Amanda Shires joins ‘Southern Craft Radio’ with Joy Williams and opens up about quitting music and what brought her back to record her upcoming album, ‘Take It Like A Man.’ She talks about the meaning behind the strong title of the album and what she hopes her fans will take away from this new project.
Listen to the episode in-full anytime on-demand at apple.co/_SouthernCraft
Amanda Shires tells Apple Music about quitting music during the pandemic
Amanda Shires: I didn’t just think about it. I actually did it. I wasn’t being lighthearted about it. I mourned and grieved it when I let it go. Before COVID and the lockdown, I feel like in hindsight I was doing Highwomen and I was doing Amanda Shires music. I was doing Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit music. Looking back, I think I was trying to force myself into a burnout so I could just… whatever. Then COVID happened and I was like, “Well, this is kind of perfect timing and I’m going to be a painter now,” is what I told myself. I was happy doing that. You know, the thing that caused it really was just a bunch of bad studio experiences.
Joy Williams: Yeah, I get that. That changes everything, doesn’t it?
Amanda Shires: It does. Then I started questioning why I was having those bad experiences and I started blaming myself like, “Oh, maybe I’m not doing music right, or maybe they’re right.” It just breeds more self doubt and then you’re like “This thing I love and I’ve loved since a child is harming me.”
Joy Williams: Yeah, it’s hard to play and feel creative if you don’t feel safe.
Amanda Shires: Yeah, and I didn’t know that was what was happening, and turned out in the end, it was not music breaking my heart. It was the people I was around, a lot of them.
Amanda Shires tells Apple Music about the meaning behind the title of her upcoming album ‘Take It Like A Man’
Amanda Shires: It means all the things that you think it means. Then you already said it, the part about the vulnerability, a strength in the vulnerability. That’s exactly it. When I was growing up, it’s a little bit different than if you’re growing up now. My daughter, we teach her how to have emotions and what big emotions are and all this, but to work in a male dominated industry, a lot of times to be successful, you have to really suppress all that and put on a different kind of armor that I haven’t found yet. But I feel like now we’re allowed to talk about a lot of these things and share and all that business. I felt like the whole sexist phrase is applicable for a lot of different reasons, and not only dishing it out, like you could, taking it like you could dish it out, but also the thing where it’s actually stronger and to me shows more courage to be more vulnerable. Then on top of that, you can’t really take it like anything.
Joy Williams: Yeah, you just got to take it like yourself.
Amanda Shires: Yeah, exactly.Â
Amanda Shires tells Apple Music what she hopes listeners take away from her new album ‘Take It Like A Man’
Amanda Shires: The goal naturally is that folks find themselves somewhere in the songs, but the first part of love, the first stage of love, is not a sustainable type of love and that love grows and changes. We hear that all the time, but that the way marriages work too, we’re all different for everybody. It’s not really talked about a lot, but whether you’re married or not, you could be going through some other kind of heartbreak. I don’t know. I hope that you take away from this that maybe your own feelings or emotions are a little less tangled. That’s what I hope.
Joy Williams: It can clarify and make someone feel a little bit less alone.
Amanda Shires: Because sometimes you just feel sad or you’re disappointed or you’re upset or mad, but you can’t describe the cloud of hours you just spent, or the actual feeling. But I hope that I helped you find something, or if I didn’t, I just hope you enjoy the sounds.
