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The Re-Evolution Of

ryder t’s a new year, a new album, a new start once again for Serena Ryder. In 2005, the singer/songwriter from Mibrook, Ontario released her first independent album, Unlikely Emergency. In 2006, she made her Canadian major label debut with If Your Memory Serves You Well, a tribute to some of her favorite Canadian songwriters. She followed up with Told You in a Whispered Song, an EP of original music that marked her American debut.

“I think [it’s] a microcosm for what a lot

Each new release has brought new tours with artists from Steve Earle to the Blind Boys of Alabama, and a whole new audience to win over. It has been a constant evolution for Ryder, and one for which she is immensely thankful. “I think [it’s] a microcosm for what a lot of people want to try and do, to constantly be shedding skin and becoming something else,” she says. “I totally embrace that and I feel like it’s amazing.” Ryder is calling from London, where she spent the latter part of 2007 writing for her full-length debut for Atlantic Records, due out this spring. The 24-year-old was alone in the city, going to shows and getting lost in the city’s subway system. Ryder found the isolation was a healthy and fruitful experience for her as a songwriter. “I think it’s really, really great to put yourself in a place that you’ve never been before,” she says, “[a] different kind of culture, a different city, kind of jar your insides and make you a bit uncomfortable. It kind of brings out your true self.” Musically speaking, Ryder has been all over the map. Her eclectic tastes – she covered both Leonard Cohen and Paul Anka for Memory – are rooted in her childhood discovery of her parents’ vinyl collection in the basement. She recorded her first song at eight years old when her mother brought a portable tape player to her first gig, singing Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” and a few other tunes at a local Legion hall. “From the time I was seven, eight, nine years old, I was always super-super passionate about older music,” she says. “I loved Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald and loved Leonard Cohen. Sort of like an eight, nine year old in 1990, 1989, a little bit abnormal because everybody was listening to New Kids on the Block. But that never really cranked my chain.” Memory is a reflection of the breadth of Ryder’s musical influences, including the aforementioned Cohen and Anka covers, as well as “Good Morning Starshine” from the musical Hair and the Band’s “This Wheel’s On Fire.” By contrast, Whispered is a strippeddown, acoustic affair, putting the emphasis on a “live” sound and Ryder’s passionate, bluesy voice. In the middle of writing her follow-up, she can’t exactly tell where she’s heading. “There are so many different styles of music that I like to play, and yeah, my EP is very Americana, but I have no idea what my album is going to sound like,” she says. “It has not been ‘born’ yet. I’m writing all of these songs, but who knows what the underlying thread that’s going to be there that’s going to tie it together [will be]. It is definitely like having a child. You can’t choose.”

Ryder is said to have a three-octave range as a singer, which she thinks is a slight exaggeration. She says she can hit three octaves with full voice on a good day, but couldn’t hit it consistently. And in any case, that’s not what music is about. “Music, for me, is definitely not a showpiece – ‘look at what I can do!’” she says. “I don’t think it requires three octaves to play a good show. I think that would be really fucking annoying, actually.” Whether it’s her career or a single song, Ryder is very much committed to an organic process, and she says she feels more comfortable in her own skin and more confident in her songwriting now than ever. “The most important thing to me is to be playing gigs and meeting new people and building it person by person,” she says. “It’s very roots oriented, and that’s what I’ve always been about. Having big success right away, you have nothing really to fall back on. For me, it’s really about building my foundation as best as possible.”

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want to try and do, to constantly be shedding

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skin and becoming something else.”

by Nick A. Zaino III also suggests these artists: Dem Franchize Boyz, D$L, Lil Scrappy Photography by Christopher Wahl