Amelia Curran: a proud East Coaster

St. John’s native Amelia Curran said a lot has changed for her and her music over the past ten years.

With a new album and an upcoming tour, Curran says she’s just happy to be back home.

“I was in Halifax for 12 years. I loved it but I missed home, everyone could tell.”

Curran’s sixth full-length album, Spectators, was released in October 2012 and was produced by John Critchly in Toronto.

“We met a week before we were in the studio together and it worked really well, we spent a month working really hard every day.”

The album is a gentle reminder to the folk world of Curran’s powerful and intricate lyrical abilities, but this time she incorporated a few new surprises.

“The full band aspect is very new to me, the drums are different too.”

The entire album is something Curran has never really done before.

“This is the first album I’ve done where I wasn’t a co-producer and a lot of those instrumental decisions have definitely changed.”

“I was nervous, haven’t done before but it turned out great”

Spectators brings new sounds that compliments her indie-folk sound, including brass, strings, piano, and a guest appearance from good friends The Once, a Newfoundland folk trio.

“They are fantastic, they sing on Hunter, Hunter [2009] as well and the tracks they recorded were the very last thing we did in Toronto. They were on tour at the time and John and I waited up for them to roll in, they were tired but they sang songs and it sounded excellent.”

Curran is settling in from her U.K tour, and she said it’s exciting to be asked about Canadian music while she’s away from home.

“Every time I play outside of Canada I always get asked, ‘what the hell is going on in Canada?’ There are so any great musicians here and it just keeps getting better.”

Curran’s years of writing albums and touring the have not extinguished her Newfoundland influences and said her sound is still connected to her home.

“I m sure that it’s there, and I’m not sure how, but it’s there.”