Amy Macdonald is causing a stir in the music world

Sep 7 2007 by Emma Johnson, Liverpool Daily Post

HER namesake may have been making headlines for all the wrong reasons lately, and she does cite Pete Doherty as a massive influence, but Scottish singing sensation Amy Macdonald seems happy to get her highs performing for her rapidly expanding army of fans right now.

Her first single, the catchy, country-tinged Mr Rock N Roll, entered the charts at number 12 last month and her new LP, a one-time Radio Two album of the week, reached number two in the album charts before going gold. That’s not the sort of accolade you picture the dishevelled Doherty achieving any time soon.

Even further from the drug- addled antics of her sometime favourite, the huge Libertines and Babyshambles fan – "God knows how many times I’ve seen them" – 19-year-old Amy recently boosted her profile herself by supporting Elton John on some recent live dates.

"It was brilliant," says Amy of the experience. "The crowd were amazing, it was a sell-out at the Glasgow SECC. When I played Mr Rock N Roll, I got a really big cheer so people must have heard it on the radio. Afterwards I got to meet Elton too, and he was such a lovely man.

"When I went backstage, he got up and gave me a massive hug, which was so nice and made me instantly relax. He’s so genuine and down-to-earth. You hear these stories about him, but he was nothing but nice."

Growing up in Glasgow, Amy was inspired to pick up the guitar as a young girl after listening to Travis’s smash hit album The Man Who. She taught herself to play, plucking out songs she heard on the radio.

A poster of Ewan MacGregor on her sister’s wall would provide the impetus for her first songwriting endeavour – a little ditty about the way people idolise stars. It wasn’t her best work but it was a start and when a community music group came to her school looking for kids interested in music, Amy, then 15, was quick to sign up.

In no time, she was doing shows around Glasgow.

Playing mostly her own songs, with a few covers thrown in, Amy’s folky-sound started to gain attention and despite having places at two universities she decided last year to defer a year to give music go. An advert in NME for a production company would prove the turning point. Amy replied and was snapped up by Pete Wilkinson and his wife Sarah Erasmus, who had previously written songs for Paolo Nutini. They signed her on the spot and started working on demos. Within six months, she was being offered record deals from all sides.

"I was just basically in the right place at the right time," she has said of the break.

Amy says her songs are mostly influenced by the things around her, but admits with the whirlwind of being signed and the album release, songwriting has had to take a bit of a back seat lately. "I haven’t written a song since last year," she says.

"Because of what I’m doing now, there isn’t time to go out with my friends or go to as many gigs as I used to. I’ve not really been writing because there’s nothing that really grabs my attention."

The songs on This is the Life were written, says Amy, over the past five years or so.

"There’s a song called Youth of Today which is about five years old, and another This Is The Life which is about three years old," she says. "The newest song on there is called Run, which was

written in November last year."

Mr Rock N Roll was, says Amy, about people rather than music.

"The whole message is just ‘be yourself’," she says. "It’s about two people who’ve been

pretending to be something they’re not in order to fit in with a certain group, and because of that, these amazing people who would have got on so well and made a brilliant couple pass each other by. Both of them have been feeling that they’ve had to fit in elsewhere, but they’ve missed out as a result."

It’s unlikely Amy is going to be missing out on anything any time soon, not even that place at university. "I was going to go to Uni before this," she says. "I’d still love to."

* AMY MacDONALD plays the Barfly, Liverpool, on Tuesday, October 23.

emmajohnson@dailypost.co.uk