 This Issue's Feature Story
 Amber
Interview
Amber
sings out on illegal downloads, Clarkson's woes
by David
Doorley
(c) Out Publishing Co. Inc.
Amber’s pissed!
As sales of albums plummet annually
and potential buyers download CDs illegally, the traditional music
industry is reeling. The number of radio stations playing
high-energy dance music has dwindled to nearly zip. And
international singer/songwriter Amber’s mad about how it’s all being
mismanaged.
Don’t even get her started on the
years she was packaged as a commodity while others dictated what she
could sing or say. Even her professional name was decided
without her input. But Amber (a.k.a. Marie-Claire Cremers) is on her
own now, and she’s saying what she damn well pleases.
But what’s Amber pleased about? Well,
iTunes, Kelly Clarkson, her “boys” and her visit to Pittsburgh for
the Sept. 29 river cruise.
When the special events committee of
Pride in the Street announced the latest fall cruise on the Gateway
Clipper fleet, its coup was attracting Amber. A decade ago, the
Dutch-born singer topped the dance charts with her single “This is
Your Night.” That success was quickly repeated with “Sexual (Li Da
Di),” “Love One Another” and “Above the Clouds.” More recently,
three of her singles climbed to the Top 5 of the international dance
charts. In addition to more than six albums, Amber’s released
remixed CDs and her songs are included on many dance music
compilation CDs. Her latest single “Melt With the Sun” is featured
on iTunes. Impressive.
Not surprisingly then, Amber took
control of her recent phone interview with Out. She’s
enthusiastic about being in charge of her career and performing in
Pittsburgh, but first she had a few things to get off her chest.
Amber: We have lost so many radio
stations that support the genre of dance music. Right now we are
down to about seven or eight stations that are BDS connected, that
actually could have some input in promoting our music. [Editor’s
note: BDS or Broadcast Data Systems collect airplay data and
detect how often a particular song is played.] Pretty much, we’re
back to zero.
In 2004 when things were really in a
state of emergency, for me it was the best chance to get out of my
contract because I wanted to be on my own for a long time. I’m very
self-sufficient. I had already established a fan crowd, but I also
wanted to come out with a different kind of music. I’m very
widespread musically, but I was marketed and geared to one crowd
only. I didn’t appreciate that. So for me it was good at that time.
Out: How do you feel about how the
Internet has taken over the role of radio stations? Online, Pandora
and Last.FM do play your music.
Amber: It all depends. I saw an
industry that was very oblivious to the needs of creative artists,
and that was my reason for why I stepped out of my conventional
recording contract. I clearly saw an industry that was fighting the
change. There is nothing you are going to do about millions of
people illegally downloading music. You really have to come up with
a different concept.
Sure it’s great to have
Internet radio, but it’s still questionable how good it will be. And
another thing is a lot of these Internet radio stations are not BDS
connected. At least when you are played by a BDS station, as a
writer you would get paid per play. Now you don’t get shit! Your
music is just out there, and everyone’s enjoying it—hey, let’s have
a good time! But in the end we don’t get anything back. I have to
pay for remixes, production, mastering, artwork—name it, a million
things.
Do you see yourself as a singer and a
songwriter?
Absolutely. This country feels they need to
pigeonhole you, put you in little boxes. That’s very much how radio
reflects music. Everything is boxed. Whereas if you go to Europe
and turn on a radio station, you can hear a rock song, a pop song, a
ballad, hip hop. Music is music, people! There are all kinds of
different formats and forms. That’s what creativity is about. I come
from a musical family. My mother is a piano teacher and songwriter,
my father is an opera singer; so you can imagine my house was filled
with all kinds of music. And that is what I like to express in my
music.
Why do you think you were able to cross
over internationally? What made your music click?
That is something that if people knew the
formula to that, everybody would take that formula and be
successful. I really think all kinds of things just happened to
collide in the universe and explode. I didn’t really know until I
was 16 or so that maybe it was a possibility that I wanted to
entertain. I went from fashion show to fashion show, covered songs
by Barbra Streisand, maybe modeling in between, and from one thing
comes another. In my mid-20s I started to meet producers, and I just
happened to meet one producer team who had a hit record here in
American. We sat down and wrote “This is Your Night” and produced
it. They took it to America, and I got a call for a huge Universal
deal—boom, bang! Everything took off from there.
But from there I had to learn some
very hard lessons, which I am trying to pass on to musicians out
there who ask me for advice. I tell them you have to educate
yourself because this industry was built on creative people who are
not really good business people. So other people were able to take
advantage of us, and that’s how they built an empire. It’s why
everybody’s so angry right now because everything that they have
stolen is falling apart. But in the end we artists are going to
suffer too.
I got a huge deal and I had never
dealt with the music industry before. The industry’s saying: Let’s
see what kind of dumb bitch we have here. How can we market her, get
market groups—I was never aware of target groups, marketing,
imaging. I was completely oblivious to that, and obviously that’s
how they take advantage. Unless you have extremely good lawyers from
the beginning. I was stupid enough to listen to my producers who
said, “Hey, take this lawyer. He’ll take care of you.” And that
lawyer said, “Great! Just sign right here.” And I signed my rights
away.
Now that you’re in control, doesn’t
that have its minuses too?
Well, you control your own destiny. You have
to put out everything out of pocket. You’re taking the risk. On the
other hand, if it messes up I can say to myself that’s because I
messed up. Or maybe the song was not as good as I thought it was.
But I’d rather be in my situation now than I was before being under
a label. It’s very stressful. There are a lot of demands, and a lot
of things that go against my grain. I’m not good with authority. I’m
very much my own person.
Now that you’re not being packaged,
what are you doing differently?
Right now, I obviously make all the
decisions. I started in 2004 and came out with an album called My
Kind of World, which was a mixture of all kinds of musical
styles: electronica, rock. It really was on my timetable. I started
writing and working with my producer on it in Germany. It was a very
slow-moving project because at that time I was going through a
horrific divorce with a bastard of an ex-husband. All of these
emotions and darkness inspired the album, which was the complete
opposite [of my previous music].
At that point in time I just wanted
honesty. After all those friggin’ years of working hard for
everybody else but myself, I needed to do that just to keep myself
sane. The reviews were extremely positive, but the way this country
markets and boxes its artists, it doesn’t give them a lot of play
room. Overall, the album did not sell as well as I expected.
But you did have some Top 5 dance hits
from that album: “You Move Me,” “Voodoo” and “Just Like That.” Did
you write those songs?
Yes, I did. Then last year I came out with a
single, “Melt With the Sun,” which I wrote and produced with the
main production with Sweet Rain, which was one of my previous
remixers. He came to me with a basic track and asked for some advice
on it. I actually like the way he had it and just had him change
some lyrics and this and that. He said come in and change whatever
your want. I sang the demo in his studio, and about six months later
I thought that it really was a song for me.
When I started out with “This is Your
Night” the lyrics were too simplistic for me. I didn’t realize back
then that that would be my market niche, keeping me dumb and stupid.
When I realized that, I decided to raise dance to a different level,
and that’s when I started writing songs like “Love One Another” or
“Sexual.” It wasn’t boom-boom-boom, I want you in my room. It had a
different lyrical content to it, and it crossed over to a lot of Top
40 radio stations in the end. Which was good for me.
With [“Melt With the Sun”] I felt the
lyrical content was poetic and very beautiful because I really like
poetry, and the singing lines are very strong. So there are a lot of
components I look for if I’m boxing myself into that genre, which
people really want to hear. So it became a matter of how to package
it correctly without undermining myself and my musicality. Of
course, they said, “OK, that’s an Amber track.”
Is “Melt With the Sun” on a new album?
No, it’s not on a new album because right now
you have to understand that being the way the market is, the album
market is completely dead. We’re blessed to have legal downloads
right now. God bless iTunes, wonderful people with genius enough to
come in with that particular concept. At least there’s something
coming back. People have the opportunity to download everything,
which means we have less physical, production costs. If you have an
international online distributor, you send them the masters and they
up-load it to all the people they are connected with. That is much
better.
I still like to have the album. I want
to see the artwork and read something. But I know younger people who
never buy CDs; they get their songs only from iTunes.
I’m the same way! I don’t have an iPod, I
don’t download, but that probably has more to do with our age. If we
like something, we want to have it in our hand. We want to feel it,
see who worked on it, see who did the photography.
How did you get the name Amber anyway?
Ah, honey, how did I get the name Amber? I’m
still wondering. When I first signed, a lot of things were thrown at
me. Like, OK, by the way your name’s not going to be Marie-Claire,
it’ll be Amber because in America everything is sorted by A-B-C-D in
record stores; so we want you to have a name with “A.” Don’t put any
deep thought behind this, honey. Now a lot of whores are called
Amber! It’s horrible.
That sounds very much like the
Hollywood studio system of the ’30s when they controlled the stars’
lives. They picked the names, the vehicles. Very much what happened
when you got involved in the music business.
Absolutely. I would’ve loved to keep my
personal name, but at this point of time I say, you know what, maybe
it’s better this way. Obviously Amber is the professional person,
and Marie-Claire is the private person. But it doesn’t make that
much of a difference because I’m very straightforward with both
personalities.
I found your Web site very interesting.
When you write to your fans who post in the forum I was impressed
with how frank you are.
For many years there’s been too much putting
me on a pedestal. When I started my divorce, I wanted to change a
lot of things. The person I was married to for a short time—thank
God—there was too much control on top of my label, and he was trying
to control my career too. I felt things could’ve been done better. I
really wanted to connect with my fans. The bottom line is that they
come up with great ideas. These are the people who support me and
buy my records, for God’s sake. I feel they deserve some kind of
attention. That’s how I started [my site]. My people are there and
they ask all kinds of questions; they can write about anything they
want—as long as it stays constructive.
Kelly Clarkson is in the same kind of
situation. She had a certain image around her. She’s a very talented
girl. What is a bad selling record? Can a Top 10 record be a bad
selling record? After Number One there’s no place to go but down.
It’s just reality. And guess what, you will be up again at some
point. I listened to her [new] record and think people should just
be more objective and not pigeonhole her. She sounds fabulous. It’s
just that it’s not the genre you’re used to hearing her in. You
cannot say honestly that this is a badly produced record. It’s not.
That’s something I’ve had to fight my
whole career. People want me to make another “Sexual.” I don’t copy
myself! “This Kylie song… can you sound like Kylie?” Kylie! Kylie is
Kylie. This industry chokes you, chokes the life out of you.
Now about this Fall River Cruise. It’s
predominantly gay—well, I’m sure there will be some straight people
on it, but…
Honey, it’s a gay cruise! Even if it
was a straight cruise, if I’m coming it will be a gay cruise.
But what is it about you that attracts
this loyal gay fan base?
I’ve been asked that question so many times.
Probably the music style. Generally the gay population has to deal
with some issues in coming to terms with themselves. There are
family circumstances when people get disowned. Instead of accepting
the person you are, they go through a lot of struggles. So I think
that this particular kind of upbeat music is for them because they
want to enjoy themselves. They’re a very enthusiastic crowd.
I am glad and lucky to have the gay
community as my fan base because they are forgiving and they will
stick by you no matter what. Look at Madonna, Cher, Bette Midler,
Barbra Streisand—honey, if they did not have the boys…. That’s their
core base. Maybe we’re kind of like a mother figure.
You don’t think your image is a
motherly one, do you?
Oh, I’m not talking about wearing a friggin’
apron. I’m talking about the way you talk, express yourself, the way
you handle yourself. A stronger woman, a woman with a little more
authority and respect. A woman who can make fun of themselves, can
be bitchy—a woman with all her facets and colors. For some reason
it’s something that attracts a gay fan club. I don’t know exactly
why. All I can tell you is that I feel blessed and I’m very
grateful. The boys are a very, very big part of my career.
For information on the Fall River
Cruise, see “Out and About” on page 31. For more information
on Amber, visit
www.myspace.com/ambersings or
www.amber-mcc.com.
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