“My music taste sort of changed around my early teens,” remembers the hard rock and pop punk-inspired Mancunian musician, Amy Katt, when talking with us. “It was just from people that I started to meet in school, really. And, mostly, I’ve my dad’s music taste; like, my dad had a lot of old records, like AC/DC, Motörhead, all things like that.

“So, I have my dad’s old records, so that started to change my taste. And I got friendly with a girl at school, who was a goth, and then I was like, ‘This is all dead new to me,’ and then I started listening to Marilyn Manson and stuff like that, and it kind of escalated from there, really.” She continues, “I got big into emo, as well, at one point, so I’ve kind of been on a road of all the phases, really.

“Like I said, I started off with goth, and had the long leather trench coat and everything like that! And then, got into the emo thing; I had the big sweepy fringe across my forehead [Laughs] and the Gerard Way make-up on my eyes at school, and getting told off. But, yeah, I think emo has definitely influenced me, lyrically.”

While she possessed an interest in music and even songwriting at this time, she didn’t quite fancy becoming a musician just yet. “Well, I did the GCSE music in high school, but I didn’t really get into it properly until my late 20s,” she says. “Because, when I was at high school, I got bullied quite badly and I was always nervous to perform music in front of people. So, it took a long time for me to get my confidence up with it.”

In her 20s, Amy began performing with local bands, and this is where she would meet her current bandmate and co-songwriter of her current solo project, drummer Sam Hargraves. “Sam, who I write with, we’re both massively into the same bands, as well, so that’s really helpful when it comes to writing,” Amy says. “In the old band that we were with, it was like a blues, rock ‘n’ roll band. That was the one I was in before this one, and, as much as I like singing blues, it wasn’t really where my heart was, with writing. So, when that ended, me and Sam kind of got to do the stuff that we really wanted to.”

The two decided to put this new project simply under Amy’s name and chose the raucous, punchy, and loud “Numb Again” as the track to establish it. “Well, that was the first one that we recorded,” explains Amy on their reason for choosing it to be their first single.  “And the few we did after that, you kind of want things to get better and better. I love that song, but I think the next two hit another level, musically, so it’s kind of like we wanted something to build from that song.

“We didn’t want to start with one we thought… – even though we think this is really good – we didn’t want to start with the one that was our best, musically. We thought we’d start with this one and try and get a little bit of a following going, and then try and build from that.”

Next year, Amy hopes to build further momentum for this new musical adventure, through live shows and more studio tracks. “The songs that we’d recorded so far, they do follow on nicely from each other, but I just think each one just gets a little bit better for us, at each stage,” she says, “So, I’m dead excited to get the next one out. We’ve got a bit more synths and stuff like that, in the other stuff, so, yeah, it’s quite exciting.”

Amy Katt’s debut track, “Numb Again,” is out now and available on all streaming platforms. You can keep up to date with Amy’s music, live dates, and social media here.

Aaron Kavanagh

Aaron Kavanagh is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Post-Burnout. His writing can also be found in the Irish Daily Star, Buzz.ie, Totally Dublin, The GOO, Headstuff, New Noise Magazine, XS Noize, DSCVRD and more.