“I never really made a plan, to be honest. I just kind of kept saying yes to stuff, no matter what it was,” says Amanda Rheaume, a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario. Her Métis relatives are from Red River and she has Anishinaabe relatives from Lac Seul and Sioux Lookout. She was born and raised on Algonquin territory then moved to Toronto, where she now lives, three times. An auntie, a singer songwriter, a record label owner and the leader of a not for profit called the Indigenous Music Alliance, Rheaume has a lot going on.

Rheaume started off playing piano at nine years old, then she started learning to play the guitar. Next she started singing and writing songs. She started hosting open mics in Ottawa, then playing in bars. She would play three cover sets a night and throw in some of her own music. She started writing more of her own music and recording it and she went on her singer songwriter friends websites and saw where they played and she started contacting the venues to see if she could perform there, too.

In terms of her training, she did take piano lessons but she didn’t follow the grades because she wanted to learn pop songs. She learned to read music and she loved learning songs, even by ear. “I think any instrument making any sound that you can is really important for our lives, basically” Rheaume asserts.

Her advice for students leaving home to pursue opportunities is, “leaving where you've lived your whole life can be really, like exciting and scary and all of those things, but to just give it a try.” Often when she’s trying new things she hears the voice of doubt and fear but she tries to say yes anyway. “You never know what’s going to happen and I think that the more experiences in life that we have, if we’re able to do that, I think it only adds to the creation and the creativity of the music and the art and the spirit and the personality,” she shares. What she hears from artists who are away from home is that they get homesick but they learn to live with it. “It’s still hard every day, sometimes, to really miss the land and your family and your community and just to give yourself some grace with those feelings,” she continues.

Many times Rheaume has wanted to quit singing and being a musician but she has persevered. Starting a record label was a challenge because she and her business partner didn’t know what they were doing but they asked people who started record labels or worked at record labels before for advice.

“People that are so super successful didn't always know what they were doing. Most of the time, people don't really know what they're doing. To be honest, they're just trying stuff,” she observes. Over the course of her career, Rheaume has learned the value of mentorship and having someone to talk to. She has also learned to develop a tolerance for making mistakes, figuring out what went wrong and learning from those lessons.

Rheaume has also noticed that the comparison that can happen when everyone is looking at what everyone else is doing on social media can get in the way of risk taking. A teaching she heard about this was “the circle's stronger when we're all taking up our place and fulfilling our individual responsibility” - basically, that we shouldn’t all be trying to do the same thing. If she could go back and give a message to her younger self it would be, “the best thing to do is to be the most you that you can be, because we need you. We don't need you trying to be this other person.”  

In terms of what helps her maintain her mental health, what she learned after being diagnosed with panic disorder at 20 is that she has to exercise and surround herself with positive, supportive people. “It’s really easy to be unhealthy in the music industry,” she explains. Eating well is also important to her as well as going for walks to the lake near her home. Having a good support system and someone to talk to has been crucial. Struggling with anxiety and depression, she has had to find a way to push past symptoms and do what she planned to do with her days.

She never had a plan but saying yes to things has created a music career and a record label Amanda Rheaume loves. A singer songwriter, an auntie, head of a not for profit and label owner, she’s overcome challenges with mental health, found mentors and learned to embrace her own unique gifts along the way. Despite panic disorder, anxiety and depression, she’s creating a life of music and joy.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.