Mandy Harvey is back with your next feel-good song of the summer!
The America’s Got Talent golden buzzer alumni just dropped her newest single “Masterpiece” back in March and the track truly lives up to its name. Harvey wrote the upbeat pop track during the Coronavirus pandemic and used it as a way to shed light on the beautiful things that happened within the past year.
“It gave us an opportunity to talk about things that are very difficult, to grow as a culture, and to push ourselves to become more tolerant and more accepting and more loving towards others,” Harvey says, “’Masterpiece’ is about loving all of these broken pieces that we didn’t want to have to experience, but realizing how much of an impact they’ve made into who we are today.”
Along with the track, Harvey created a music video for the single and a special lyric video that was fully accessible with ASL. While also showing the lyrics of “Masterpiece” in the video, it also features a visual representation of what the song sounds like and the lyrics follow the beat of the song. The music video also features Harvey’s closest friends and family members, in an effort to represent all the different journeys each of us take and to celebrate those experiences while also encouraging one another.
“I included a lot of people who have pushed and inspired me to embrace myself, including the parts and pieces of myself that I wish I could shove underneath the rug and not know exist,” the singer tells Celeb Secrets, “But they have encouraged me to celebrate them and to love who I am.”
Harvey sits down with Celeb Secrets to talk about all things “Masterpiece,” her life during quarantine, and more!
Check out our full Q&A with Harvey down below and don’t forget to listen to “Masterpiece!” Let us know what you think of the track by leaving a reaction down below or tweet us @celebsecrets.
Celeb Secrets: How have you been during quarantine? Have you picked up any new hobbies?
Mandy Harvey: “Quarantine has been a rollercoaster and there’ve been a lot of ups and downs, but I am thrilled about all of the communication and change that seem to be taking place in the world around me. And I’ve been picking up a lot of new hobbies and interests. First and foremost, I started making bread. I created my own sourdough starter corn, using jovial flour, which is amazing, and made my own starter, which took 10 days. I’ve been painting. I’ve started rollerblading more and just in general, being a touring musician, sleeping in my own bed every day for a full year, which has never happened.”
CS: I know you started singing at the age of 4! What sparked your love for singing and for music?
MH: “My love for music was always based around the community and the teamwork that was involved with it. I love being able to express myself and music was just something that I did very naturally. However, when I was four, I was introduced to choir and that’s when my love really grew because I was able to see the words on the page, be a part of the conversation and work as part of a team to create something beautiful. And that community aspect was what I was drawn to.”
CS: We know you play the ukulele, but are there any other instruments you play or are interested in playing?
MH: “I play some piano and guitar. A little bit of the bass. I would love to learn how to play the mandolin because my name is actually Amanda Lynn. And so, uh, I just think it would be hilarious to say Amanda Lynn plays the mandolin. I’ve always been interested to learn how to play the cello, which I just think is just an absolutely beautiful instrument.”
CS: You have been such a huge inspiration to everyone, and your song “Try” is just one example of what an inspiring person you are. Is there any advice you can give to people who aspire to have the same dream as you?
MH: “That’s a difficult question because I wonder what dream they’re thinking it is. I have so many dreams. I would encourage everybody to have more than one dream, but also to not strive to dream the same as me. You are you and there’s one you in the world, and that is something that is beautifully unique and exciting. And so your perspective and your problem solving, and then the way that you dream is going to be so fingerprinted to you. I would say to anybody who is chasing a dream, know that if you find yourself smacking into a wall and failing to know that it’s just one small part of the overall journey and that you have the ability to brush your knees up, get back up and try again.”
CS: Being a deaf artist, the way you feel and process how that music sounds is through your body. Can you explain what the feeling feels like?
MH: “It’s kind of like a shock to the system. When you feel music or when you feel sound, it’s not something that you have to be deaf to experience any person who has gone to a concert, you can feel the bass rattling in your chest. It almost replaces your heartbeat and you start moving and breathing in time to this sound that’s pulsing through your body. For me, I’ve just paid so much attention to it. It becomes extraordinarily sensitive. And so for me, it’s kind of like tiny little electrocutions that are soaring through and they all have a different texture to them. So you can feel different things at the same time and know that they’re decent.”
CS: Your new song “Masterpiece” is incredible and it sounds like a feel-good song for the summer! Can you tell us more about the story behind the track?
MH: “Thank you. I was very inspired by 2020 and the COVID shut down and read all these messages and had all these phone calls where people were frustrated and hopeful that 2020 would just be over and that it never happened, myself included. When, in reality, so many beautiful things happened during 2020. It gave us an opportunity to talk about things that are very difficult, to grow as a culture, and to push ourselves to become more tolerant and more accepting and more loving towards others. I think that if we really thought about it, we wouldn’t want to throw away 2020 because of all the lessons that we learned. So “Masterpiece” is about loving all of these broken pieces that we didn’t want to have to experience, but realizing how much of an impact they’ve made into who we are today and saying that, yes, those were really difficult, frustrating times, but I’m a stronger, better person for it. And that’s where celebrating.”
CS: What was the recording process for the song like?
MH: “I went into a very small studio and there was only me and a producer. It was mostly just the two of us for most of the recording and in two different rooms. We communicated via FaceTime in the booth. I did have a beautiful co-writer there, her name was Simon, for a couple of hours at the start when we were finishing writing the song, but everybody was socially distanced. It was so awkward. I mostly recorded a lot of it in a room by myself. It was a very quick record. Sometimes things just dump out of you, and it’s the blessings of having a good producer who can capture them in time.”
CS: Share the process of making a music video for “Masterpiece.” Why was it important to have some of your friends be a part of it? Also, why was it also important for you to make a lyric video that is fully accessible with ASL?
MH: “I first and foremost was focused on making a lyric video that I could understand. I find that lyric videos – when you can’t hear – are never actually giving you information of what the song sounds like. They’re also not captioned in time for you to even feel the beat at the same time that the words are coming up. But even if the words are coming up, there’s no context as to what that means. The accessibility of it was the reason why there was a video connected to it at all. Then having charged with the task of making a music video/lyric video with visuals, I wanted to include people being themselves. In that, I included a lot of people who have pushed and inspired me to embrace myself, including the parts and pieces of myself that I wish I could shove underneath the rug and not know to exist. But they have encouraged me to celebrate them and to love who I am. So I wanted to include them, but I also wanted to include people who are friends and family, friends family, to say that every single person has their journey and they all look different. We’re all working really hard to strive for something better, and that we need to be encouraging each other, as we all know that this road is difficult.”
CS: Can we expect more music from you this year?
MH: “Abso-damn-lutely. There’s lots of music coming out this year. So look out!”
CS: I’m excited to hear that. Last but not least, since we are Celeb Secrets, is there any secret you can share with us that people may not know yet?
MH: “May not know. We’ll give you two! One: I have an extreme phobia of sharks. It is an unbelievable phobia. It’s so bad that if I’m in a bubble bath and some, for some reason, like water will move. There was an incident when I was in San Francisco and there was a small earthquake. So the whole bathtub shook and I freaked out and got out. It’s a real problem. But outside of a phobia, another secret is that I have an entire second half of my family life that is in France, most people don’t know that I read and write a lot in French.”
