Vue Weekly

Angie Nussey

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Vue Weekly
Edmonton, Alberta
Thursday, March 13th, 2008

MUSIC

Angie Nussey

Hey, buddy, you’ve got to hear this song

A few years ago Angie Nussey started university with intentions of a career in medicine. Then she experienced that feeling that a lot of students get: doubt. It’s easy to decide on a career when you’re looking at things like course names and potential salaries on paper, but goals can change once you get down to earning that degree and really see what it’s all about. Once Nussey began working towards that career, she decided that maybe medicine wasn’t exactly what she wanted to spend her life doing after all.

“Isn’t that the way it goes?” she laughs over the phone from Toronto. “And I think some people can handle it mentally—they can push through. I admire those people who’ve got the determination to set their mind on something and even if it seems a little different from what they thought, they can push through, but with me I can’t. I just get so depressed and it always seems that the wind is pushing me [towards music]. I’ve been at this for 10 years and it seems like even in my times of trying to quit performing in public and just sort of doing it on my own, it always seems like something will come up that will make me go out again and do it again and it just seems like the right thing to do.

“I’ve been playing since I was seven and writing since I was young, too, but I didn’t really consider it a career until I got into university,” she continues, recalling her transition from medicine to music. “I was a bit bummed out and not really happy with where I was, and my mom said, ‘Well, you really like to sing and you’ve got all these songs, you should probably try doing something with music,’ and at that point I ended up going into opera-singing lessons and I joined a cover band on the weekends and I liked it. I like a lot of aspects of it—it’s an interesting business—and I think somebody’s got to do it. You’ve got to have musicians or the world would be really boring.”

These days, Nussey is well aware that the world is a changing place for musicians. With digital distribution become increasingly popular, Nussey has made her music available in CD form through internet sites like CD Baby and Indie Pool, and in an entirely digital format through iTunes.

“This digital shift—I don’t feel ahead of it, that’s for sure,” she chuckles. “I’m definitely not against the new digital era because I think there will be a lot less waste as far as CD covers go, and stuff like that, but there is a nervous feeling among a lot of musicians ... I think there will be a section of time that it’ll be hard to make a living at what we do, especially off of our music, but those times are changing too. It’s a matter of getting it worked out and pushing through that little section of time.”

The internet has made it possible for pretty much anyone with a computer to put their music out there for everyone to hear, resulting in an increasing deep pool of artists for listeners to wade through, but Nussey isn’t worried that the wider availability of music will signal the end for artists making a living in the business.

“It seems like good songs and good music, they stand out,” she states. “It still ends up coming around by word of mouth. That’s how I usually find out about music. Someone says, ‘You’ve got to listen to this.’ Those who have something really special, you end up finding them anyway.” V

Fri, Mar 14 (7:30 pm)

Angie Nussey

With Ben Sures

Queen Alexandra Community Hall, $18