Amy Studt
Amy Jane Studt is an English singer, songwriter and musician. Growing up in a musical family, with her father a violinist and conductor who had toured with Roy Orbison, and her mother a pianist. Studt began writing music at the age of 6, teaching herself piano, guitar, and oboe. At 12 years old she contracted the rare bone disease osteomyelitis in her hip, leaving her bedridden. Studt used this time to hone her craft, and two years later, with the advice of her dad, she recorded her first 2 demo albums which would go on to get her signed to Polydor. Studt released her first single "Just a Little Girl" in July 2002. It was followed almost a year later by "Misfit", which came to be her highest charting single in the UK at Number 6. The same month her debut album False Smiles appeared selling over 260,000 copies going Gold. Late 2003 and early 2004 two more singles were released, "Under the Thumb" and "All I Wanna Do" respectively, but only to diminishing sales that caused Polydor to drop Studt in February 2004 all before her 18th birthday.
From then until the end of 2006, Studt stayed out of the public eye. But in 2007 it was announced that she was working on a new album, now with the Indie label 19 Entertainment. She released her first single Furniture followed by Chasing the Light and the album, My Paper Made Men, was issued on 5 May 2008
In early 2009, Amy moved to New York City and on her return began building a recording studio and continued writing and recording. She went quiet from 2009 till 2017 after suffering a nervous breakdown at only 22 years old and being diagnosed with rapid cycling bipolar and a non-associative anxiety disorder along with other physical illnesses that plagued her 20s. After three hospitalisations and recovery from addiction she wrote about her experiences with suffering, illness and heartbreak. “..but ultimately survival and hope.” which she explains she put into her songwriting for her third album.
In 2017, Studt announced she had been working with Toby Kid from Hatcham Social and released two teaser songs from her soon to come third album, "I Was Jesus In Your Veins" and "Different Colour Pills". The album was released in October 2019.
History
Studt was born in Hammersmith, London. Growing up in Bournemouth, Dorset, she started teaching herself piano, guitar and learning the oboe. Studt's father is a violinist and a conductor who has worked with Roy Orbison, Shirley Bassey and The Beatles to name a few, either touring or recording and has played on countless films while her mother is a pianist.In the 1800s the Studt family brought over from Denmark one of the first steam run, travelling funfairs, The Studt Funfair, to the UK which included music, rides, a freak show, a circus with lion tamers and were they were and still are a highly regarded showmen family. Amy's father Richard started playing violin at the age of 4 and later rejected the family's funfair business and chose a life of music, meeting Amy's mother Delia at The Royal Academy Of Music and going on to lead The London Symphony Orchestra.
She found it hard fitting in at school. Struggling with depression, self-harm and being bullied she was rebellious and attended 6 different schools before at the age of 15 dropping out of school entirely to pursue her music. At 13 Amy attended Bryanston School, Dorset on a 50% music scholarship by which time Studt had written 42 songs. Her father suggested she record some in a local studio and she laid them all down live to tape. She gave or sold the finished CD to various friends, and one found its way to Simon Fuller who signed her the same year to both his own 19 Management and to Sony BMG publishing.
2002–04: ''False Smiles''
In 2001, she was signed to Polydor Records and Universal Records aged fifteen and delivered to them her debut album the same year.In July 2002, Studt released her first single, "Just a Little Girl". Her debut entered the UK charts at No. 14.
In June 2003, Studt released her second single "Misfit". Misfit made it to a chart position of No. 6 in the UK. Alongside the success of "Misfit" was the release of Studt's debut album False Smiles, which entered the chart at No. 24 and later climbed to its peak position of No.18 going Gold in the UK and selling over 260,000 copies.
September 2003 saw the release of the third cut from the album, "Under the Thumb". The song became her second Top 10 and third Top 20 single, entering at No. 10, which also helped push the album to a peak of No. 18. False Smiles was re-released at the beginning of 2004 adding one new track, a cover of the Sheryl Crow classic, "All I Wanna Do" on request of Sheryl Crow herself who sung the backing vocals. The single peaked at No. 21 and subsequently, Studt was dropped from her record label Polydor.
2007–09: ''My Paper Made Men''
In early 2006, after some time away from the public eye, Studt signed onto the 19 Entertainment indie label. She toured with Razorlight under the alias Jane Wails. in order to stay out of the limelight and overcome stage fright.Furniture, a single taken from the album My Paper Made Men was released on 3 December 2007. She worked on the title song 'My Paper Made Man' with Imogen Heap collaborator Guy Sigsworth and her new songs received rave reviews, which suggested that listeners should "ignore any dim memories of her midteens pop phase a while ago."
"Chasing the Light" was the next single and was released on 28 April 2008.
The album My Paper Made Men was released as a digital download on 5 May 2008 and physically on 2 March 2009, along with the third single from the album, "Nice Boys".
It was made public in April that she was dropped by her record label and Studt chose to then leave her management shortly after.
2009–present: third studio album
In 2017, Studt took part in a panel at AIM'S Indie-Con discussing mental health within the music industry and she spoke openly about how in 2009, after moving back from New York City she suffered a nervous breakdown at only 22 years old and was diagnosed with rapid cycling bipolar. During a hospitalisation that followed she found that they had a piano so she continued to write whilst inside.In 2015, Amy Studt announced that she had been working on her new album with Toby Kid from indie pop band Hatcham Social and in 2017 she released a teaser single of two songs with Ditto Music as the first two released songs from her soon to come third album, "I Was Jesus in Your Veins" and "Different Colour Pills".