The Untold Truth Of Amanda Sudano
If you haven't yet heard of Amanda Sudano, there's a good chance that you will pretty soon. One half of the Los Angeles-based band Johnnyswim (the other being her husband), Sudano has a deep love of all things musical. Additionally, the singer-songwriter is a mother of three children, and she can usually be found touring with her family on the road.
While constantly being on tour with your whole family might sound insanely chaotic, for Sudano, she literally couldn't be happier to have it all. "You can love what you do, and you can bring your kids along," she told People. "You can bring your family. You can bring your spouse. You can bring people you love along with the dreams that you have, and not sacrifice one for the other." You know, that does sound like it could be amazing.
But what else is there to know about Sudano other than her band? Where did she come from and what inspired her to take the path she did? And what are her goals for the future? Read on to discover the untold truth of Amanda Sudano.
Amanda Sudano's mother is a music legend
If you saw Amanda Sudano and swore that she looked familiar for some reason, it could be because she looks like her mother, the late legendary queen of disco herself, Donna Summer. Of course, being her daughter meant that Sudano knew Summer more intimately than nearly anyone else. "You know, I did grow inside of her, so I've heard her voice my whole life," she recalled in an interview with NPR. "I don't remember not knowing her voice, so I'm sure I do things that sound like her." We certainly can hear it.
While Sudano may look and even sound like her iconic late mother, growing up she would listen to her mother's songs, which reminded Sudano that she and her mother weren't exactly the same person. "I remember hearing a lot of these opera songs, because she could yodel and do all of this awesome stuff that I could never do," she continued. "It sets it apart in my ear for me."
Amanda Sudano's mom taught her the importance of being herself
It's not altogether surprising to learn that people compare Amanda Sudano to her late mother; that can happen when you're the child of a famous and beloved celebrity. However, that wasn't necessarily a good thing for Sudano, especially when it came to the music industry. "For years working with people they wanted that to be the sound, so they always wanted to make me into the new version of what she was or what she could be in this time period," she explained in an interview with CBS News. That sounds like a lot of pressure.
Fortunately for Sudano, she had quite the advocate in her mother, who herself was pigeon-holed by producers when she wanted to try new things. "She always encouraged us to just find our own voice, to not rush it, to just enjoy writing music and figuring out who we were on our own," she continued. "Luckily I had the good kind of pressure to do that thing, which is right for us."
Amanda Sudano has been writing songs since she was a child
In addition to having Donna Summer as her mother, Amanda Sudano had a father in none other than legendary producer Bruce Sudano. It's little wonder, then, that Sudano ended up a musician, as she's been singing and creating music since preschool. "I've been writing songs for as long as I could remember and they were pretty horrible, but it was all about, you know, if I did my homework and what the teacher said at school," she told Glide Magazine. "None of it rhymed at all." She added that as years went on, she got advice from her parents, which helped her to improve.
Additionally, even though she was a self-described "horrible" songwriter as a kid, Sudano was encouraged to always keep creating anyway. "My dad had a studio in the house and he would let us after school come over and write songs in the studio and let us record them," Sudano added. Talk about an exceptional childhood!
Amanda Sudano is friends with this famous couple
If you've ever heard the theme song for Fixer Upper — and you know you have — then you've heard one of Johnnyswim's most popular songs, "Home." As it turns out, Amanda Sudano and her husband, Abner Ramirez, have been friends with Chip and Joanna Gaines for years. It all started because Johnnyswim is Chip and Joanna's favorite band, and they met after Joanna asked them to play in an early episode of Fixer Upper. "At that point, we had never watched the show, so we were like, 'No ... we don't really have time to go around and do all these things," Sudano explained in a chat with People.
Fortunately, Ramirez's mom convinced them to accept the invitation after becoming a Fixer Upper fan. "His mom has never asked us for anything, but she was like, 'Whatever they say, do it. For me, just do it,'" Sudano continued. "So we did, and as soon as we started talking to them, we knew that they were kindred spirits."
After that, the couples became good friends, and they started turning up in each other's Instagram posts. But that was only the beginning!
Amanda Sudano is poised to become a reality TV star
Unless you live under a rock or have been lost at sea for a spell, you've heard that Chip and Joanna Gaines are launching their own network, Magnolia Network. Additionally, one of the new shows on the fledgling channel is Home on the Road, which will indeed star Amanda Sudano and her family — you guessed it — on the road. And while it's clearly the opportunity of a lifetime, it wasn't something Sudano and her husband, Abner Ramirez, agreed to without serious thought. "Because touring is the foundation of our life, it took an intimate relationship like the one we have with Chip and Jo to trust the team to come in, put cameras in our faces, and let our life now become a performance," Ramirez told People.
As Sudano explained, there's going to be a lot to look forward to in Home on the Road. "On top of the difficulty of touring all the time, raising kids and filming in a tiny tour bus, we also decided to get pregnant at the beginning," she revealed. "That definitely added a new twist to the show!" We can't wait to see it!
Amanda Sudano says her husband is her "home"
Some people might feel that the life that Amanda Sudano and her family lead on the road sounds chaotic, hectic, and utterly exhausting. But as for the rest of us — especially after living through the year that was 2020 — being on tour constantly and seeing new places all the time sounds perfectly splendid.
At the end of the day, though, no one else's opinions really matters, as Sudano has committed to the nomad lifestyle — and it's been amazing for her marriage. "I think it's almost the opposite of maybe what people expect to think," she shared in an interview with NPR. "Instead of the longer you're out on the road it gets more claustrophobic, the longer you're out on the road it gets nicer to have [Abner Ramirez] there, because he's the closest thing to home I have. Home is where he is." Sudano added that the farther away from their Los Angeles home that they go, the more she leans on Ramirez for stability and comfort. Aw!
Amanda Sudano didn't want to want a home birth
Perhaps the most important thing in Amanda Sudano's life, likely even more important than her music, is her family. And back when she and her husband, Abner Ramirez, were first starting their family, Sudano found herself wanting to deliver her baby at home after careful consideration — and initially wasn't happy about it. "[I thought] this is making perfect sense for me, this is what I actually want and I'm annoyed by that," she confessed in a chat with True Motherhood. "I don't want to want it."
But after a while, Sudano accepted that she wanted to have a home birth, and eventually she went through with it. Now on the other side of the process, Sudana says she had a profound realization. "I learned to look at something that's painful and that people say should be scary and realizing, No! There's actually amazing beauty in it," she continued. "To look at something that's painful but still see it as absolutely worth it ... and magical."
In addition to being a musician, Amanda Sudano is also a model
On top of being a singer-songwriter, a wife, a mother, and a daughter, Amanda Sudano is also a professional model. She's gorgeous, so it's not all that surprising, but we're just wondering how Sudano has the time for that with everything else she has going on!
Yet somehow Sudano does, as she's modeled for fashion juggernaut Louis Vuitton, as noted by Hangbag magazine. Apparently, Fabrizio Viti, who was a shoe designer for Louis Vuitton, was "a huge fan" of Donna Summer, according to the publication, which led him to choose Sudano for the campaign. What's even cooler is that Sudano was reportedly the first Black model to appear on her own in a Louis Vuitton advertisement, making fashion history. Talk about breaking barriers!
Additionally, Sudano is signed with the Bella Agency, according to a profile on the agency's website. Our girl really does have it all: beauty, brains, and talent!
Amanda Sudano has been impacted by racism
While Amanda Sudano clearly has a beautiful life, both with her family and her career, it's not always sunshine and roses all the time. Sadly, Sudano has had to deal with her share of racism, as she's a Black woman living in the United States. "I used to get terrified if I saw a car with a Confederate flag in the back coming up behind me," she revealed in an interview with Sojourners. "I was so scared, I would pull over because what if this car tries to mess with me, like I'm just a little brown girl in the South." That's just horrible.
To that end, when white supremacists held a rally in Charlottesville, Va. in 2017 (via Time), Sudano found herself deeply affected by those events. "It brought up a lot of stuff in me," she continued, noting that it did the same for her husband, who was raised in Jacksonville, Fla. "Even within myself, it was kind of a healing crisis." We hope you never have to feel that way again, Amanda.
Amanda Sudano is a philanthropist
Until Amanda Sudano and her family inked a deal with the Magnolia Network, they weren't exactly household names, even though they were well known in their own right as Johnnyswim. But that didn't stop Sudano and her husband, Abner Ramirez, from volunteering their time and donating their money to causes important to them. "What we witnessed and realized on our own and kind of feel compelled to do is that if you grow in stature it is only going to magnify the thing that you are doing," Ramirez explained to the Charleston City Paper. "If we do nothing now, we aren't going to change much later."
That's why Sudano and Ramirez volunteered in Indonesia after the tsunami and helped to fund literacy initiatives in India. "As creative people, as such emotional beings, those kinds of trips and our desire to transform communities will hopefully change people's lives for the better," Ramirez added. We couldn't agree more.
Given their druthers, Sudano and Ramirez would have their own volunteer organization, which would help them assist vulnerable populations. We love to see it.
Before she was famous, Amanda Sudano struggled to pay the bills
Given that Amanda Sudano is the daughter of a disco legend and an acclaimed producer, you'd think she'd always been rolling in the dough. But that wasn't the case before she and Abner Ramirez got married, as they were actually kind of broke. In fact, when the pair flew to Paris where Sudano had scored a modeling job in 2010, the couple had just $20 left. "We were fighting hard for our dreams," Sudano recalled in an interview with Relevant.
In fact, at that time, Sudano was a barista at Starbucks and Ramirez worked at P.F. Chang's to pay the bills — not exactly high-wage positions. Still, Sudano looks back on that time with great fondness. "But that doesn't mean we didn't love where we were," she continued. "At some point, hopefully, we would have money to buy food regularly, and go to Paris just because, but until then, it was awesome to spend our budget on whatever we could and be together."
Believe it or not, but Amanda Sudano and her husband once broke up
To look at Amanda Sudano and her husband, Abner Ramirez, today is to see a couple that's very much in love with each other, and two people who are doting parents to their children. But back when they were first dating, they actually broke up for a while, as Sudano felt Ramirez wasn't setting boundaries with other women properly. "Abner didn't realize the power he had over other girls," she shared with Relevant. "Not all the girls out there were just trying to be friends. It felt unsafe." So the pair split, though Johnnyswim stayed together.
It didn't take long for Ramirez to realize he was ready to rein in his passions, as two weeks later, he and Sudano were back together. Ramirez committed himself fully this time, and they got married a year later. "If that break didn't happen, we would have carried a lot of those trust issues into our marriage," Sudano continued. "We try to slow down and make sure we're on the same page, and that's what speed bumps are for."
Faith is important to Amanda Sudano
One thing that you might not know about Amanda Sudano and her husband, Abner Ramirez, is that they're both churchgoing Christians. In fact, Sudano's faith started being built when she was a young girl. Not wanting to "sound too much like [she] grew up in Christian school even though [she] totally did," in an interview with Sojourners, she said, "I think there's always hope," noting, "The call of heaven is always glory to glory."
Additionally, Sudano says that being in Johnnyswim has allowed her to engage in her faith all the time, as her music is made with real intention. "Part of faith for us is standing up for those who can't stand up for themselves," she continued. "So, it has given us an outlet to live out our faith through the words of these songs and through touring them and that part of our faith informed the songwriting process of it." Talk about wholesome.
This song is super special to Amanda Sudano
Being a musical person from a musical family who's made a career out of being a musician, Amanda Sudano must have a million songs that she adores. But there's one song that's especially meaningful for her and her husband, Abner Ramirez, because of its sentimental value. "Probably 'La Vie en Rose' because we fell in love with Edith Piaf," Sudano gushed in a chat with Hamptons Monthly. "It's powerful and passionate." She noted that the French song is also a favorite "because he proposed to me in Paris." FYI, Ramirez had Sudano fly to Paris with just 24 hours to pack her things when he popped the question — can you get more romantic?
Additionally, when Sudano and Ramirez had other rites of passage in life, "La Vie en Rose" played a big part. "That's the song we chose for our first dance when we got married," Sudano continued. "Coincidentally, I made this 300-song playlist, and that was the song our baby was born to." No wonder the couple gets sentimental whenever the song comes on!