If Serena Ryder hasn’t already shown up on your radar, expect a blip very soon. Already a huge success in her native Canada, Ryder’s gutsy, soul-drenched vocals and sharply intuitive style of songwriting have earned her countless fans, not to mention a US deal with Atlantic Records. Now, three albums and three EPs in to her career, the twenty-five year old powerhouse is about to release her latest full-length, Is It Ok.
Catching Up With Serena Ryder
Interview By Bruce Scott Photos By Kendra Ratliff and Anjuli Bhattacharyya
O ne of Serena Ryder’s defining attributes as both a songwriter and performer is her sincerity and openness, an honesty she feels is intrinsic to the music-making process. Whether she’s sifting through the ashes of a relationship (“Sweeping the Ashes”) or examining her own political convictions (“Blown Like The Wind At Night”), she does so with an ostentatious candor that cuts right to the bone. There is a calmness about her, too. Sitting in an office on the twenty-sixth floor of Atlantic Records surrounded by a small team of people, she sits at the eye of the storm seemingly unaffected; as down to earth and charming as one might expect a girl from a small town in Ontario to be. But there is a wisdom that belies her years, one that surely helps her navigate through choppy waters. “You really do have to be honest and open, and know that you don’t own anything you do,” Ryder says. “It’s not about ownership, it’s not about ‘this is my song, because I wrote it.’” Ryder was born in Millbrook, Ontario, a Canadian town whose earliest settlers were Irish Protestants. “I come from a really little town where I lived half of my life in jogging pants and I didn’t even start wearing jeans until I was twenty,” she says. Her mother was a go-go dancing backup singer. Employed by an agent, she would travel for two weeks at a time and play tambourine with various bands. “Her agent would just stick her with a band, and be like, ‘ok, now you’re singing with this band, and now you’re going to be singing with this band,’ so she had to learn songs really, really quick. And she was back and forth all the time.” While Ryder never met her biological father, his history is also unsurprisingly steeped in music. Born in Trinidad, he was a member of a Calypso band called The Tradewinds. “I never met my biological father. But my dad that I grew up with is a huge music fan. My sister would make mix-tapes, and my dad and I would go out to flea markets on Sundays and jam out to the music.”
When Ryder was barely a teenager, her dad bought her a classical guitar with thick, nylon strings and a very wide neck. Instead of being daunted by the colossal fossil her dad had unearthed for her, she fell in love. “I’d been singing since I was a really little kid...playing at legions and motor hotels and things like that, doing kind of sketchy gigs. Anything to sing. My dad brought the guitar home when I was thirteen… he got it from my uncle’s closet for fifty bucks.” It was a transformative moment for the young Ryder, who confessed to locking herself in her bedroom with a book of guitar chords purchased by her parents. She learned to play both guitar and harmonica to albums like Neil Young’s Harvest, citing “Heart of Gold” as one of her greatest teachers. She also began writing her own songs around this time. Ryder moved to Peterborough, Ontario when she was sixteen, and became heavily immersed in the Arts program her new high school offered. Gone was the
“football, jock school” in Millbrook that stifled instead of nurtured Ryder’s creative nature. In its place were classes on ceramics, photography, even guitar. “I felt like I had finally found a place that I belonged.” Ryder furthered her songwriting and began singing for anyone that would listen. One of these “anyones” happened to be blues legend Bobby “Blue” Bland. “I went to see his show when I was just legal drinking age, just nineteen. It was this place, this kind of divey bar in Toronto called The Silver Dollar. He got up on stage, and he was this very, very large man wearing this purple, crushed velvet jumpsuit…and I wanted him to hear me sing, so I sang really, really loud and he pulled me up on stage and he sat me on his lap. And I ended up singing “Stormy Mondays,” which was amazing.” It wasn’t too long before Ryder was signed to EMI Music Canada, where she released two albums: Unlikely Emergency and If Your Memory Serves You Well. She also began touring extensively. “I toured with Sara Bareilles for a little while, and that was really amazing. We were both opening up for Paolo Nutini. We were on this tour, and it was me, and then Sara, and then Paolo. And to be on the road with her was amazing. We connected right away and we still keep in touch and text and stuff like that.” Ryder also began writing music with Nutini’s drummer, Jim Duguid, some of their collaborations even made their way onto Is It Ok. “We didn’t know if we would even come up with a song even, we were just chilling out.” No stranger to accolades, Ryder has been compared to such legendary women as Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin, an association that leaves her feeling both “honored” and “humbled.” But to be inspired and take ownership of their life... >> perhaps her biggest recognition was given to her at the 2008 Juno Awards, where she won Best New Artist. “When they announced my name, it was like… you know that scene in Labyrinth? where she eats the peach and all of a sudden goes into this dream world? I felt like that as I was walking up to the stage. It was a really intense moment for me.” Ryder’s current single “All For Love”—which, incidentally, is burning up Triple A radio—was also featured on the hit show Private Practice.
Is It Ok has the potential to be big, very big, and could change the course of Ryder’s future indefinitely. On the flipside, there is the chance that it doesn’t pick up. Given the state of the music industry, being with a major label can prove to be a gamble, and the pressure placed on up-andcomings like Ryder to cash in big can be daunting to say the least. But as Ryder has made evident, she has a solid head on her shoulders. She’s thoughtful, perceptive, and knows that at the end of the day, it’s not about the label or the money, it’s about the music, and having a connection with the people who enjoy the music the most, the fans. “I hope that I’m able to speak to the people that need to hear what I’m saying. I hope that I’m able to move people to be inspired and take ownership of their life and their decisions in any possible way I can, and to show people how beautiful they are. Everyone’s really, really beautiful, and everyone has so much life and love inside of them, and if I could in any way inspire someone to see how beautiful they are and love themselves more I would be absolutely honored.” BS serenaryder.com
