Amy Courts Interview
When I first came across Amy Courts on Disc Revolt and I was immediately struck by her voice. Behind the angelic voice I found a performer whose lyrics were both spiritual and intelligent (unfortunately a combination that has become rare these days). Well after a bit of back and forth I was able to play some of her music on the podcast. I was then surprised by a little gift in the mail, it seemed that santa came early and I must of been a good boy cause there in my stocking was a pre-release of “These Cold and Rusted Lungs”. A Cd I was happy to review on the site, and the hits just keep on coming. I have been given the chance to sit down (virtually) with Amy and Interview her via Email. I get the chance to talk to her about her music, influences, ministries and more. So please, join us in Jt’s Coffee shop as we talk about this and that as we find out more about the artist Amy Courts and her New CD “These Cold and Rusted Lungs”.
Read the Interview after the Jump.
JT - Who are some of your musical influences?
AC - My biggest influences, early on, were Jennifer Knapp and Sixpence None the Richer. Lyrically and melodically, there was so much richness and depth that I’d never heard in Christian music before. Both were willing to broach topics most in the industry veered away from, so it was encouraging and hopeful, for me as a teenager with angst oozing from my skin, to finally hear songs about real things like pain and hurt and doubts. Since then, I’ve become quite influenced by Patty Griffin’s raw vocal prowess, and have come to love any- and everything by Derek Webb. He’s another who is, in my mind, a bit of a revolutionary. How he writes (musically), and what he’s willing to write about so often flies in the face of the typical contemporary Christian fare. He talks about the Christian’s role in social justice, not just politics. He talks about peace in wartime. He stirs the pot without attacking. It’s inspiring.
JT - Can you tell me a little about your musical upbringing?
AC - I’m the youngest of four girls who were born singing. Seriously, I think I must have been one of those babies who didn’t kick in the womb, but sang. Who knows? But I’ve been singing for as long as I can remember. As a young girl and teenager, my family did the traveling family singer group thing. It was cool for a while, but once I got to high school I was pretty sick of being either “a Courts daughter who sings!” or Melani, Michelle, or Charis’s little sister. So I quit singing in choirs and at church and joined marching band. Once I got to college and finally experienced life in a place where no one knew “the Courts girls” or could compare me to my sisters, I started singing again and learning to play guitar. Then one day a friend of mine wrote a song and I decided I wanted to write songs. So I did.
JT - Your newest CD, “These Cold and rusted Lungs” is really great, can you tell me about the inspiration behind it?
AC - Thank you! It’s so encouraging to hear positive comments, because this record is very much a collection of my life’s snap-shots. It’s not often, as a writer, that songs just fall out in a 20-minute period of time, when you sit with your guitar or at the piano, and the entire song, lyrics and music, just comes to you. Usually, it takes a month or two to flesh out a song to a point where you’re ready to perform it. When it happens, what’s captured is always raw and organic, authentic as can be. And most of these songs were just that: moments that seemed to fall into song without my poking or prodding. They are expressions of me at my weakest or most hopeful, hurting or worried or simply wondering out loud. I consider myself lucky to have an album chock full of those vulnerable, unadulterated, unaffected moments.
JT - Do you consider what you are doing to be your ministry? What kinds of other things are you currently involved in?
AC - I always chuckle when I hear bands answer questions like this with, “We’re not a Christian band – we’re a band made up of guys who happen to be Christians.” It seems backward to me. As a Christ-follower, created by God and in His image, my identity is wrapped up in Christ. So really, I’m a Christian who happens to be an artist…and a wife, and a step-mother, and a friend. Everything I say, do, write, and sing flows from that central identifying mark. So while I don’t want to be glued to the Christian music market and would certainly love to find a home in the mainstream world as well, I can’t undermine the ministry of it. As a child of God and follower of the Gospel, everything I say in my songs – whether they’re about God or relationships or work or whatever – comes from a place where the Holy Spirit lives and breathes. In that sense, everything I do is bound to minister to someone. But I also know that, as a Christian, if I’m not loving others through active service, then I’m not living the Greatest Commandment. And as an artist, it’s not enough to sing about life and hopefully give listeners something real and honest to relate to. If I’m not encouraging them to give themselves to their own communities and to service around the globe, then my voice is wasted on vanity. That’s why I partnered with Mocha Club, an African Aid organization that, with just $7 per month – the cost of two mochas – is able to provide seven Africans with clean water for an entire year, or give 16 Ugandan children living with Malaria life-saving medication. Here at home in Nashville, I’m also involved with the Sudanese Center for Refugees and volunteer with a number of organizations that help the less fortunate or struggling in our communities. It’s not so much a matter of finding or defining my ministry through music, but seeking ways in the every day to serve my neighbors and love my enemies. Eventually, I’ll have to retire from my life as a professional musician. But I won’t – and can’t – retire from my Christianity or from the responsibility to love and serve my neighbors.
JT - From looking at your Myspace page I see that you have a pretty busy touring schedule. What do you find the hardest thing about touring? Likewise what is it that you like the best about touring?
AC - Aside from the obvious downside of being away from home and my husband for long periods of time, and the time it takes to simply book shows, the hardest part about touring is the work it takes to stay healthy. I don’t think I realized until after my first tour just how difficult it is, physically, to spend hours on end - sometimes entire days - cooped up in a car, or how hard it is to sleep in a different room and different bed every night. You lose a lot of sleep and your body goes into overdrive trying to keep endorphins moving. Couple that with the emotional, physical, and spiritual effort that goes into every single show, and it becomes incredibly difficult to stay healthy while giving every audience your very best every night. But, on the other hand, walking away from each performance having been able to share my heart and see the fruit of that vulnerability in peoples’ smiles, tears, and the stories they share makes every grueling moment away from home and on the road worth it. Knowing and seeing the Holy Spirit at work - through me! - is more rewarding and encouraging than anything else.
JT - What do you find most exciting about writing and recording music?
AC - It’s always exhilerating to write a new song and take it to a producer (or an audience) and show them a new baby. Because the writing process is one of such deliberation and vulnerability - especially for me, since most of what I write is me thinking or feeling out loud - it’s a relief to get it all down on paper. Starting with nothing and seeing where it goes is like watching evolution in fast-forward. It all comes out, and it’s kind of like that first day of feeling better after a bad cold. The recording process is different altogether. The amazing thing about it is bringing the different minds and artistic perspectives into the studio and meshing them in a way that works. I was completely blown away with all the final cuts on These Cold and Rusted Lungs, simply because what I took into the studio - these skeletons of songs that said something about me - were turned into these masterful bodies of timeless work that put color and texture to the bones. And when you work with someone like Neilson Hubbard (my producer) and the musicians on the project - from my own husband, Paul, to my drummer, Josh, to these guys I’ve never met, like Kris and Eamon, who all seem to know just what to play and where - it’s euphoric. What I’ve come away with is a full-bodied masterpiece. It’s incredible to be able to call it mine!
JT - Of all the bands I have spoken with, one thing I hear most of all is the difficulty in keeping spiritually grounded (I have had bands talk about being tempted by the secular life and how difficult that can be). Is there anything you do that helps keep you spiritually grounded while being part of the music industry?
AC - That’s a tough question to answer. While I do understand and experience the temptations of secular life, mostly in my worries over whether or not I’ll make the money necessary to sustain a musician’s life on the road, I don’t struggle as much with wanting to take part in the fame and celebrity of it all. Maybe I’m lucky in that the music industry - the Big Guns - hasn’t taken much notice of me, because I haven’t had to deal with parameters set by labels, producers or representatives and thus haven’t had to fight them over content or presentation of my music. I’ve been free to write what I want and what’s real to me. And really, I think it’s the content of the songs I sing that keeps me grounded spiritually. Knowing that every song came from a deeply personal, spiritual place (whether or not it’s about God, Jesus, praying, the Bible, or anything else definitively churchy), and that every single audience deserves a passionate, honest performance keeps me constantly aware of what I’m doing and why. Because I am naturally a person who wears her heart on her sleeve, I can’t pretend from the stage that everything is great when it’s not, or vice versa. I’m forced by nature to always be honest cause they’ll see right through me if I’m not. Besides that, God keeps me humble by letting me worry and then completely shutting me down and making them seem silly in light of His constant affirmation and provision.
JT - You talked of growing up in a singing and performing family and now being a Wife and Step-Mother, I know that this must be a change in your life. Have these things changed the way that perform or changed your outlook on the world?
AC-Oh man…the best and worst things about marriage and family life are the same: being inextricably bound and responsible to other human beings forces you out of yourself and into realms of selflessness you never thought imaginable. Becoming a wife and step-mother changed everything for me. In daily life, it means dying to myself and my desires. Specifically, it means choosing to love and give my best to my husband when I don’t think he deserves it, and more so receiving his unconditional love when I know I don’t deserve it. It means giving him an evening of my devoted attention when I’d rather rest. It means giving up my choice for where to spend vacation time because it’s more important to spend the days off with my step-son who lives a few states away. It means making a concerted effort to know him, love him, and be involved in what interests him, even when it makes no sense to me whatsoever. From the road, it means being deliberate about communicating even after we’ve both had really long days. Sometimes, it means passing up shows I’d like to do, or spending a little extra money to take the family with me. Invariably, though, it means putting them first. It means enjoying the uniqueness and beauty of two (and hopefully more, down the road someday) other people’s worlds, and becoming a person who makes that world better. I don’t have it perfected by any means, but the biggest change has been in learning that selflessness is far and away the most rewarding, satisfying thing I can do or be for them or myself.
JT - On your Myspace page, you are listed as being a contributing writer to www.newpilgrimpress.com and www.myspace.com/stalkingthemuse could you tell me a little more about these?
AC - Both are awesome publications! The New Pilgrim Press is a publication created by one of my dearest college friends, Lauren Geoffrion, who envisioned more for the next generation of Christians. She is a writer herself, and has surrounded herself with other like-minded, progressive Christian thinkers - whom she calls “The Revolutionaries” - who simply write about their own experiences and revelations about spirituality. Sometimes she’ll post quotes from amazing theologians like C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton, and other times she’ll just post thoughts compiled by the revolutionaries. But what she does in offering Truth-conscious forward-thinkers - people like me who often feel caught between progressive, post-modern theory and traditional, fundamental, irrefutable Truth - a place to gather, think together, write, and discuss matters of great importance across the spectrum is really fantastic. Stalking the Muse was the idea of one of Nashville’s biggest music fan who isn’t a musician himself. Being a lover of music and connoisseur of lyrical and melodic prowess, he decided to “stalk the muse” - ask singers, songwriters, artists, and bands what makes them tick, artistically. And he created a myspace entirely devoted to posting their musings and promoting their music and concerts. It’s become an incredible stop on the web for some of the best indie music around!
JT - What are your future plans, musically?
AC - Who knows!? I intend to keep doing what I do until I either can’t do it anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever just quit singing or writing…both are part of who I am. But, professionally speaking, I’ll keep doing it as long as I can afford to. And after that…I’ll do it for fun.
Lastly I wanted to end the interview with the famous 10 questions of James Lipton on “Inside the Actor’s Studio” but I find that several of the Question just don’t fit so I took the 6 that I thought made the most sense. If I may be so bold as to ask these questions?
What is your favorite word?
I’m a fan of “juxtaposed” and “acquiesce”…though it’s hard to find sentences in which to use either.
What is your least favorite word?
I’m afraid I can’t say that here.
What sound or noise do you love?
My husband playing guitar and singing, and babies giggling.
What sound or noise do you hate?
The wheezing sound my laptop makes when it goes into overdrive…it sounds like a dying hampster.
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
I’d love to be a writer…a journalist. I’m not all that great at writing novels (I lack the imagination and determination to see it through), but I’d love to write articles for various magazines. That, or be a Theology professor at a university.
What profession would you not like to do?
I really hate retail and food sales!
First off I want to thank Amy Courts, and encourage all of you to check her out, you can find the links here in the article. Also keep a lookout for her new CD “These Cold and rusted Lungs” when it comes out. Well you know, when I first started this project I was very excited about the idea of getting to interview an artist that I enjoyed. What I didn’t expect, and I really should of known better, was to be completely blown away by the depth of her passion both for the music and for Christ. I find myself in the happy position of telling you, my readers, that I am better off from having met, and interviewed, Amy Courts.
JustTerry puts out a weekly Podcast that can be found at www.jtindie.com and can be reached by email at jtindiepodcast@gmail.com
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