New Music Discovery Of The Week: Meg Myers "Any Way You Wanna Love"

This week’s ALT 104.5 New Music Discovery Of The Week is Meg Myers "Any Way You Wanna Love"

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In the final weeks of 2018, Meg Myers returned home from tour feeling lost and painfully out of touch with herself. Earlier that year, the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist had released her sophomore effort Take Me to the Disco, a widely acclaimed body of work that lifted her mercurial form of alt-rock to a thrilling new level. But despite the album’s great success, Myers found herself overwhelmed by disconnection and depression, eventually verging on suicidal. “I wasn’t enjoying life at all; I was so burnt out and felt like I was making music for other people and not for myself,” Myers recalls. “It got to the point where I hit rock bottom and just wanted out.”

Instead of giving up, Myers followed her instinct toward self-salvation. She quit drinking, ended the toxic relationship she’d gotten caught up in, and soon experienced a spiritual breakthrough that would prove to be monumentally life-changing. “I came back to my house and meditated for three hours, and in that period of time I woke up,” says Myers. “Everything in me felt more alive, and I realized that I’m a co-creator, like all of us are: I’d been creating everything that’s happened to me, even though I wasn’t conscious of that. Once I had that realization, I started releasing all this weight that I’d been carrying my whole life, releasing limiting beliefs about myself and others—just clearing away everything that’s not who I truly am.”

Struck with a tremendous rush of creativity, Myers soon premiered her luminous cover of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” and its accompanying video, a feat of potent imagination that features the hand-colored artwork of over 2,000 children. As the song shot to #1 on alternative radio (marking her first-ever #1 hit), Myers revisited a batch of music recorded during the Take Me to the Disco sessions, a point in time she now sees as pivotal in paving the way for her awakening. “There’s a lot of pain in those songs, but they ended up leading me to so much liberation,” she says. “It felt important for me to share them, to create a bridge between that moment and the direction I’m heading in with my music now.”

As her debut for Sumerian Records, Myers presents a powerfully charged two-EP project: Thank U 4 Taking Me 2 the Disco and I’d Like 2 Go Home Now. Though many of the songs were created with Christian “Leggy” Langdon (her main collaborator on Take Me to the Disco), Myers also recently teamed up with producers Dave Bassett (Neon Trees, Bishop Briggs) and Andy Park (Deep Sea Diver, Pedro The Lion), transforming several tracks by tapping into her newfound boldness and lucidity of vision. “In the past I’d often limited myself by thinking that there were certain structures I had to follow with my music,” she says. “Now I’m letting go of all that and letting myself explore new ways of creating, and it feels so freeing. I feel like a kid.”

The EP-opening lead single to Thank U 4 Taking Me 2 the Disco, “Any Way You Wanna Love” offers a spellbinding glimpse into the newly dawning era of Myers’s artistry, merging the stormy urgency of her last album with a profound self-possession. In bringing the track to life, Myers returned to an unfinished song she’d written years before, then added a bridge that’s delicately embedded with pieces of hard-won wisdom. “‘Any Way You Wanna Love’ is about waking up to the divinity within every one of us and stepping into our power as sovereign beings,” Myers explains. “It’s important to learn how to get present and tune into what our bodies are trying to tell us, and express that truth in our hearts so that we can liberate ourselves and consciously evolve.”

Another cut from Thank U 4 Taking Me 2 the Disco, “Grizzly” takes on a frenetic momentum as Myers shares a sharply detailed narrative of moving on from addiction. Meanwhile, the EP’s closing song “I Hope You Cry” finds Myers joining L.A.-based singer/songwriter Morgxn in a stark yet stunning duet. “I was in a really weird place at the time, and Morgxn came over and sat at the piano and just listened to me talk through everything,” says Myers. “He started writing the words we were saying, and the song came together through the two of us trying to turn our pain into light.”

Throughout her two new EPs, Myers reveals her gift for alchemizing even the most deep-rooted pain into catharsis. On “True Liars,” for instance, I’d Like 2 Go Home Now opens with a glorious and galvanizing track that wholly embodies the wild paradox of the song’s title. “I made that song around the time that I was uncovering some repressed trauma from early childhood,” says Myers. “It’s about how each of us is capable of finding the truth underneath all the distortion and illusion we’re so used to dealing with.” And on “Hurt”—the EP’s poignant centerpiece—Myers shifts perspective for an ineffably tender meditation on damage and forgiveness. “I absolutely believe that we’re all responsible for our actions, but I also think the only way to heal is to stop pointing the finger,” she says. “I wrote ‘Hurt’ from the point-of-view of an alcoholic parent and the pain that they’re in, because I think it’s so important for us to recognize that we all have wounds.”

Like all of her music, Thank U 4 Taking Me 2 the Disco and I’d Like 2 Go Home Now illuminate Myers’s extraordinary ability to inhabit an entire world of feeling, a testament to both the graceful precision and whirlwind force of her vocals. Originally from Tennessee and raised in a Jehovah’s Witness household, Myers first began channeling unbridled emotion into song form as a kid in South Florida, where she and her brother played in a punk band called Feeling Numb. At age 19 she fled to L.A. to pursue her passion for music, and later crossed paths with producer/songwriter Andy Rosen (aka Doctor Rosen Rosen). Soon after delivering her debut EP Daughter in the Choir, Myers landed a deal with Atlantic Records, who put out her sophomore EP Make a Shadow in 2014. As the EP’s magnetic single “Desire” gained traction on alternative radio, Myers began opening for such seminal acts as Pixies and taking the stage at leading festivals like Lollapalooza. Released in September 2015, her first full-length effort Sorry debuted on the Billboard 200, cementing her status as one of the most compelling alt-rock artists in music today.

While Take Me to the Disco arrived as Myers’s most viscerally honest work to date, she’s already surpassed the album’s soul-baring vulnerability in the writing of her third full-length. “There have been moments where I’ve had some fear around what I’m writing—I’m talking about some heavy shit in these songs, and a few times I’ve stopped myself like, ‘Is it okay for me to say this?’” Myers notes. “But what I’ve realized is that if I don’t honor my truth, then I’m not living with integrity, and the universe is not going to support me. It’s finally time for me to express myself fully, and say these things that are scary to say.” In a departure from her previous output, Myers has written most of her forthcoming material on piano, an instrument she first took up at the age of 12. “The more healing work I’ve been doing, the more I’ve felt this pull toward my piano,” says Myers, who also plays guitar and bass. “After a while my abilities started opening up and I started having more confidence, and the songs would just pour out of me like magic.”

As she moves forward with the making of her upcoming album, Myers feels guided by a radiant clarity of purpose, a newly discovered understanding of her distinct role as an artist. “I’ve always been drawn to making music as a form of therapy, but until I had my awakening I didn’t fully grasp why I was doing it,” she says. “When I was able to step back and see my story from a higher perspective, I realized that everything I’ve gone through is part of my mission to do things differently and create something that helps others—especially the people who’ve experienced trauma and have this confusion about how to release it. I believe there’s so much healing potential in all of us, and now I feel empowered to help other people find that and learn how to let go.”


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