A conversation with Amira Elfeky

October 4, 2024

Lyssa Sartori

Amira Elfeky is an LA-based singer and songwriter who is bringing a fresh new sound to the heavy rock scene. Drawing inspiration from nu-metal and grunge, her debut EP, Skin to Skin, has a powerful, raw and haunting atmosphere. With entrancing vocals and heart-wrenching lyrics, Amira lures the listener to delve into deep desire such as to love and to be loved.

The leadoff track, Secrets, is enigmatic and Elfeky makes powerful statement when she sings “You say that you’re forever mine / Forever is never enough time’’

In A Dozen Roses, the singer begs her lover to not leave, questioning her sense of self-worth.

Everything I do is For You features heavy tone guitar riffs and explosive drums. Elfeky’s vocals range from intense and raw to breathy and delicate, she pours her soul into the song and repeatedly asks: “How can you love me?’’

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Another standout is Save Yourself, the track combines bitter, angst vocals along with keyboard and  low guitar tones, sonically reminiscent of the 2000s heavy rock bands such as Deftones, Linkin Park and Bring Me The Horizon.  Finally, Elfeky’s breakout song, Tonight, is a sensuous  track that translates an intense desire to sink into an object of consuming infatuation.

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Amira and I met in the green room, before her headline concert in Brooklyn in August. During those few minutes, we talked about Amira’s journey related to the complexities of her mental health, her inspirations and creative process.

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SOS: Do you come from a musical background? How did you first get into music? 

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Amira: My mom and everyone else around me were into music, but no one really played an instrument or anything. It was kind of like, I'm gonna do this. No one really took it as seriously as I did. We grew up with lots of music, so my mom would always be buying a CD, vinyl or be playing something at all times. 

I was always surrounded by music, like an abnormal amount, I would say. As soon as I could wear headphones, I would just listen to music all the time. And then in fourth grade, I picked up violin and I wasn't good at it, but I just did it in elementary school and later on, I started playing guitar and I did choruses and stuff. I had a hyper -fixation on microphones and my mom is right there, laughing because that’s what I wanted for Christmas. I begged for a microphone, because I used to have this little playset when I was three and it had one of those Britney Spears microphones. I was Britney Spears when I was three years old for Halloween and I was all about that diva life (laughs). My uncle's into rock and stuff. I was just always surrounded by rock and then I found my way into the genres that I listen to now through my older brother, who is nine years older than me. He was in that whole new metal era.

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SOS: What artists and albums do you think inspired you? 

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Amira: In the beginning, I think what really sparked me wanting to make rock music was Nirvana. In utero was the album for me that I was just like…oh shit. I had everything related to Kurt Cobain, I read every book or magazine, I had every poster I could possibly have and then I got into Foo Fighters and I went this whole 90s rabbit hole and listened to Alice in Chains and Stone Temple Pilots. 

That was when I realized that I wanted to be in a rock band. And then, I used to be in a rock band but I was just too controlling over my vision to share it with other people so I was like I gotta be a solo artist . I remember listening to “All Apologies’’ and it blew my mind, because it has the cello in it and they're like mixing all of these things together… from there I went to Evanescence and just moved it down, just like spirals. 

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SOS: How is your creative process on writing songs?

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Amira:  It depends, a lot of my lyrics come from my notes. I'll write a phrase down that I really enjoy and when it's time to start writing, I'll go through all my note sections. If I like the idea,  I’ll build a whole story off that.  So I never sit down with the thought. I know a lot of artists sit down like oh, let's write a song like this, but It just gets very emotionless for me so I just allow it to form itself and sometimes, I don't even know what I'm writing. 

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SOS: When do you know a project is done? 

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Amira:  Genuinely, I will cut a demo and then listen to it on repeat for like a week straight and then there will be times where I change the lyrics if it sounds sonically better, but overall, what's there is usually what's there. 

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SOS: Your EP Skin to Skin is out. How do the songs feel to you now they’re held together on one record? 

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 Amira: I love it! I'm excited to start writing my album. I like the cohesiveness of everything. Putting out singles is fun but putting out an entire body of work that goes all together fluidly is insane and it feels good to have everything done and then shove it out, as opposed to having your singles here and there. Creating a story and having the rollout for it is the most fun part for me. 

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SOS: Do you ever get nervous or anxious before a release, or is it more of a relief?

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Amira: I don't really get nervous with releasing music because If I'm obsessed with it, I don't really care that people don't like it. But at the same time, I'm my biggest enemy so sometimes I’ll be my biggest hater and be like “This sucks and it’s never coming out…’’ But I think I was excited to finally put something out. 

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SOS: When I first heard your EP front to back, I loved feeling like the songs came together so fluidly. 

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Amira: Thank you!

SOS:  When do you feel the most at peace with yourself and the world?

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Amira: Man, that's something I'm still trying to figure out. I think the most at peace that I can recall is just being in a booth and recording. Because I’m by myself with my thoughts and it's a very emotional experience for me. So, that's kind of my time to really unravel and it almost feels like a blackout. 

When I wrote my song “Tonight’’, I remember at the end of the session, I was like, how the fuck did I write that? I don't know where it came from or what place I tapped into. So I think that's a piece of me that only I'm only able to touch through music. ‘

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SOS:  When I first heard Tonight, I literally got chills, it’s such a cathartic song.

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Amira:  Really? Thank you so much.

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SOS: What headspace do you enter when you are performing? 

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Amira: It's like a curtain. I was just explaining this to someone from my label today. We were talking about a live performance. If you meet me in person, I'm bubbly or a little shyer, but on stage, I get this confidence,  because you have people screaming at you in the crowd. It's a unique experience. I think I just subconsciously snap into a place and it’s the same with the music. It's like everything that has to do with my music side of me, it just snaps into a certain place and it’s natural. 

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SOS: I really like that.. Let’s talk about your latest song Remains Of Us. There are a few lines that really stuck with me when I first listened to it: 

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“You said you hate who you are, but I hate what I'm not’’ and also “You are what you surrender to.’’ 

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How was the process of writing this song? 

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Amira: So those were all lines that I had in my notes section that I kind of thought of randomly.

You said you hate who you are and hate who I'm not. For me, something that I deal with a lot is being a highly emotional person. Growing up, I was always highly emotional. 

I kind of always struggled with daydreaming and wanting to be more than what I am. So I was in a relationship before and the other person was just really depressed and hated everything about themselves. I didn't hate myself, but I hated that I felt like I was wasting potential. It's this weird dichotomy of like, you're looking at someone who hates where they are right now and you don't hate where you're at right now, but you want more. And then it's just this discourse between the two of you. So yeah, so it's like it's just that's the only part on the song where I really like wail besides like the screaming part. And that needs a lot of energy because it's a loaded state. 

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SOS: What do you like about yourself these days? 

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Amira: Myself? 

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SOS: Yep. Just anything. 

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Amira: I feel like I'm starting to overcome a lot of anxiety, which I'm very proud of. I recently started going to therapy again. That's something that's really been a step for me. Also, my confidence as a woman, getting older and just letting go. As a woman, there is so much pressure and expectations. I spent a lot of time being obsessed with how we [women] look and what we do and how we sing and how we sound. I just feel that I was able to let go of so much of that, just by being on stage every night and being able to be a voice for a lot of people. That's the most beautiful thing, so nothing else matters to me. I'm so obsessed with wanting to just be my authentic self.

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SOS: I love that you’re able to let go of so much of that weight. About perfectionism, that's such a good way to put it, especially because it’s so forgiving to be on stage. Is there anything that you'd like to do to take care of yourself and share with us? 

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Amira: I like to get my hair and my nails done, I like to get massages. I would say I'm very much of a homebody, so I like to take care of myself and do things that make me feel good about myself. Then I really enjoy just being at home and watching shitty reality TV shows and eating food. 

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SOS: What are you watching right now? 

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Amira: I'm starting to actually watch Love Island (laughs) but I was watching Love is Blind. My best friend (Quinn) and I, our recent indulge was Bridgerton, the TV Show. I'm obsessed with Bridgerton…

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SOS: It can be a really good way to wind down. I also love the early 2000s TV shows…

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Amira: I love that stuff. I have this Twilight Backpack and my manager left at Sweetgreen and we sat an hour in traffic to get it back. 

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SOS: Stop! I see that there’s something written on the bottom of the backpackWhat does this say ? 

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Amira: It's the quote “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb.’’

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 SOS: Do you have a favorite memory of recording the EP? 

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Amira: It was probably while recording Tonight. It was the most insane recording experience I've ever had. There was a thunderstorm, and the entire power went out twice and we lost the session. I had never sung in that register before, and I wrote the whole thing. All of a sudden, the lights went back on and the session was saved and then I put it out. It felt like a sign. There was some energy that night.. 

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SOS: How did you come up with the idea of doing the symphony version of Tonight? It’s such a great song to close the EP. It reminded me of the performance Bring Me The Horizon did with a full orchestra, At The Royal Albert Hall.

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Amira:  I love them, that’s so sick! I had the idea because I really wanted to strip back vocals and I love everything about violins, cellos and orchestras, so I wanted this to be a thing. 

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SOS: Do you think your perception of love changed ?

 

Amira: I'm trying to figure out what healthy love is or just love in general because even for myself. There's times where I was like oh I’m in love, but then you just get betrayed in the end, and also realize that this cannot be healthy or real love. As I get older, I realized what not to tolerate — with love, comes respect and It's a whole melting pot of everything. 

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SOS: I totally understand that, there is also a line that separates love from obsession..

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Amira: Oh, absolutely. A lot of my lyrics are related to BPD too, so a healthy line is something that I've been trying to work on my whole life. Not losing myself and not dumping yourself into everyone else and neglecting yourself. 

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SOS: One of my favorites tracks of your EP as for now is Save Yourself. Can you talk a bit about the story of the song and what it means to you? 

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I kept thinking about the juxtaposition of these two lines from Save Yourself and Coming Down:

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 “You only save yourself/ I'll come crashing through’’ 

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 “I'm coming down, I'm crashing now.’’

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Amira: You asked about song-writing earlier so I think, subconsciously the songs kind of form itself. Then, I'm able to relate to them afterwards and make a general consensus of what I think. Save Yourself, for me,  is just about that toxic love — like in BPD, all you see is this person and in the end, you lose yourself so hard that you can't save yourself because they're saving themselves. It took a very long time for me to build the confidence to put myself above everyone else, and I still struggle with that a lot. 

Coming Down is about being high on intense emotions, the high highs and low lows is something that I deal with a lot.  I feel like Coming Down is a more personal one and Save Yourself is more like like a Fuck you .

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SOS: What song found you at the right time? 

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Amira: I think something that I played a lot was “Drown’’ by Bring Me The Horizon. It was my number one one year on Spotify wrapped. Sonically, the lyrics, the emotions, everything, all the vocals, the entire production, is just ridiculous. So that was something that really resonated with me. I love the line “What doesn't kill you makes you wish you were dead.’’

Drown was a song that found me. 

And again, music really does save lives. So I feel like when I'm really upset, I just listen to music. 

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SOS: I love this song, it's such a good pick.

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Amira: What's yours? 

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SOS: It’s hard to think of one song right now but for me, Drown is definitely one of them. Some of the Radiohead songs also helped me to go through a lot too.

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Amira: Karma Police is a good one.

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SOS: True! Is there anything that you want to accomplish with or through your music? 

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Amira: I think for me it is reaching a broader audience. I will literally break down crying because the amount of people that really tell me that they have my lyrics tattooed on them or just the emotional inclination that people have towards some of the lyrics, is insane. Being able to be a voice for more people and allowing them to find the lyrics and find the music and just being there. Music's been for me, and is the only thing I could ever ask for. Music is one of the most powerful things we have on this planet.

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Follow Amira Elfeky 

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