Free show from Newfoundland’s Amelia Curran

Date Published: 13-Feb-2013

Fans of heartfelt folk should enjoy Amelia Curran’s free show in Monroe’s Live this Saturday, February 16. At the time of this interview, Amelia is in Glasgow for the Celtic Connections Festival. It’s a city she enjoys returning to.

“It’s one of my favourites” she enthuses. “I love a town with a bit of a rough edge, and Glasgow has that!”

Amelia released her sixth studio album, Spectators last year. The recording of the album was spread between St John’s, Newfoundland, and Toronto. What was the reason behind the two locations?

“I’m from St John’s and I had just moved back when we started working on the album,” Amelia explains. “I think I was so delighted to be home I couldn’t really work! And I needed some fresh ears, and [producer] John Critchley was in Toronto. We had never worked together before, and I just dove in.”

Had Amelia been living far from home?

“Not in Canadian terms!” she says. “I lived in Halifax, Nova Scotia for 12 years [650 km from St John’s]. That was grand, but it was time to get home. Newfoundlanders are notorious for always wanting to go home.”

Amelia spends a lot of time on the road. Does she prefer the live arena to being in the studio?

“There are ups and downs to both,” she says. “I’m really nervous in the studio, which is where John Critchley was very good. But it’s such an exciting process.”

Her songs are usually fully formed before the record button is hit, but Amelia is open to tinkering with them.

“I usually have a vision for a piece,” she says. “But, especially when you’re getting in new people you’ve never worked with before, you’ve got to be willing to try everything. So things do change – and hopefully that’s for the better.”

Folk music was once seen as vital cog in driving social change, but Amelia wonders if those days are gone.

“When you’re travelling all the time and playing songs for a living – which is strange and wonderful – you want to leave the world in a better shape; to do something for the world around you,” she says. “And I sort of wonder if folk music is really enough; if I’m doing my part for the world. I don’t really know.”

Nevertheless, Amelia is bringing well-crafted and melodic songs to the world, so the folk scene, ultimately, still has something to offer.

“I think folk music is a really broad umbrella now,” she says. “I’ve just been here at Celtic Connections, and everyone’s joking at a few shows ‘where’s the Celtic Connection in that?’ There are rock bands and things around.

“But, to a point, if you begin on an instrument and start writing down some lyrics, anything could be called folk music. So it’s really broad and all over the word. I couldn’t define folk music.”

As well as releasing six albums, Amelia Curran is also a playwright. Although music takes up most of her time, she may return to the theatrical discipline in the future.

“For writing a play, I need kind of a boring life!” she laughs. “To be able to sit down and be chained to the desk, as they say. I write a lot of poetry and stories that are slowly developing into other things. I’ve no particular goal for that work, but it’s something I can’t help doing. Songs are one medium of writing, and I love to write.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.