Amelia Gormley: I saw “School of Rock” right when it came out.
Allston Pudding: You wanted to be that brunette girl whose name I can never remember?
AG: Yes! I remember thinking she was so cool and saying to myself, “I have to be her.” I think that was the main reason. Also I was in middle school. All the boys were picking up guitar and starting bands, but none of them had bass players.
Sitting outside of Salem’s Gulu Gulu Café, we’re laughing about being 13. It’s overcast and weather fitting for her jean jacket of band pins. She’s quick to admit the wardrobe she kept back then: Beatles T-shirts for peers to poke fun at mostly with the catchphrase “who are they?” The obsession, which started with John, became more Paul-centric when she found the “bass boost” button on her old Walkman and was hit with an “oh, so that’s what it sounds like.” For the record, Amelia is 24. She just must have been retro enough to catch the cassette’s comeback before the rest of us.
She started off with lessons and moved on to playing with others through after-class jam sessions held by her teachers. She was the space’s token bass player and liked things that way. By speaking from her middle-school perspective, she gives me a sense of why.
“I’m just gonna be the coolest girl in school, and all the other girls are gonna be wicked jealous of me because all the boys are paying attention to me and–“ the laughter takes over. I get the picture and join her.
In her words, “I guess it kinda worked out.” Aside from Hymnal, Amelia plays bass and sings backup in Cold Engines, a rock collective of herself, a few former members The Brew, and a hand-percussionist named Geoff, whose reggae band Soul Rebel Project has gained its share of iTunes fame in recent years. Active since their debut 2014 album Day Drinker, Cold Engines combines the alternative instruments she loves with the rustic feel of northeastern towns she knows. Though only in Boston on occasion, the group has already booked gigs nearly every weekend this summer in and around Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
When discussing both projects, Amelia claims Hymnal as “her art,” but that’s not to say she’s skipping out on contributing to someone else’s. Cold Engines was prompted through a talk with guitarist/vocalist/old friend, Dave Drouin. He asked. She agreed. And unlike Hymnal, she’s not cycling every last dollar back into this band. With a different setup comes a different sound. The added benefit of expanding her bass-playing horizons while hanging out with “a bunch of goofballs” doesn’t hurt either.
From that Cambridge Friday night to a Wednesday afternoon at The Tannery, Newburyport’s labyrinth-like shopping plaza, I feel what Amelia calls “different but good vibes.” My half-ancient camera even detects them in the lighting. It’s yellow.
After rounding enough corners, I shyly reach the studio where Cold Engines rehearses. I’m warmly welcomed in mid-song and pick a stool inches away from the kit’s cymbals. The room is mostly steel drums and music stands pushed together. There’s just enough room for four band members and one stranger with a notebook.
They introduce themselves, all smiles. Dave apologizes for the volume. I shrug. Amelia laughs, and one song later, they’re done for the day. Granted, a single listen to “Never Heard of the Blues” is powerhouse enough to convey the group’s soulful, fun style and how Amelia’s complicated bass-work fits into that. Sitting on an orange amp she whips out the skill to guide a more structured song: verse to chorus to bridge and back. She’s still wearing the same smirk, just doing more technical work. Later that day, I ask her if playing in Cold Engines feels “back to school.” She responds with a yes and a comforting “I like it that way too.”
“I feel for the most part that my bass-playing is something that I’m 99 percent I can feel confident about. Going to Berklee and getting the degree was a big factor in that.”
We grab coffee next door to the studio, and the only other customer present is a weathered old man in the shop’s corner. Otherwise, there’s no one here to deem school an “uncool” topic of conversation.
“I remember people saying that it would ruin music for me,” she says, sipping her coffee and mentioning the surprise of her first music teacher who told her “only real musicians get into Berklee.” Described as “actually a huge douchebag,” this is the same person who once told her she’d wake up one day hating The Beatles.
To the teacher’s chagrin, she emailed him the good news and went on to major in performance with a principal in electric bass. She also has yet to wake up with sudden hate for the band whose records she and a childhood friend often choreographed dances to. Later, she calls this practice “weird shit.”
“I feel like Berklee musicians get a bad wrap, especially from musicians who don’t believe in schooling. I can understand that, but, at the same time, I worked really fucking hard when I was there and I learned a lot.”
The hard work stretched beyond classes. She moved back home after freshman year due to difficulties with her living situation in Allston. These, compounded with money and her distaste for ‘BU bros’ on Friday nights led her to become a commuter rail regular for the rest of her time at Berklee. 9 a.m. classes demanded 6 a.m. wake-ups bridged by an hour’s train ride between Newbury and Boston. All of which, Amelia didn’t completely dislike. She remembers these mornings being a time for drinking coffee, listening to music and catching up on procrastinated ear training.
But, the time commitment of living at home did tear away networking opportunities, especially at a school she described as “bubbled.”
“That was the thing about Berklee. I had a really great experience there, but I just did not fit in musically with the other kids. I was doing Hymnal the whole time, so I was just trying to keep my head down when I was at school, focus on doing my work and then have my band be separate.”