Q & A with Amy Meredith’s Christian Lo Russo

After support slots with Stereophonics and Cobra Starship, Amy Meredith are stepping into the spotlight. Following the success of singles “Pornstar” and “Lying,” the band is preparing to release its debut album Restless on June 4. Today lead singer and keyboardist Christian Lo Russo took time out from the band’s current tour to chat to me about the forthcoming album, their big name support slots, and their loyal fans.

You’re in the middle of your Lying tour. How’s that going?
Really good actually. We’ve been on tour since the end of February actually, so it’s been like a massive rollercoaster road: very exhausting and very fun and exciting at the same time.

You clearly love touring, because as you mentioned you’ve done a couple of tours back to back. What do you love most about being on stage?
I guess I love being in the spotlight and being the centre of attention, ever since I was a kid. No, I’m kidding. You know what? The best thing about being on tour, especially back-to-back tours, is you kind of become tighter as a band. You become tighter than you’ve ever been and you don’t lose touch, it’s almost like practicing continuously for months and months. You become a super-band, so to speak. You don’t even need to have a set list on stage any more and it becomes very intuitive.

The tour before this saw you supporting Stereophonics. What was it like to be a part of that?
It was fun actually. It was really funny because obviously, as you know, that band is massive in the UK. Like on stage levels they sell out Wembleys and Milleniums and 70, 000 people on their own tours. So when we played Brisbane it was really funny, because we played a 1100 capac. in the Hi-Fi Bar. And when we got in there the first thing they said was “Oh, this looks a little smaller than our rehearsal stage.” I go “Yeah, same here.” So that was kind of funny.
But it was definitely an experience to watch a band so professional in everything they do, and obviously they’ve been around for a long time.

You’ve done a few large-scale tours now with Stereophonics, and Cobra Starship. What did you learn being a part of these big productions and watching those shows?
I guess they were such different shows, from seeing Cobra Starship to seeing Stereophonics it was such a different vibe. You definitely learn how different different bands are on tour. Cobra were a party band, and Stereophonics were a much more chilled out band. And I think their performances definitely rung true of those personalities.

I think on tour with Cobra it was really interesting. One thing I really enjoyed was Gabe [Saporta], the lead singer of Cobra, was very humble. You could learn a lot from him. He was willing to guide you along the way and put you in contact with all his contacts. And when we went into their dressing room after the show and hung out, the first thing he’d ask us was did we want any food, did we want any beer, and then we’d sit down and have a chat. And I asked him one day, “How come the first thing you say before you even say hello is do we want food or beer?” And he said “I just remember what it was like to be the support band and get like one beer to share between six people.” And I thought that was kind of admirable that nature. Because a lot of bands, they get very bitter because it’s almost like when they’re the support they’ve seen so much crap, that when they become the headlining band they do the same thing because it’s now their turn. So I found that really professional of Gabe to kind of go, “I don’t need all this food and drink, come party.” Life lessons on the road are really fun as well, rather than just the performance aspect of things.

What’s life like on the Amy Meredith tour bus?
You know, it’s really funny. I spent most of my life being the one in my group of friends who was the weird, outspoken one with a bit of an ego. It’s funny, when you get in the band with Amy Meredith, it’s five very similar … each person was that person in their group of friends. So now it’s kind of like I become the quiet one! So it is quite funny. But it’s fun. We all get along really well, and it’s a bit of a party vibe on our tour bus, almost like a bunch of little immature kids acting like children.

Are there any crazy tour stories you can tell me?
Wow, there’s so many. Definitely Joel [Chapman] and Wade [Osborn] having to get carried away in an ambulance was funny at one point. Funny and scary! They passed out, which was due to heavy drinking in Melbourne one night, and ended up being carried away in an ambulance, completely unconscious. They woke up the next day in hospital, and I was like “What the hell did you guys do?” That’s a crazy tour story, that’s one for the book.

You obviously love being out there and touring, but what do you miss most when you’re on the road?
Just the comfort of just relaxing I guess. Because on tour it’s go-go-go. You wake up at 8 o’clock, you check out of your hotel, you go, you drive or you fly, and then you check into your hotel, you load all your gear into a car, you go to the venue, you load out, you play, you load out at 1 am, you go to bed, and you do it all again the next day. Repeat. It can be exhausting. But I think the one thing you miss the most is just hanging out with friends and loved ones, and kind of just going to dinners and going to the movies and walking around your local area. Where I live, I kind of miss that the most.

“Lying” and your first single “Pornstar” come from your soon-to-be-released debut album Restless. What can you tell me about the album?
The album is definitely something that we’re extremely proud of. We spent a long time making it. It’s funny, with your first album you have your lifetime to write it. We started writing songs when we were 19, and it sounded very different than it sounded by the time we were recording our album. So we had like 50 songs, and from that something went on the album that was the first thing we ever wrote, and also something went on the album that was the last song we wrote before going into the studio. So it’s just a massive journey about where we’ve been as a band and now where we are.

It’s a fun album and it’s got a lot of young themes, as well as some mature concepts and it deals with a lot of things and life experiences that a lot of people can relate to. But at the same time there’s a lot of energy and a lot of fun and youthfulness about the whole record.

You offered autographed CDs to fans that preordered “Lying.” Clearly your fans are very important to you; was it worth the writer’s cramp?
We did them while we were in the tour van actually, so that was funny. We devoted a couple of hours while we were driving. Fans are extremely important, especially for us. We’ve built this handful of online followers that are really quite devoted, and follow our every move. They do anything we ask, so it’s good to repay those people in some way. If we ask them to vote for this song on a certain countdown or go and purchase our single, they’re going to do it and they’re going to do it more times than once. Just signing a couple of CDs sounds so simple for the amount they put in.

It seems like a lot of those fans are under 18, as you’ve always made playing all ages shows a priority. How do those shows compare to the pub gigs?
It’s actually really funny. We started out obviously playing a lot of underground clubs in Sydney and indie clubs, cesspools almost, and playing to hundreds and hundreds of punters who were just over 18. We built our fanbase from that. But it wasn’t until we released our first single that we started grabbing these all ages fans. We’d never played an all ages show until “Pornstar” was released on radio, and that was two and half or three years into our career at that point. I think it’s so weird that all of a sudden we’re now catering for a new market, which is exciting and it’s quite fun.
Kids just have this energy about them where there’s no pretense and it’s just all about letting loose and enjoying yourself no matter what, no matter who’s looking. And I think that’s admirable when we’re on stage. They just want to have fun, and they don’t really care what else is happening. So it’s definitely a looser vibe, people going a little bit more crazy.

Once this tour wraps up, what’s next for Amy Meredith?
I think it’s just everything in preparation for our album to be released. It’s just connecting the dots. A lot of people have heard our songs on radio and know this band exists and know the name, but they’re not synonymous with the face and visuals of the band. So I think the next step is getting in front of as many audiences as possible that haven’t yet connected the dots between the songs. More touring and really getting our face out there, more promo and all that kind of stuff is I guess next. And an album tour hopefully very soon.

Catch Amy Meredith at the final few shows of their Lying tour.

14 May 2010 – Electric Light Hotel, Adelaide (18+)
15 May 2010 – Phoenix Youth Centre, Footscray (Under 18s)
15 May 2010 – Royal Melbourne Hotel, Melbourne (18+)

Image used with permission from Sony Music Australia