Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Amanda Shires recently released her latest album, Nobody’s Girl, and is in the middle of an extensive North American tour along with California pop-rockers Aly & AJ.

While in the Twin Cities for a show at the Skyway Theatre in Minneapolis, Shires dropped by The Current for a Gig List interview with host Bill DeVille. Shires talked about the new album, and about what it’s like touring with Aly & AJ. She also talked about what’s around the corner for the Highwomen, the supergroup she founded with Brandi Carlile, Maren Morris and Natalie Hemby.

Use the audio player above to listen to the interview, and find a full transcript below.

Interview Transcript

Bill DeVille: All right, a look at the gig list for a Saturday night, Aly & AJ, along with Amanda Shires performing at the Skyway Theatre in downtown Minneapolis. And we so happen to have Amanda Shires in the house. Amanda, how are you?

Amanda Shires: I am fantastic. I love coming in here and listening to your music playlist.

Bill DeVille: Yeah. I remember you were up here just a couple years ago for your last solo album [Take It Like a Man], which was really a good one.

More from The Current

• 2022: Amanda Shires performs in The Current studio (hosted by Jill Riley)
• 2019: Amanda Shires performs in The Current studio (hosted by Bill DeVille)

Amanda Shires: Well, thank you. I was pretty proud of it.

Bill DeVille: Yeah. Well, since the last we spoke, you've been through a lot. You learned how to play backgammon. 

Amanda Shires: Oh my god. Do you play?

Bill DeVille: I do.

Amanda Shires: Oh my god! Can you play with me after this?

Bill DeVille: I think we can get one game in.

Amanda Shires: OK, cool. I can have them bring it up.

Bill DeVille: OK, fair enough. So tell us about the new album, Nobody's Girl.

Amanda Shires: Nobody's Girl is a record that I've been working on the for the past two years. It came out a week ago, and it's a record that I think it's for anybody that's going through hard stuff. It's not really an instruction manual. It's more of a companion. If you find yourself in dark spirits, it's scientifically proven that if you're listening to music that feels the same, you'll feel better.

… it's a record that I think it's for anybody that's going through hard stuff. It's not really an instruction manual. It's more of a companion.

– Amanda Shires

Bill DeVille: So when you were done with the process of making the album, did you, in fact, feel quite a bit better?

Amanda Shires: I got to a point after I recorded it, where I started getting very comfortable being my own person, belonging to myself, and being the only one there to catch myself, and it's made me trust myself more, and I feel kind of stronger than I felt before. And I know that's weird to say, but it's true. And I don't just mean physically, because, yeah, I can do push-ups.

Bill DeVille: Yeah. So is this probably the most personal album you've done in your career, I would imagine, huh?

Amanda Shires: Definitely. Yeah. I leaned hard on music. It was ... You know, I usually like to write about bigger things going on in the world, but sometimes you just have to save yourself.

Bill DeVille: Yeah. I imagine it felt good to be done with the process and to get the album out in the world. You must have felt pretty triumphant when it was released, huh?

Amanda Shires: “Triumphant”... Less triumphant, more like proud that I found courage and bravery, I think. Yeah. So triumphant in a way. I guess I triumphed over my own, you know, bad devils on the left.

Bill DeVille: So it's been a few years since you've been out on the road, and you're now out with Aly & AJ. So tell us about the tour. What's it like touring with them? And I am familiar. I have a daughter. We used to watch Aly & AJ back on the Disney Channel days, back in earlier 2000s.

Amanda Shires: What was really interesting is that I had not heard of Aly & AJ until this tour. And they are everything you hope they'd be. They're kind and generous and warm spirited, they're professional, and they're the sisterhood, and they believe in things that that are, you know, what I think right things to believe in. And, yeah, I feel like I've made new friends, and that's, always a good thing.

Bill DeVille: Yeah, it is. And I also saw, I read in Rolling Stone, I saw the headline "Amanda Shires says the Highwomen will ride again."

Amanda Shires: Yeah!

Bill DeVille: What's going on there?

Amanda Shires: So Maren [Morris] has released a really amazing record called Dreamsicle, and Amanda Shires has released Nobody's Girl, and Brandi Carlile is releasing hers in October. And it just so happens that in the winter months that we've planned—

Bill DeVille: There's a break in the action? You're all gonna—

Amanda Shires: Yeah, we're gonna write, yeah. It's time again.

Bill DeVille: So when you write with people like that, are you all in the same room, or do you write separately and compare notes? Or how does that process work?

Amanda Shires: Well before, the way it worked is — because we have one record — is I started this idea, and started, you know, working on the Highwaymen, Highwomen song, and then getting ideas together, and then Brandi and I got together and worked on a lot of stuff at her place. And then we started, you know, putting more people in the group, and convinced Natalie [Hemby] and Maren to join. And then, you know, the kind of mission statement in this is that anybody can be a Highwoman, and anybody can participate, in Brittney Spencer's part of it, I've insisted, and she's so far, you know, not quit yet.

Bill DeVille: Did anybody say no when you first started putting this outfit together?

Amanda Shires: Nobody said no, but there were scheduling conflicts. And, you know, different people had records coming out and stuff like that. But for this record, the plan is to write and keep it the same way we did before, where the best song wins, and that's what we're going to do again.

Bill DeVille: Well, that's exciting. So I imagine in 2026 or ’27, there'll be a new record from the Highwomen.

Amanda Shires: It's gonna be fun.

Bill DeVille: That's pretty cool. So I remember the last tour you did, you did a show at the Fine Line, the last time you were in the Twin Cities, I believe it was, and you had walk-out music. It was Leonard Cohen, "You Want It Darker"? Yeah, I know you're a Leonard fan, but what is it about that song that gets you?

Amanda Shires: That song, it's just so spiritual, and it's so accepting of a place that you're in, and it's knowing yourself and being ready for what comes. That we're all, you know, going in the same direction, toward an end of some sort. And it kind of, for me, what it does in this part of my life, because I've used that as my walk-on music for years, and it always changes, like music does, for the times that you're facing, but it just seals me in the present and reminds me that we've got right now.

Bill DeVille: That's what we have. I got one last question for you, it's probably an easy one. You might even say the one that we just played. If there's one song that you turn up really loud, what is it?

Amanda Shires: Of my own or of somebody else's?

Bill DeVille: Somebody else’s. 

Amanda Shires: Because I don't really play my own music. Of somebody else's, bombing out, Jack White, "No Name." I turn that way up loud. Or "That's How I'm Feeling" right now, really loud. "Breakdown," Tom Petty. I turn that up really loud.

Bill DeVille: Boy, you got a nice list, and I like your list.

Amanda Shires: It's a good list. I could keep going on and on.

Bill DeVille: Yes. So what time tonight you'll be onstage? Around seven o'clock, is that the story?

Amanda Shires: Seven o'clock, yeah, I'm gonna play a set of my awesome jams, and then I'm gonna get up there with Aly & AJ. We've been playing songs together, and by the end of the tour, I probably won't leave their stage just because their music is so fun.

Bill DeVille: Awesome. It's Amanda Shires, new album called Nobody's Girl, show tonight at the Skyway Theatre, downtown Minneapolis. So nice to have you here. And you got an intro for this song? I'm gonna play "Piece of Mind."

Amanda Shires: Oh, turn it up loud!

Bill DeVille: Well, there you go. And here it is on The Current.

Credits

Guest – Amanda Shires
Host/Producer – Bill DeVille
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor

External Link

Amanda Shires – official site