Amanda Marshall: Dark Horse

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  0:02  
The Women of Ill Repute with your hosts Wendy Mesey and Maureen Holloway.

Maureen Holloway  0:07  
I have a burning question Wendy for this week's guest, Amanda Marshall, I have a burning question and I can't wait to ask her.

Wendy Mesley  0:15  
And then I remember her she was she was is that like she's a singer songwriter? She sold like millions of albums back in the 90s. And, and then she kind of she just disappeared. What happened? So is that the question, are you going to ask her? 

Maureen Holloway  0:32  
No, I want to ask her how long it takes to dry her hair. This is something I've wanted to ask for years, she's got this magnificent head of hair. And I had a roommate in university who had similar hair. And because it's curly, she couldn't blow dry it. She had to let it air dry. And it would take her three days like three days later, she'd say, like, feel, and it would still be damp. So that's my burning question for Amanda Marshall.

Wendy Mesley  0:57  
I think that's very shallow. But I'm glad that you're asking it because yeah, it's hard not to notice her. She has great we have like no hair and she's got, she's she has magnificent hair.

Maureen Holloway  1:10  
Yeah. And I'll bet at that Amanda, who's actually standing by right now would probably like to talk about something other than where have you been for the last 20 years, but we will ask her about that. She's back. Not that she ever left. But she's back in the spotlight with a new album. It's called heavy lifting. And a new cross country tour with with stops at Massey Hall. And a new single called I Hope She Cheats With A Basketball Player, which is very specific.

Wendy Mesley  1:37  
Yeah you know, it's the uniforms. I don't know the basketball players, I've just they never done it for me. I'm more of a more of a like a fireman you know with the suspenders and that the uniforms. They just-

Maureen Holloway  1:51  
All right. Okay. All right. Amanda Marshall here with us. Hi, Amanda. Why do I feel like I know you?

Amanda Marshall  2:04  
Because you've seen me relentlessly or heard me relentlessly on the radio all these years. I want to hear more about Wendy's obsession with firemen.

Maureen Holloway  2:11  
Yeah, I know. This is new to me. We've been doing this for a while. And the suspenders.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  2:15  
Yeah, no, I gotta move on. But yeah, the hair. Oh, my god, you have beautiful, beautiful hair. It's like, 

Amanda Marshall  2:21  
Oh, thank you. 

Wendy Mesley  2:22  
Yeah, everyone says they don't get a cut in during COVID. But but wow.

Maureen Holloway  2:26  
How long does it take to dry?

Amanda Marshall  2:28  
I listen. I heard when I heard what you said about your roommate. I feel her pain. I'm right there with her. I'm an air dry girl too. So it takes a while.

Maureen Holloway  2:37  
So in the winter, you can't really go out for a couple of days because your hair would 

Amanda Marshall  2:41  
Yeah.

Maureen Holloway  2:41  
Yeah. The pain is real, the pain is real. All right, Amanda we're gonna, we've been doing a fair amount of publicity. It's so nice to have you back. Everybody's asking the same question. We would be remiss if we didn't. So-

Amanda Marshall  2:56  
Let's all say it together. 

Maureen Holloway  2:57  
All right.

Amanda Marshall  2:58  
What happened?

Maureen Holloway  2:59  
What happened?

Wendy Mesley  2:59  
What happened?

Amanda Marshall  3:04  
I mean, the short answer is the short answer is that I 20 years ago, I was coming off my third tour, my third, my third album, we were coming out of that tour cycle. And I got into a business just general if anybody in business dispute, but I don't know if anybody's ever been divorced. But it's kind of like a business divorce when you can't, you know, you can't split. You just can't, you know, somebody just won't let go. And the longer answer is it was just a shakedown that lasted for about a decade, and I wouldn't capitulate. And it just kept going on and on and on, and on and on. And it sort of became this chronic distraction that sucked in everything else around it. And the reason I didn't put on any new music is because it was clear to me that whatever I was going to do was going to get sucked into this kind of vortex. And I just didn't want that. So I just waited it out. The other thing is, you know, this seems very sudden to a lot of people, but you know, I was just playing the long game.

Wendy Mesley  3:58  
Very, very long.

Amanda Marshall  4:00  
But yeah, I mean, I always, there was some question as to whether I would put out music publicly again, but I was always making music, I was always writing music, I always had this record in the back of my mind, and I would pull it out and put it away. And then when it was ready, we had the pandemic. So I figured nobody was really, you know, waiting waiting for it. So I thought, well, let's wait until everything really calms down, and everybody can feel safe going out again and I can feel good about being out in public. And that's what we did. So everything happens for the right time. 

Wendy Mesley  4:28  
So you're like Taylor Swift? That's, that's her name. Right? That's yeah.

Amanda Marshall  4:33  
I think so. Yeah, I think so.

Wendy Mesley  4:34  
So what was the business dispute?

Amanda Marshall  4:37  
Yeah, it was this. I, it was a manager who I just couldn't it was. I mean, it's hard there's no good sexy answer for it. But it was just I split with my manager and he wouldn't let go. And it dragged on and on and on and on and on. And it was sort of like trying to be in a divorce with somebody who won't divorce you and says, 'Well, you know, it may be if you give me this, if you give me this, if you give me this if you give me this'. And that was, you know, but I still really want to be in your life, and you just want to break up. And that was, it was incredibly frustrating it was at the beginning, I thought the worst thing that had ever happened to me, it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me professionally, creatively, personally, it forced me to really grow up and learn to cope. And I think that's why a lot of people, a lot of entertainers, in particular, get kind of sucked into this, they kind of go off the rails, because once you have every obstacle in your life kind of taken out of your way, there's a necessary infrastructure that springs up around you when you do my job. And once you take that infrastructure away, it can be really hard to cope, it can be hard to pay your own bills and make your own decisions and hire your own people and do all that kind of stuff. So that in and of itself is a huge learning curve. And I'm so happy that I really got to, you know, learn those life skills.

Maureen Holloway  5:55  
You also had the wherewithal to do that led the way of just listening to you and reading the interviews that you've done recently, I think it's been a real privilege to be able to step away, rather than, you know, the tragedy. Some people might have suspected that it's really been, you know, like well, I hear I hear things, but to be able to step away from your life the way or the your professional life the way that you did, it's not something everybody can do. But you make it seem like it's not a bad thing to do if you can.

Amanda Marshall  6:21  
Well, it was, you know, I'm not gonna lie. It was it was traumatic at the beginning, because we were, you know, I was I was sort of on a roll. And it really, nobody anticipates that something like this is going to take that long. So in the beginning, I was like, well, yeah, this will be resolved in six months, and I'll be back, I'll make another record. And I'll be back out on the road. Once it became clear that it was dragging on and on and on and on, you really do kind of you start to lose your own personal momentum, you start to lose momentum within the industry. And people are kind of like, well, you know, what's going on? 'Why aren't you out? Why haven't you made another record?' It's funny, I was saying, I've been telling the story that one of the things that really kind of kicked me in the ass to kind of get me back in the studio and finish the record was in 2017, a friend of mine, who's a record producer in the US said to me, you know, you're too young to retire and you're too good not to try, what are you doing, get out there, don't waste your gift. And that really kind of was the catalyst to make me pick up the momentum to get back in studio to finish the hour. But it's funny because he was the same guy who helped kind of an intervention to say, 'You got to stop this with this other dude'. Right? Which was the thing that kind of got me off the road in the first place. So it's like to make up your mind. Like, oh, man, I'm out. I'm in no matter.

Wendy Mesley  7:31  
So you stayed home. Like apparently like I think you've written about sitting in the closet and writing songs that you were you were still performing in the closet. And you learned how to cook and you have a longtime partner. I mean, like, what has life been been like? I'm and you must be a great cook. Because it's been 20 years.

Maureen Holloway  7:51  
Yeah, what have you been doing?

Amanda Marshall  7:55  
I'm I'm like, I'm an okay, cook. I'm a big believer that like, you know, food is love, and it's nurturing, and all that kind of stuff. And I like to end the truth of the matter is I really like to eat and I like to eat well, so nobody else was going to do it. So I kind of figured it out. But I'm not I'm not a great cook. I am like I always say everything I make is like one step below making it correctly, but it's taste good. But like so so yeah, I'm not a great cook. But yeah, as I said, a lot of this stuff was just, it was just life. It was just learning how to how to live how to, you know, I bought an apartment and I decorated my apartment and I was I finally I finally had pets. You know, I finally got to get a dog and all of that kind of stuff that. I mean, this sounds sounds kind of snobbish, but like all the stuff that people in regular jobs, people with regular lives, learn as they mature into adulthood was kind of I was kind of a late bloomer, so I did all that stuff. I'm not somebody who travels a lot when I'm not working, because it's part of my job. So I'm out there all the time. So that wasn't, it wasn't like, oh my god, someday I want to go to France, but just the sort of every day routine, developing an everyday routine. And learning how to be an adult was a huge thing for me, huge.

Maureen Holloway  9:11  
You just turned 50. Yeah, I remember 50. I remember somebody saying to me, don't waste the rest of your life wishing you were the decade you were before and so and so forth and so on. But having said that, especially in your business in the music industry, as a woman coming back now, it's your runway has shortened. I mean, you'd already taken off in the 90s. And then disappearing is dangerous for anybody. But you're now back as a 50 year old woman, highly accomplished, highly recognized, but still, you know, you're up against the teenagers out there.

Amanda Marshall  9:51  
No, no, no I'm not because my you know, the one thing that I wanted to make sure of with this record and the one thing that we're, we've really succeeded is that this record is not chasing anything. I'm not up against Katy Perry or Dua Lipa, or Taylor Swift or any of those people, they have their niche, and they do what they do. I don't know how to make those records, and they don't know how to make these kinds of records. I'm in a separate lane. And I think that you have to trust the audience to know what's real, and what's authentic to them, right. That, you know, a lot of people have said to me who so what does it feel like that people are bringing their kids to your shows, now, it feels great, what are you kidding me. People would kill for that kind of, you know, longevity, and that kind of lasting impact on people's lives, these songs have had lasting impact on people's lives, and they're sharing them with their families, and they bring them with their kids. And when I go to a Rolling Stone show, those are the people who are standing around me when you go see Foo Fighters, those are the people who are at those shows, because those bands have, they have made a lasting impact. And they have grown with their audience, you know. Springsteen always says, you have to make a choice between, like, if the audience doesn't age with you, you can't keep reinventing yourself for 14 year olds. That's not how any business works. 14 year olds find other 14 year olds, so I'm not chasing any kind of trend at all.

Wendy Mesley  11:06  
But what about you? I mean, it must be different. I mean, last time you were on stage, and like, big time was the 90s in your, in your 20s? So I mean, other than the drugs and sex and rock and roll, how, how different is it, it must be must be different to be on stage now or maybe not? 

Amanda Marshall  11:25  
For me, it's, I mean, physically, I don't feel any different. I mean, like knock wood I don't like, I'm healthy. And I don't feel any different. For me, the overall experience is better because it's, it's funny, the first, the first real run of shows that we did, prior to this record coming out was in 2017, we did a huge run up I think was seven or ten shows in the summer of 2017. I mean, it's so it was sort of a test run. And it was so much fun. And I turned to my agent and I was like, you know, this is really the first time that this kind of feels like our thing, which is weird, because my thing, but it really felt like my thing, we had planned it and put it all together and I had been in charge of making those two really crucial decisions. And that's really where it, what it feels like now with this album and with the tour and everything. I just feel like I mean, I don't want to sound like you know, Janet Jackson in the early 80s. But there is an element of like control that is very satisfying. And that really makes you look at everything differently.

Maureen Holloway  12:27  
You are such a an accomplished songwriter, as well as a hell of a singer. So curious as to why your your first single from the new albums is a cover. I mean, it's a fantastic cover, but it's not your song. I mean, you made it yours, but-

Amanda Marshall  12:43  
A lot of people ask me that and a lot of people on my team are sort of like, well, should this be the first single because you wrote the rest of the record? This, the reason I wanted to put it out first was because Marsha Ambrosius  just wrote the song, Marsha, if you don't know what's half of Floetry, which was a really successful r&b duo out of the UK in the early, I guess, the early 2000s. And their, their stuff was, I mean, she her stuff is very, very different. She recorded the song, I think in 2011, on her record, and I heard the song by accident. Several years later, I missed it on its first release. And when I heard the song, I was so struck by the humor of it, because you're right, it's very specific, and the specificity makes it hilarious. I hope she cheats on you with a basketball player. To me, it was the most sort of clever, brutal, vicious, but really funny kind of takedown, and I want it and it made me as a lyricist go back and kind of re-examine all of the other songs on the record. And I thought, you know, because I have a tendency to be very earnest as a writer, and I thought, I really want to inject some of that kind of off the cuff humor, because in life, I'm not like that at all. So I thought I really want to, I want to get closer to that. And because it was the catalyst I thought because it set the tone for everything else. I really think it should be the leadoff single, it kind of encapsulates what the rest of the record is about. It's a rock take on an r&b song. It's a it's a soul lyric, but with a kind of a rock and roll against a rock and roll backdrop. And that's what the rest of the record sounds like. So I really wanted it to be a complete kind of picture in the first single.

Maureen Holloway  14:22  
You and Wendy are both aspiring to be lighter and funnier.

Wendy Mesley  14:28  
Very funny off air. 

Maureen Holloway  14:30  
Oh my god. But you have something else in common. You're both onlies. 

Amanda Marshall  14:35  
Oh, are you an only child?

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  14:36  
Yeah, yeah. My parents had together for a year and then she never remarried. So this is it. Yeah congratulations. 

Amanda Marshall  14:44  
Do you remember? Do you remember Vicki Gabereau? Yes. So years ago, I was in Vancouver and I did Vicki Gabereau show and she's an only child too. And we as we were going off the air in the first sight we were going to commercial. She turned to me and she said had a urine only time. So yeah, she said, 'Oh, me too'. She said, 'What do you, how do you like it?' I said, 'I love it. What do you kidding?' I said, 'It's fantastic.' It was like, you know, mountains of Christmas presents and all the attention I could want. It was fantastic. And she said, yeah, she said, 'wait until you're an adult.' She said, 'It's different when you're an adult, being an only child, caring for your parents.' I'm lucky I'm not at that. I'm not at that point. But I sort of I sort of see, like, I see what she meant. But that I remember that being really sort of traumatic for me, she was the first person who had ever said that to me. And I was like, Oh, my god, what's going to happen? 

Wendy Mesley  15:35  
It's so true. That's, yeah, we I'm an only child who has an only child and had her late and so she's gonna have like, both of us in diapers to look after me looking after just my mom, I was like, we're all the siblings, sibling, please step up. Whereas when I was a kid, like you, I so loved being an only child, and she had a serious boyfriend at one point and said, so he wants to get married. Should I marry him? And he was like, give me more babies. No, that wouldn't be good for me. Like, it's such a selfish thing. Yeah. I mean, he wasn't the right guy. 

Amanda Marshall  16:11  
It's funny, because my mother is the last of 12.

Maureen Holloway  16:14  
Whoa. 

Amanda Marshall  16:15  
And it's funny, because watching her, they're mostly passed away now. So it's not really, you know, it's not really that different of a circumstance, she, it's just shoot her and I think an older sister left. So I mean, it's not that much different, really. And she, you know, lives, has lived most of her life away from them on the other side of the world, they were all kind of spread out. She's from Trinidad. So she moved to Canada. And she was the only one who moved to Canada, they all move to different parts somewhere in the US somewhere in back in Trinidad somewhere in Britain. So it's not that different. Really, you know, she's still kind of coped on her own.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  16:56  
The Women Of Ill Repute.

Maureen Holloway  16:57  
So Amanda, I don't know how to put this elegantly, I didn't realize that you're so your mother's from Trinidad, your father's white, I did not know this. And I think a lot of people were unaware. And in the last five years, being black has been transformative situation for a lot of people. And I'm wondering how, how do you feel about that? Do, what are people saying, you know, what, we should focus on that part of your musical or cultural heritage? Or what? Has it just, has it made a difference?

Amanda Marshall  17:31  
Not really. I mean, I mean, certainly I've had more conversations like everybody about but everybody has had more conversations about race, probably in the last three or four years than I've ever had in my own, you know, my whole life. And my mother and I, in particular, have had more conversations like that than I ever had with her before. Mostly because I grew up in a I first of all I grew up in in the, the early part of my childhood was in the 70s, which was a very, I went to a very progressive private school, where there was a hugely diverse student population. And honestly, race was never an issue. It was so diverse that we never talked about it. There was another kid in my class whose mom was black and his dad was white, there was a kid in my class whose mom was Chinese and his mom, his dad was Latino. So we didn't really there were there were kids with physical handicaps in my class as well. So it was a very diverse kind of circumstance for me at school. We then we moved to the East Coast, we moved to Halifax when I was 11. And we spent three or four years there. And that was a change to me, because not only was I coming from a different kind of cultural perspective, in terms of diversity, it was it was a very it was there was a huge lack of diversity in the school that I went to. And I found that really shocking. I just was like, where are all the people who kind of looked like me, it was kind of strange. For me, it has always been race was never an issue. Culture was an issue that showed itself mostly through food. Because the food that I grew up eating a lot of was the food that my mother cooked, and sometimes not always, but she would make things that I knew my friends weren't eating. So I grew up eating stuff like roti and doubles and callaloo and all that stuff. And those dishes were normal to me. They were very, you know, beloved, there were things I looked forward to the stuff she may be on my birthday, she still makes it for me on my birthday. And that's the way it manifested itself, musically speaking, never came up. Certainly in the in the industry, though, it absolutely came up and it showed itself over and over and over again. And one of the reasons that I don't talk about it a lot is because I have always considered this to be kind of my superpower. People show themselves. People show themselves in rooms when they think they're alone. And that has always been a hugely valuable asset to me. People will, people will people will say things to you about you about other people in front of you that they would not say, if they knew who you were.

Wendy Mesley  20:16  
So there's stories here.

Amanda Marshall  20:20  
There are tons of stories. I feel weird talking about it. Because like, if I looked like Alicia Keys, we'd be having a different conversation. You know what I mean? I feel like I've had I have certainly not had a difficult ride. And I'm very, very aware of that people throw around words like privilege and colorizing and colorism. I don't I just I know who I am. And I know what kind of a life that I've had. But I also know that there are a lot of euphemisms that people I don't know if they still do, but there were a lot of use euphemisms that people used in the music business and in the entertainment business at large. When I was coming up, one of them was urban, right. Well, she's an urban artist. What does that mean? 

Maureen Holloway  21:04  
You go downtown a lot. 

Amanda Marshall  21:07  
Like, I go downtown, exactly. Urban artists, and there was a huge separation between, you know, urban artists and rock artists. And you know, you can't crossover from one to the other. I never paid attention to it. I'll tell you a funny story, though. I was in in the late 90s. We were on a European tour opening for Simply Red members. 

Maureen Holloway  21:29  
Simply Red, oh, I love simply read. 

Amanda Marshall  21:31  
Yeah. So we were we had opened, we'd spent like two or three months opening for them. And we were finishing that tour. And we got an offer to open for Whitney Houston, who I mean, I, you know, worshipped as a kid. And I literally was like, whatever you have to do, you know, get me on this tour. So we secured the tour. But we had a break in between the two tours. So we were taking, it didn't make sense to come home. So we just spent some time in Europe. It was like a week. So one of those nights, there was a big label dinner. And it was me and two other now very famous artists that I'm not going to say who it was, but and a bunch of like executives and we all went out for dinner. So we're at the dinner and after the dinner, one of the executives who I did not know, well, we were sort of chit chatting after the dinner. And he said, 'So what are you doing next?' And I said, 'Oh, we're going out with Whitney Houston. I'm so excited.' And he said, 'Oh, are you are you really sure that that's the right place for you?' And I said, Y'es. Why?' And he said, 'Well, you know, those audiences, they generally prefer their own, Amanda.' And it didn't register with me right away, because I sort of was like, does he mean like, rock, like, but the funny thing was, five minutes after I had that conversation, I went and I sat at a table with one of the other musical artists who was there who happened to be a black American artist. And this person says to me, 'What are you doing that?' I said, 'I'm going on tour with Whitney Houston.' They said, 'Oh my god, you're gonna do great, pretty little white girl like you they're gonna eat you up.'

Maureen Holloway  23:20  
Isn't it amazing that, the music industry, which is both and the abled artists of all different colors to transcend is also one of the most restrictive. 

Amanda Marshall  23:29  
Sure, yeah. But that'strue of every part of the entertainment industry. 

Maureen Holloway  23:32  
That's probably true. Yeah. Yeah.

Wendy Mesley  23:35  
So you're back and just what is it? What is it like? I mean, you've your-

Maureen Holloway  23:40  
Like Rip Van Winkle .

Wendy Mesley  23:44  
Yeah, it's kind of everyone's like, oh, my gosh, she's back. She's back. It's just so amazing. It's so cool and your song is so cool. And but I mean, what's what's it like? Like do you still like, do you have to gear yourself up? How are you are? Is it wonderful? Is it terrifying?

Amanda Marshall  24:02  
No, it's not terrifying. And it's not you know, people keep asking me what my expectations were. I had no expectations. I really didn't. I did not have not because I didn't know what to expect. But just because I think probably because I've been away for so long. And I really really love the record so much that I sort of didn't care what people thought I was like, I just love this. And I've been listening to it so long that it seems like the norm to me. I am shocked by the reception. I really am though I'm shocked by the amount of enthusiasm and the letters and the emails and the text messages that I'm getting are freaking me out. It's amazing. 

Wendy Mesley  24:41  
So are you going to be like the Stones? Are you going to be like, you know, 1012-

Maureen Holloway  24:45  
At this point now it's gonna be, yeah, why not?

Amanda Marshall  24:49  
I don't know. I mean, you know, everybody, everybody. I think people put a lot of focus on your age and your race and your sex and your gender and all this. I mean, you know, I I write songs in my pajamas, and I go out and sing for people, I'm not breaking rocks, right. And I really truly enjoy every aspect of this and to get to do it again, with my friends with, you know, the songs that I wrote that I love is such a privilege, I get that maybe more than I did when I was like 19 or 20. Because when you're 19, or 20, you just move into the next thing, right? And you're sort of like doing what people tell you to do and going through the motions. But now I'm sort of like, this is awesome. That was great.

Maureen Holloway  25:30  
Are you, you're, you were an intense songwriter, Birmingham, Let It Rain, Dark Horse, which is my favorite letter rain, my husband's gonna kill me. But I have to tell you, that's his anthem. When things get rough, he just blares that he has for years. So that's kind of- 

Amanda Marshall  25:48  
What's your husband's name? 

Maureen Holloway  25:49  
John. 

Amanda Marshall  25:49  
John, my man. 

Maureen Holloway  25:54  
You are an intense songwriter you write viscerally, dramatically. Is that still you? I know you want to be lighter, but, but what moves you what inspires you? Birmingham was about a woman escaping an abusive relationship. 

Amanda Marshall  26:09  
Yeah! 

Maureen Holloway  26:10  
You know, what, what are yourn what are your topics? What are your things now? 

Amanda Marshall  26:13  
It's funny, because the next there's one more single and then the next single after this is a song called Rainbows And Gasoline, which is what they're calling the focus single on the record. And it too is a song about domestic violence, but it's from a completely different perspective. It's from the perspective of someone who knows the signs and is aware enough, early enough in the relationship to bail basically. Those things have always fascinated, I love storytelling. You know, I have a real Americana streak in me. I love people like Jason Isbell and Mary Gauthier and Shawn Colvin, was a was a huge Shawn Colvin fan when I was coming up, but I also have a huge love of urban, you know, hip hop music. And, and melding those two things, for me has always been where I live, you know, one of the great parts of having this kind of sabbatical was doing these shows gave me an opportunity to kind of figure out like, what is the stuff that I really look forward to singing in the set, I love singing Birmingham, I love singing Dark Horse. And the reason I love those songs is because there's like a, there's a groove. Let It Rain, there's like a groove aspect to that stuff. And, you know, to me, the most important part of rock and roll is the roll, right? I think people have conflated rock and roll with rock. And they're not saying rock is that jump, right? But there's like a groovy thing that happens, the Stones have it, The Beatles had it to a certain degree, but the Stones really have it. They really embody that kind of stuff. The basis of great rock and roll is blues music, which is where I came up from. So I understand that and that's what I kind of gravitate naturally towards.

Wendy Mesley  27:50  
So it's quite different now. I mean, we talked about how, you know, race has become something that people are actually talking about these days. But that's been one big change in the music industry, as in so many others, but, but also, like, the music industry has really changed. And I because you can get everything online and and so is it true that you only make money by going on the road? Like-

Amanda Marshall  28:13  
Yeah, I had this conversation with my mother last night, because we were talking about something she's like, 'Well, so how do these people make money?' You know, it's like, 'Oh, that's cute. Do you think that people make money, like from streaming services, like, where have you been?' This is a conversation that's been going on for decades? Yeah, it's, uh, there are changes that have happened that are fantastic and one of those changes is that the model has flipped. And I think musical artists are much more in control of their own creative process, which is fantastic. Unfortunately, I think the side effect of that is that people have gotten used to getting things for free and we have value not just music, but all forms of art to the point where every everybody thinks they can do it, and do it well. And everybody thinks therefore that it should be free. And I don't know what we do about that. But you know, hopefully the conversation will turn to you know, the proper amount of compensation for people for doing the work that they do.

Wendy Mesley  29:08  
Well, you sold out a second time I think at Massey Hall. So I'm yeah, so that's, that must feel really really good after all these years. Oh, my goodness.

Maureen Holloway  29:17  
Speaking of Massey Hall, and this this conversation is going to air later coinciding with your tour and and the release but you know, as a Canadian, how do you feel about about about Gordon Lightfoot? Yep. Because, you know, he Birmingham was a hit for you in the States. But it was the only one and and even though he was considered one of the you know, the the bard of Canada, but he was really only known as a songwriter out of sight outside of this country, not as a singer performer. And I wonder, you know, you were poised at one point to become an international hit, Elton John was singing your praises and so on. Is it, is Canada enough for you, Amanda?

Amanda Marshall  30:00  
I mean you know, that that's that's a dicey question because, you know, that discounts a huge other part of the world. You know, there's, there are Asian markets, there's the European market, all of which we have toured extensively and done really well in, I think that we tend to focus on the United States because there are neighbor and tradition that's been the traditional model. You know, one of the things that I love about Canada getting back to Gordon Lightfoot for just a second is that we have always embraced quirk. I love that about Canada, like The Tragically Hip. Tragically, Hip have done obviously, really well outside of this country. But they're a Canadian band, right and there are people like Gordon Lightfoot and The Tragically Hip, and I can't think of others, but they'll come to me, you know, that have done great in this country. Blue Rodeois another one, you know, I have American friends in the music business who say to me all the time, like why isn't Blue Rodeo a bigger band you know, so? I don't know. I don't know. But I think one of the things is that we embrace quirk. Americans do that, too by the way. There are lots of American bands that never make it out of the States ever. There are lots of accent of the UK that never make it out of the UK. And I think we focus too much on that I think people focus too much on do we have enough of a star system here and why aren't they why aren't where they embracing us in you know, Mississippi or I don't know. But I think people, and one of the things that is encouraging to me about this, though, it's sort of the flipping of the system and the fact that things are available everywhere is that people have a chance to kind of find stuff that maybe they didn't find before.

Wendy Mesley  31:32  
We got to wrap up in a sec and-

Maureen Holloway  31:35  
What kind of conditioner do you use?

Amanda Marshall  31:42  
All the conditioner.

Maureen Holloway  31:46  
Oh, model. Okay, I'm good. Amanda, such a pleasure to finally meet you. Honest to god, I've been such a huge fan of yours from the get go and well, I'm sure will continue to be so. So thank you for taking the time to talk us..

Amanda Marshall  32:04  
Thank you.

Wendy Mesley  32:05  
Yeah, and have fun onstage. It's gonna it's gonna be great. Yeah, you gotta get the Mojo up. 

Amanda Marshall  32:11  
Thanks, guys. Keep keep singing Let It Rain, John.

Maureen Holloway  32:14  
 Absolutely. I'll let him know.

Wendy Mesley  32:18  
Thanks, Amanda. Yeah, well let you know when this is going, real soon.

Maureen Holloway  32:22  
Yeah, it'll it's actually will air the week of your appearances at Massey Hall so it's June, whatever. So yeah, well tie it all together. All right. Godspeed. 

Wendy Mesley  32:31  
Thank you. Yeah, all the best. Nice t-shirt. Bye. 

Amanda Marshall  32:36  
Thank you. Bye.

Maureen Holloway  32:41  
We see that about everybody, by the way, one day we're gonna come off someone, yeah, there. We were totally lying but she was lovely.

Wendy Mesley  32:48  
She was lovely. I mean, I've heard her interviews. Well, there's a couple I'm lying. So we're you know, I do kind of like nearly everybody. Well, that's why we pick them right? Because I don't think we pick anyone or call anyone a Woman Of Ill Repute, if that's what they are. That's what you are Maureen. But we like people who we have on the show for the most part or we at least like a lot about.

Maureen Holloway  33:15  
Yeah. And we like the more, we we like them more after spending time with them. 

Wendy Mesley  33:20  
Yeah and I think with her like she I don't know, I've heard her talk about what happened before. And it must be difficult because everyone wants to know what happened? And why did you disappear for 20 years? But she went way deeper than that. She talked it. She talked about race. She talked about the music industry, she talked about above being an only child and life so it's, yeah, it was and there were lots of chuckles so it was- 

Maureen Holloway  33:44  
She's very open and yet I know I was good at one of the questions I was gonna ask her so you don't talk about your personal life and I thought to myself, well, there may be a reason for that. But she doesn't. She's very, very, she's one of very adept at being extremely open, but without going to any details about, I know she has a long term partner, that's all I know. And I just, I just didn't go there because I didn't feel the need.

Wendy Mesley  34:06  
I think she should be a journalist. So I actually I actually named my husband on a podcast.

Maureen Holloway  34:13  
Yes you did. 

Wendy Mesley  34:14  
Which was like, it was massive. Yeah, no, it's it's weird. I think. I think people are protective about different things. But she's, I don't know. It must be very, very strange after 20 years to get back on the stage. I'm sure you know, she said she did a couple of things in 2017. But but yeah, and yeah, and she's she shallow like you and me. She spent a lot of time on her hair.

Maureen Holloway  34:38  
A lot of hair to spend time on. All right, that was Amanda Marshall. Lovely to see you Wendy. 

Wendy Mesley  34:44  
 Talk soon. 

Maureen Holloway  34:45  
Talk soon.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  34:48  
Women Of Ill Repute was written and produced by Maureen Holloway and Wendy Mesley, with the help from the team at the Sound Off Media Company and producer Jet Belgraver.