A Chance To Perform Next To Frank Turner? She's Ready
Singer-songwriter Amanda Rose Riley writes with an honest and unfiltered voice that almost sounds like you’re reading her private diary. Her unpretentious style sets her music apart from other, more commercially-influenced artists with a quirkiness that is almost irresistible. With song titles as intriguing as “Secrets I Told to a Sound Hole” and “I Want to Marry Music,” I find myself listening to her songs one after another, wanting to learn more about her as a person.
In this video: Amanda shares how music has allowed her to communicate better, what her approach to songwriting is (she’s a veteran of songwriting challenges), and how she creates opportunities that have allowed her to perform for well-known artists such as Frank Turner.
“A lot of my songs are really quirky, and that’s just my personality.”
Having listened to all 31 of Amanda’s songs released on Spotify, I’m not surprised to meet New Jersey-based Amanda Rose Riley through a video call where she sounds exactly like the singer version of herself. Thankfully, she seems pleased with my observation of her songwriting. “My songwriting is very personal,” Amanda adds. “It is basically my own thoughts and insights and feelings and experiences. A lot of my songs are really quirky, and that’s just my personality.”
I ask her about the one in which she writes from the perspective of a squirrel (titled “Boxed In (The Squirrel)” from her album, Better). She laughs and explains that the song had taken her five years to finally put on paper. “I do observe animals,” she says, “and I like to think a lot about what it means to be human. The way we live our lives, the things we think are normal and take for granted are oftentimes very weird. I was thinking about houses and buildings and how we’re always in some kind of box or compartment. If animals could think, they would probably think it’s weird that humans live in these boxes.”
As a musician and an introvert, Amanda is more comfortable conversing with strangers through music than through conversations. But she is not one to shy away from meeting and connecting with people, so long as she can do it with some melodies and a guitar in hand. Her willingness to converse through music has taken her to venues and festivals across the East Coast of the US as well as the UK; it has created the “heaven on earth” opportunity for her to sing alongside her idol, Frank Turner (watch video above), and as a musician and storyteller, it has brought her the priceless joy of sharing her own original music with the world.
I hope she will continue to write in her unique and quirky style that has defined her character so charmingly.
Interview conducted and written by Louise Lau. Connect with her on social media @offstagetunes
Watch video highlights of this interview
Listen to Amanda Rose Riley on Spotify