INTERNATIONAL WOMAN’S DAY!
SPOTLIGHTING; AMY MEYER

Today on March 8th, 2014, woman’s rights and achievements are recognized and celebrated globally for International Woman’s Day. A movement which began in the early 1900’s targeted towards gender equality has seen positive growth in aspects, although not as completely and universally as you’d expect in the year 2014, but the music industry for one has moved in a positive direction since the 80’s and the objectification of woman rife in the lyrics and works of many hair metal/glam rock bands and has seen a dominance for female musicians not only within the pop arena but across the board and the spectrum, creating superstars along the way.
In the past week ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine have been running through the most influential female figures currently in the music industry in preparation for ‘International Woman’s Day’ on March 8th and having spotlighted the likes of Glamazon, Michelle Green, Lotus and Isabel among others in recent days, there appears to be one final glaring omission, so today, our final female musician to be spotlighted is the much adored lead singer and primary frontwoman of pop-punk heroes ‘R!ot In The Boulevard’, of course that person is ‘Ms. Amy Meyer’.



Born on the 18th July 1993 in Berkeley, California and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada surrounded by three older brothers, a young Amy Meyer wasn’t always the girliest of girls, “It was a very a normal childhood that I had, I guess. I mean it was always what I imagine a normal childhood to have been like, I have three older brothers and so I was the odd the duck, but you know, it was very normal. We’d fight, we’d laugh, we’d have fun and we’d argue and fight some more, like all siblings do I guess. I have to say that I’ve always been very much a tom-boy, I’ve been surrounded by dudes for my entire life, my brothers when I was growing-up and I’ve been in a band with guys since I was in high school. It’s not to say that I never had female friends, I think I just fit in more with that boy-ish attitude, I enjoyed getting sweaty and dirty while playing in parks as a kid and as I got older I enjoyed getting scraped and bruised from skateboarding and street hockey, basketball or whatever else, I didn’t feel like I had to act a certain way or like certain things until I reached high school, then I sort of felt like ‘am I the weird one, here?”
High school is often described as formative, it’s often described as the best years of your life and the worse years of your life, depending on your own experiences but for Amy it was just a combination of absolute confusion, “Once I sort of reached high-school, it was like okay, why are all of these people acting and talking like they’re adults? I didn’t get that, girls were talking about ‘cute guys’ and getting called into the principal’s office because they were wearing too much make-up or dressed inappropriately or getting involved in scraped with other girls. I remember just sort of thinking, ‘this is really kinda vicious’, so I continued to be one of the guys, it was easier for me, it was where I felt I fit. I didn’t wear make-up, I didn’t care that I looked a mess after a game of basketball or any of that. But then you realize that it doesn’t take people long to think they ‘know’ you or that they’ve ‘figured’ you out and the judgment starts, even if I was nothing but polite and friendly to girls in class, I heard the rumours. It was around the age of 15, I wasn’t allowed on the guys hockey team anymore, or any of the guys teams, I had to be on the female teams, either that or cheerleading and I wasn’t gonna do that. I wanted to be in the action, it was who I was at that time.
So I stopped playing sports and at this time, I had been given my first guitar and my parents were really big on music and my father was a classically trained pianist, so me and some buddies decided to be in a band and we played every night for like 6 months in Jason’s parents garage and we awful, we were so bad because I wasn’t singing loud enough, it was just this big mess of poorly tuned guitars but we had fun and we persevered and we learnt how to do things and eventually we felt like we were good or at least good enough.”

Personal issues can affect many people in sometimes rather drastic and dark ways, during her teenage years her bond with her closest friends became immensely strong and almost unbreakable (hindsight proves that nothing is unbreakable), “I was bullied from the age of seven, initially it was the short sharp words that stuck in my mind and they really hurt, at the age of seven it’s bound to. So for like a year, I didn’t speak in school, at that time I was at an all-girls school and my parents had to make a decision for me to try counselling and they recommended low-strength anti-depressants, which my parents struggling with that decision, they were very enveloped in their faith and they didn’t agree with it, but there comes a time when you have to do whatever it is that’s gonna help your child in the best possible way. So by the age of eight, I was on these things, just on occasion, when things started to hurt that little bit more than usual. But before you know it, you four years older and the words are sharper and more painful and it had turned to more than just words, I’m not saying I got into fights, but you know? Knocking into me and tripping me up and pranks and all that sort of thing. So by the time I was 12 I was taking these things to ‘normalize’ me, more regularly and it helped in a sense. Because I became numb for the most part.
My friends became central to my life, at fifteen, they gave me the strength to get up every morning and get on with life, I’m not saying it was easy and I had my dark moments, but they kept me going as best as they could. Jason and Justin took a lot of the weight from my shoulders, it was simple things like answering an emotional phone call at three am and listening to my fears. Looking back it’s sort of funny now, Adam was always in detention for being late to his classes and he’ll maybe deny this if you ask him, but it was because he wouldn’t ever let me walk the school halls on my own, the first time I met him, I was walking to my class and he asked if he could walk with me, I said sure, why? And he said ‘because people shouldn’t walk alone’. Such a weird dude, but he became a real friend.”

After high school, Amy took on the world at a young age but with her best friends beside her, she was filled with a confidence, like she had grown strength from her own high school nightmare and the demons that littered it. At the age of eighteen years old, Amy Meyer and her band had released their debut album, littered with teenage-centric lyrics about love and pain and confusion it became a monster hit, turning the band almost into instant superstars. “Whether I was ready for it at the time or not is irrelevant, if it’s gonna happen once in your life then you just have to go with it whenever it comes and fortunately for us, it was almost instant. I wouldn’t say we were known, I guess the mystery gave our debut album an added power, it was just a bunch of kids, fresh from high school making music and before we knew it, we were looked at as the great hopes for a genre to an extent. I didn’t agree, I won’t ever agree with that because you put a lot of other bands down by doing that and I’ve always felt that there have been and there will be so many more talented bands to come through. I’ll say it right now, I think we were just incredibly lucky. We arrived at the perfect time and we took advantage of the opportunity that we were given, we have worked incredibly hard for everything that we’ve had since then, I’ll admit that our success was thrust upon us perhaps without merit, but once we noticed the reaction to us and the opportunity that we had, we all sort of said, this is it now, this is our lives and we’re gonna put in more effort than anybody. Partly because I think a small part of us thought that maybe we didn’t deserve to blow up the way that we did and we felt like we had to prove to ourselves that we could deserve it. But you know, I think looking back, I can confidently say that we’ve done things the best way that we could have ever done things, we toured like crazy, we considered everybody that came to our shows and made sure that we gave them more than they expected from us, we considered every important decision and who it would affect and we’re proud of what we have achieved as a band. We feel like our audience is more than just a bunch of people that enjoy listening to our music, since day one it has felt like we’re all part of a community, that is what I find overwhelmingly beautiful about what we’ve done, the lasting legacy that we’ve created and continue to create. As a R!ot fan, you aren’t just another fan, you’re part of something bigger, you’re part of a movement, part of a moment.”



In recent months, the three remaining members of the band have branched out a little on their own, rhythm guitarist Adam Benjamin released a solo album and is working on a second during breaks from the bands hectic touring schedule, bassist Jason Greenberg divides time between home in Vegas and London with his fiancé and has recently launched a clothing line and Amy Meyer, well, she’s had offers but is only just starting to consider them now, “There’s been so many things that each of us have been asked to venture into and it’s a beautiful thing to see Jason and Adam taking on opportunities within their own personal passions. There’s a list of things that I’ve declined in the past, due to my commitment to the band and how crazy our schedules have been in the past four years. But this year will see a chance to that, we’re all starting to look beyond the band for a little fresh inspiration and take on new challenges. In the past I’ve been offered the opportunity to put out solo albums, soundtrack movies and TV shows, acting gigs and theatre gigs, judging roles and talent searches, campaigns and collaborations, fashion lines and shows, I mean I’m amazed that these people consider me capable of doing these things, but I’ve just not had the time to take advantage of those opportunities. But now, things are slightly different, we’re embracing other opportunities and I’ve made my own decision to take part in projects that really excite me, rather than just for the sake of doing something.
A year ago, I launched ‘Songs to Love and Die By’ and you won’t find anybody to speak as passionately about what we’re doing over there, I own ‘Half-Moon Studios’ which is a studio in Las Vegas and I’m putting together plans to launch my own imprint called ‘Half-Moon Productions’ which all of my work will fall under as well as being an outlet for other peoples creativity if they so wish. A childhood dream came true towards the end of last year too, as I was asked to develop a musical script adaptation of Peter Pan as well as writing the music for it, I’m working on it as much as time allows and I’m beyond excited to see it come together, sadly it’s still some way from being completed.
I have always maintained and I always will maintain that the future frightens me, but it also excites me and I feel just as inspired and invigorated as ever before.
I feel like I have been give the most unbelievable opportunity to make some sort of positive impact on the world that surrounds us and I hope that I have in some small way. I’ve never been one to preach or force my own beliefs on people, you live life the way that you choose to live life and whatever happens happens, but I’m not gonna shy away from my duties, if people gain strength and positivity and belief from something that I’ve done or said then I embrace that, because it was the words of friends and heroes that helped me through my own darkest moments and if I can do that for somebody then it’s my honor and privilege to so. I’m not afraid of the word ‘role-model’ I think if you’re given the opportunity to affect and inspire then you are a role-model, whether you want to be or not. Embrace it!”