I quit school, started a band and worked my ass off, says Dirtie Blondes Amie Miriello of her days as a struggling artist. I really needed to be independent. I kept playing and knew it was going to happen, it was just a matter of time.
It is the release of Dirtie Blondes debut album, due in the Spring of 2006 on Jive Records. It is Amies opportunity to reach people with her depiction of a young womans challenge to be who she is amid vulnerability, insomnia and snakes in the grass. It is her chance to play for thousands of people with longtime friend and guitarist Jay Dmuchowski, guitarist Sean Kipe, bassist Dean Moore and drummer Tim Perez.
Despite the abject emotional state of songs like Officially in Love (Dont let me down/ Im officially in love with you now/ I got everything to lose) and My Pride (Say goodbye to me tonight/ Cause its over this time/ Hes like a bridge on fire/ And you ... your own demise), the album is persistently upbeat. Amie paints her naked insecurity, loneliness and frustration with a palette of monster hooks and stacked harmonies. Even when confronting the basest of betrayers (Karmaboy), she cant seem to escape a catchy melody. Walk Over Me, Outta My Bed and Change the Water are damn-near-perfect pop songs.
When I was growing up, my favorite records were the ones that made me want to dance around my room in my underwear, Amie says with a laugh. I wanted to make a record that combined the emotional, singer-songwriter stuff with the energy of a band that rocked out.
Amies room was in Stamford, Conn., and though she hooked up with Sean, Dean and Tim in Los Angeles, this album was recorded in Midtown Manhattan; Amie cut her teeth playing at New York clubs like Arlenes Grocery after leaving the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music to write songs and tend bar. I moved to New York when I was 17, she notes. I grew up a half hour away and I always loved the city.
At the age of six, she began appearing in musical theater productions in her hometown. By then she was also becoming a classic rock aficionado, with particular emphasis on Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. She next fell under the sway of singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, Fiona Apple, Elliott Smith and, especially, Jeff Buckley, about whom she says, He made me realize there was no reason for self-censorship in my songs.
Amie started writing songs in fourth grade. My parents were really unhappy together, and Id write about that, she confides. At first I kept a diary, but then I started writing these songs -- angry, angsty, I-hate-mom/I-hate-dad kinds of things. Id sing them into this little tape recorder. Amie was also miserable in school. I was failing, and I simply didnt care. I always thought I was going to be famous -- no one could tell me differently -- so I couldnt see how school was relevant to my life, she continues. So, at 15, she enrolled in an arts-oriented boarding school near Boston, where she sang all day every day and taught herself to play guitar.
Before heading off to school, shed started writing songs with Jay Dmuchowski, who Amie met while working as a camp counselor with his sister. We had a band that played gigs at Martys, a trashy nightclub in Port Chester, she informs. Jay and I wrote so easily together. We had this amazing musical companionship and became best friends. After I got out of school, Jay and I would gig around New York, just the two of us and our guitars.
After leaving college, I basically spent a year in bed eating Taco Bell, Amie recalls. But eventually she settled into a groove of writing and gigging while making drinks at various Manhattan hot spots to pay the bills. She fended off bad deals and unwanted advances for so long, though, that she started to wonder if she would ever connect with the audience she believed was out there for her.
It was during a solo show in the city that Amie was finally discovered. A scout working for producer Billy Mann came to see an act she was opening for and left more impressed by Amie than the headliner. Mann soon set her up at his studio and introduced her to production team MachoPsycho, a.k.a. Nikey Olovson and Robin Lynch. Natives of Gothenburg, Sweden, MachoPsycho are perhaps best known for their work with Pink and Jessica Simpson.
Much of the albums immediacy can be attributed to the speed of its creation. We recorded the whole thing in 12 days, Amie reports. Id be at the studio all day until I had to go to work, Id tend bar all night, and then Id be back at the studio first thing in the morning. I didnt really sleep, which is partly why my voice sounds so raspy. But I loved it. Thats how I like to work -- thats how I live. When Im not doing a million things at once, Im completely bored.
By the time the album was finished, Dirtie Blonde -- then just Amie and Jay -- had secured management and signed a deal with Jive. They were having a hard time finding bandmates in New York, however, and Amie admits their standards were very high. We just werent happy with the people we were playing with, she affirms. I dont want to work with people who are in it for the gig; I want to work with people who love this music as much as we do. We were looking for players whod want to contribute and grow with this band.
As it turned out, she found those players in L.A., where Dirtie Blondes management company is based. Sean and Dean and Tim are fantastic musicians, and they all sing, Amie enthuses. They have great musical ideas. When Jay and I work on a song with them, it comes alive. And we had that instant family feeling with them. We hang out every day. We go hiking together. We go drinking together. And now they go touring together.
With this band and this record, everything is exactly the way it should be, Amie declares. The idea that youve got to bend over to make it [see Bend Over] is just wrong. You can be creative and write honest music and work with people you love without having to give up everything you believe in. You can sell records without selling your soul.
This positivity has served Amie well in the face of long odds, and it comes through in the music; the lyrics to What You Want provide more insight into whats kept her going all this time...
I cant go to sleep I lie in bed awake and wired, trying desperately But Im not counting sheep Im listening to the music in my head so constantly And all this time, I slave away It will happen someday ...Im ready
