loved tattoos but I was terribly afraid of needles. When I was on holiday in Las Vegas with my friends, they wanted to mark the occasion and get matching tattoos.” She recalls waving about her arms in protest. “I was like: ‘No, no, no. Not going to happen, not going to happen.’
“They had tattoos already, so they weren’t as worried as me. But then we decided to get something small to remember these few weeks, so we got these matching love hearts. It wasn’t painful at all and I couldn’t even give blood before. But it got me over my fear of needles so I decided I wanted a big crazy sleeve.
Almost all my songs have a story behind them. I don’t write songs about being on tour because it’s not what people can relate to