Newcomer grunge/alternative rocker Amira Elfeky seems like she came out of nowhere. She was featured on Spotify’s Fresh Finds playlist with the “Tonight” track, and it practically racked up millions of streams overnight.
Elfeky is originally from Connecticut and was in chorus her entire life, played violin, and was in basically all the quintessential music classes offered in school. Her family wasn’t really musically inclined, however, they did love music. Her mom loved U2 and her dad was into rock, classic Zeppelin, and Aerosmith.
“Then when I turned 15, I found Nirvana, Linkin Park, and nu-metal, and grunge. I moved to California because my mom got a new job in the Bay area. I went on this website and found this drummer and we just started rocking,” Elfeky explains.
“I thought it was best to have full creative control and start writing on my own,” she adds.
She had released a song or two, but it was nothing like she felt was truly authentic to her. She could never find the pieces of the rock instrumental that she was looking for that completed the song. “Earlier this year, I found this producer from Ukraine named Sasha and DM’ed him and said, ‘Hey, can I use one of your beats,’ and he said, ‘Sure’. So I wrote “Tonight” and I was sitting on it for a while, so I decided to put it on TikTok just to fuck around, and it just went super viral,” she reveals.
Her success has happened overnight and I can’t imagine and wonder what that does to a person.
“It has been crazy, honestly, because it has been 0 to 100. I think now there’s always someone messaging me ‘Oh, I love your music,’ ‘Oh, I’m going to get your lyrics tattooed on my body’… It’s every artist’s dream obviously… I put merch out and it sold out in two days. The song came out in July, so I’ve been marinating on it for three months. It’s the best feeling ever and I have an EP coming out of 6 songs total. The reaction is just crazy. I just really focus on the positive shit. There are a lot of OG’s in the music scene that is into nu-mo and grunge and shit, that said ‘Wow, this is such a nostalgic feeling, but it’s brand new, just hearing that from people who actually lived through my inspirations, it’s such an honor.”
The song, “Tonight,” has brought back so many memories for not only myself, but thousands of others who grew up listening to the genres of nu-metal, 90s alternative rock, and bands like Nirvana, Evanescence, Linkin Park, and more. So why does it resonate with so many people?
“I feel like from a female perspective, a lot of people have been saying that there hasn’t been a woman that has been doing hard shit like this. I’m inspired by Deftones and Linkin Park. Women who are in that genre, like Kittie and Evanescence, didn’t really have a moment to shine. Now people are like holy shit. This is a heavy ass sound. I do a little bit of screaming in my sound. I think people are resonating with the emotion and it’s the intensity of the lyrics. Because you know, mainstream is really pop-oriented and is more digestible,” Elfeky admits.
I feel like I’ve found my biggest inspirations to be, musically, are Chino Moreno and Chester Bennington. The two of them are really what inspires me the most feeling authentic to myself. For a while, I really struggled to be in a rock band. My voice was always super quiet and I could never project myself over a band and I was always trying to be a powerhouse. It just never works for me. Then, I found Chino, His voice is so light and airy., Just like the juxtaposition between that and I feel like my biggest inspiration between that is the 90s and early 2000s nu-metal and industrial,” she explains.
She admits that 90s alternative rock and early 2000s nu-metal and grunge really inspire her. “
Her very first single, “Tonight,” is inspired by her boyfriend. “I wanted to write a love song, but I feel like all love songs come off as cheesy. I struggled for a while where I only wrote depressing shit on my Notes app and then I was in the studio and saw an idea I wrote about him. I have BPD – Borderline Personality Disorder, and this song is about feeling like, ”I need you tonight.’”
Amira also released a second track called “Coming Down” with producer, Sasha. He sends her stuff, she listens to it, and if she gets inspired, she’ll write. “I feel like all my stuff is BPD-driven because it’s my main struggle in life. That one is also about my relationship of getting in my head and feeling these intense, intense feelings in my relationship, and then once that outburst or emotional breakdown happens, you’re coming down and you’re crashing, and you feel like that darkness kind of swallows you up. Not like dizzy, but just like a spinning around your head. We have a really healthy relationship and this is how I was able to articulate myself in the relationship.”
Amira is signed to indie record label, Anemoia Records, an imprint label under Atlantic Records. Amira explains, “I’ve known the owners for a little bit now, I had known Ian who owns Ana Moura for a little bit, and he saw everything, how it was playing out, and really just believed in my songwriting. The song went super viral and I was getting a lot of offers from major labels, and I really wanted to go with them. I felt like they knew me, and I felt like that team there was super dedicated to ensuring I had my creative control and creative freedom. And they are all like a younger demographic, like the OG’s and the OG rock heads. Just everyone there has been so fucking incredible., I feel that a lot of people think that ‘Oh, I’m just going to get signed to a label, and they’re going to do all the work’ – you fucking really have to put your foot in there and keep going, keep going, keep going. Driving the boat. They just get the opportunities and support the artist. It makes or breaks the artist, either you get into gear.”
