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Every Monday we will be bringing you interviews with unsigned UK or Ireland artists for Independent Music Monday. Recently we caught up with unsigned Bristol based singer Amy May Ellis to find out more…

Where are you from and how did you first get into music?
I’m from the North York Moors although currently based in Bristol. I got into music slowly, it’s always been there but I went through stages of wanting to go into different areas of the arts. I think I became more invested in a career in music when I realised it could bring together a lot of the things I loved, predominantly art and film.

Who were your musical influences when you were growing up and who are your influences now?
I listened to Radio 1 a lot growing up, I think I was easily influenced by the charts and what my friends were listening to, I loved Natasha Bedingfield, Dido, Adele, Ellie Goulding, Laura Marling, a lot of female artists. I have a brother who is 7 years older than me, so he was always been feeding me the cool music. I remember him buying a Trojan Story compilation CD and me and mum listening to it on every car journey, it’s still in my mum’s car actually. I didn’t know anything about the history of the label or the music at the time but it felt so powerful to me even then, I could tell it was music that had brought a lot of people together.

There was a lot of folk music too, there’s a small venue in the dale I grew up in which a lot of american folk acts played, I remember falling asleep at gigs there when I was tiny and running around outside probably being a nuisance when I was bit older. I think it wasn’t until I was in my teens that I realised how special of a place it was, I still take a lot of inspiration from the artists who have played there and the general atmosphere the venue created.

How would you describe your sound?
Folk influenced very alternative rock pop?

What is your latest release called and what was the influence behind it?
’When in the Wind’ is the last in a series of 4 element themed EPs, it’s about change, about chaos and about stillness.

What’s your local music scene like?
I feel like my local music scene is still York even though I don’t live there, it’s my musical base. It was an amazing place to start writing and performing, there’s a really amazing community of promoters, venues, and artists who are all very supportive of each other.

Bristol’s music scene is great, lots going on, very DIY and I feel like i’m still getting to know it as i’m still a bit of a newbie here.

What do you have planned for the next 12 months?
Recording, writing and gigging, hopefully. I’ve been in this series of EPs for a long time so it feels exciting to move on to new things.

Is there anyone you’d love to collaborate with?
I really love music that can make a room full of people dance, I find it quite hard to write music like that so it would be very nice to one day collaborate with someone who is really good at making people dance.

Any funny stories surrounding your live performances?
I’m a very serious person so nothing funny happens around my gigs.

What is the one thing that you want readers to know about you?
I’m not actually that serious.

You can find out more about Amy on her website or via Bandcamp, Facebook, Instagram, SoundCloud, Spotify, TikTok, Twitter or YouTube.