Amy Stolzenbach

Ask a musician to describe what they do and you might hear singer/songwriter, guitarist, bassist, pianist, drummer, or producer/engineer. What if all these titles were used to describe the same person? You’d be talking about Amy Stolzenbach. Few artists have had the talent, drive and vision to pull it off. But you can add Amy’s name to the list.

After contributing to some of the Northwest’s favorite artists’ albums and live shows as a writer and musician (Carrie Akre, Kim Virant, Glorious), being Angus Young (after founding the all-female AC/DC tribute band Hell’s Belles) and winning over every person who sees her play live with her drive and passion, what’s left? A solo career.

The first full-length album, On and On, is DYI in its truest sense. Recorded in 2006 in her basement studio, Amy explores the area between the depths of despair and the silver lining with melodic memorable moments captured and shared. This award nominated guitarist shows us the depth of her talent by being her own backing band in the studio. A complement to a song that carries equal weight stripped down to just voice and acoustic guitar as she’s known to do at intimate shows around the Northwest. Vulnerable and tough. Wise and flawed. Remember, there is so much more……

Trained on piano from a young age and initially self-taught on guitar, Amy Stolzenbach lives and breathes music. At twenty, the Midwest didn’t seem to hold many opportunities. After playing in bands in high school, one year as a music major in college and playing in a regional Top-40 band at nineteen, Amy’s gaze turned west to Los Angeles. A year later, she graduated from Musician’s Institute, one of five women in her class, and started to plug into the music scene in L.A. She quickly realized that there were more tight knit exciting music communities elsewhere so she packed her bags and headed to Seattle. The music scene was vibrant and everything she had hoped for. With lots of opportunities to play, she hooked up with Seattle music veterans, Charlotte’s Webb. When that band had run its course, Amy honed her songwriting skills with her band flood, a melodic blend of psychedelia and guitar-heavy pop. The EP, Satan Touched My Hat, produced by Martin Feveyear (Mark Lanegan, The Presidents) and released on her own label, garnered critical acclaim. Several incarnations of flood led to the formation of Ground Bloom Flow’r which built on the heavy sound of flood but added influences from Massive Attack and William Orbit by using drum loops and dreamy synths.

Seattle musicians had taken note of Amy’s songwriting and arranging skills. This led to collaboration with Kim Virant and eventually a stint in her band on guitar and keyboards. The John Goodmanson (Sleater-Kinney, Harvey Danger) produced Stealing Days would not be Amy and Kim’s last collaboration. 2001’s EP, 4 More with Pete Droge (The Thorns, Almost Famous) and Elaine Summers producing and co-writing respectively, cemented Amy’s reputation as a skilled studio musician.

She left Kim’s live band in late 1999 to devote all her attention to her new project, the all-female AC/DC tribute band, Hell’s Belles. Amy had always loved AC/DC and had the concept for an all-female version of the Aussie band with herself as the explosive, eternal school-boy(girl) lead guitarist, Angus Young, nearly a year before all of the pieces fell into place. What started in her mind as a fun side project exploded onto the Seattle club scene and quickly spread all over the western states and Canada. Hell’s Belles has racked up numerous awards and accomplishments, including meeting AC/DC and inspiring a near deluge of female tribute acts around the country to follow in the footsteps of Amy’s idea by paying homage to their favorite band.

The constant touring and demands of Hell’s Belles left little time to work on her craft so Amy left the band in early 2002 and was soon recruited by two Seattle acts and nearly by one infamous bad boy band, Limp Bizkit. Amy auditioned for the Fred Durst circus as it rolled through Seattle and the very next day, every media outlet from CNN to Rolling Stone caught wind of the daring female infiltration into a clearly misogynist imaged band, naming her as the favorite pick to replace their recently departed guitarist, Wes Borland. Amy has never been afraid to rattle the cage of the establishment and this audition proved that people will take notice.

Quickly joining forces with the beloved Seattle music icon, Carrie Akre (Hammerbox, Goodness), Amy co-wrote the opening track on Carrie’s 2002 release, Invitation, and continues to play in her live band. At the same time she performed with Sweet Lou, where she played keyboards exclusively.

In 2003, Pete Droge introduced Amy to San Francisco transplant, Geoff Stanfield (Geffen band Black Lab and critically acclaimed Sun Kil Moon) when he turned to Pete for advice for musicians to turn his studio project into a live band. The result was the band