Quotes from Amanda Shires

Maybe, whatever influence we have, other songwriters or women or whatever can feel like they can have a place too, I guess. Or that they don't have to do things the way that we've been taught we have to do them.

My whole life had been bands that were men-centric - and that's a great thing, I know a lot about how to handle myself - but I think I was missing something.

The cool thing about Americana is that the genre is accepting of all types of music.

My undergraduate degree is in geography and sociology, so I had like no real training with words.

I'm a nervous sharer. I'm nervous to share things in their unfinished state just because, I mean, it's kind of embarrassing. You know what it could be, but you can't explain what it's going to be.

There's a stability in being a side person that can be kind of dangerous if you also want to be an artist on your own.

In the past, I was free to write in quiet and in the space wherever my desk was at. I could leave my instruments out. In the past, my writing was super private; I never liked showing my work at its earliest stages.

I just write what I write, produce the music I produce and try to give myself a chance to stay true to the art form. If you try to rein in an art form, it can be hurtful to what you are making.

Sometimes when you're going through life you're not really noticing it.

It helped my lyric writing so much studying poetry. I thought I knew what poetry was before I immersed myself in it. Poetry is meditative. It's reflective.

You know when you have a child and then as you get older, your parents start becoming more like your friends and then telling you things they wouldn't have told you when you were 14 or 15, answering questions about the past or whatever.

'Eve's Daughter' - that's like, 'Make way, women are cool.' I feel like it's my responsibility to try and do at least a little bit for my own daughter.

Violin was my first form of expression - and is still in a lot of ways.

And I also think it's a violin when you're selling it and a fiddle when you're buying it.

The violin has always been important for me. My mom was a single mom and we moved around a lot, and so the violin was always the one constant I had. I always feel better when I had my violin. Playing it is cathartic.

I was leaving my violin out of a lot of songs, and that's a strange thing to do because I've been playing the violin since I was 2. It's a part of me. Adding pedals and sounds is great because I get to play the instrument I feel most comfortable on and the one I feel gives my truest expression when I'm making a solo or anything like that.