A Conversation with Serena Ryder – HuffPost 4.28.10

Mike Ragogna: How are you feeling today?

Serena Ryder: First day of my tour…pretty excited!

MR: I just got off the phone with your pal Ryan Star who says hi.

SR: Oh, sweet.

MR: Say, aren’t you a double Juno award winner?

SR: Yeah.

MR: How did it feel getting that last one?

SR: It was amazing, I was definitely blown away. The first one that I won was two years ago, and that quite an amazing–in a literal sense of the word–experience. It’s still a bit of a blur for me. Whenever you’re going through that emotional process, I think the things that happen around you don’t really exist as much even in your own little head going, “What the f*** am I doing at the Junos? This is awesome!” Then last year, I won another one which was amazing. I didn’t expect at all to win that one, the category was for album of the year, and the other people that were nominated were also my peers. For me just being nominated was good enough.

MR: If you don’t mind me saying it this way, it’s like you came into your voice, and I imagine you were rewarded for that.

SR: It felt really amazing to have received an award for that record. I do feel like I’m on the path to knowing myself, you know? I’m really comfortable with what I’m doing and I’m really excited about being who I am. I’m having a great time.

MR: Speaking of peers, you have a duet with Mr. Jason Castro from American Idol, “You Can Always Come Home,” on his latest album.

SR: Yeah, that’s right. I have to tell you the truth. I’ve never watched American Idol, and didn’t know Jason, then I had this song sent to me and I fell in love with it. It’s so beautiful, it’s so honest. That’s what I look for. It’s a very open, honest, broken-hearted story about the other man. Usually, you get the story about the person who got the girl. This is the story of the imagination of the man who was really in love with this woman and didn’t end up being the one that she chose.

MR: Do you know if that’s going to be a single?

SR: They already have a single on the radio right now that’s not that one. I don’t really know what’s going on with this project right now.

MR: A little while back, you became known by Bruce Springsteen fans because of your “Racing In The Street” video for his website.

SR: Yeah.

MR: How did that come about?

SR: I heard that Bruce Springsteen was putting up and coming artists onto his website and MySpace doing versions of his songs. Being a very respected and premiere artist in my mind and in my heart, I jumped at the opportunity, me and my guitar player and friend, Johnny Kengla–who is in a wicked band called the Madison Square Gardeners out of New York. He and I jumped into the studio right away, we’re like, “Hey dude, let’s try this.” We had no idea if we’d get accepted or what it did. It was amazing…it was a definite phone call to the mom. “Mom, The Boss put me on his website!” Pretty cool.

MR: You also took place in that interactive show City Sonic too, didn’t you?

SR: Yeah.

MR: You grew up in Canada, land of a lot of heavy singer-songwriters like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. Who were your inspirations?

SR: I grew up in Millbrook, Ontario, Canada, in a village of 1000 people. It’s a village in the valley and there were, probably, 250-300 people in our school. Growing up, I was influenced by AM radio. I used to drive around with my dad on the weekends, and he was a handyman. We, all of our family, used to go together, every Sunday, to flea markets and garage sales and things like that. My dad had a bunch of mix tapes, my sister would make mix tapes. My dad was a big fan of Roger Miller growing up. Are you familiar?

MR: “King Of The Road,” Big River…

SR: A lot of his songs were pretty crazy and awesome, I was so inspired by him growing up. I discovered a lot of singer-songwriters from my parents’ record collection in the basement of our house. You know, like a basement trap door like on The Wizard of Oz, the wooden trap doors that you lift up and stick a piece of wood into the wall and stop it? Our house was like 150 years old at the time, I guess it’s 170 years old now.

We used to go and take the records. There were a lot of John Prine records, Leonard Cohen, The Beatles, The Stones, Supertramp, and Max Webster. It was a really eclectic mix of music that my parents had, like they just shoved their record collections together, stuck it in one of those milk crates, and put it in the basement. One by one, I snuck them up to my record player in my room.

MR: Max Webster, nice. When you record, what is your process?

SR: I’ve always gone in with a group of songs already created, and for the most part, I enjoy it and I’m most honest when I write by myself. So, I go in with finished projects usually. Every record’s different. I believe that there’s no real way to do it for me because I’m constantly changing what I like and what I think is proper.

MR: And having an overview of your project right from the start in the studio seems pretty efficient.

SR: It was very efficient.

MR: When you’re writing, are you writing from the perspective of the first person?

SR: I try and sing from the first person as much as I possibly can, even if it’s a story that started out about someone else. I personally don’t think it’s right to write from a place that you haven’t been personally, because then, you’re being the most honest, you know? For me, it’s about writing about things that I know and that I’ve felt and I’ve been through. And sometimes, we’re relating so wholly to a story or an inspiration or something that you’ve seen happen or heard, that you relate wholly enough to experience it emotionally. Then I think you have every right to write about it.

MR: So, you really are singing from an area where it’s not about the world at large. It’s more about your place in it and people relative to you.

SR: Yeah, it’s funny because it’s like I think we’ve made a lot of mistakes by seeing the world as the world at large when it’s really the world inside of us that counts.

MR: Nice, that’s a beautiful thought. Your song “All For Love” was in Private Practice. You must have watched the episode when it was on, right?

SR: I was sent a link to the scene but I have no idea what their back story of it was. I don’t have a TV or anything either. I don’t know how many people saw it, but that’s awesome.

MR: That’s a huge show. When you saw the scene and how it was used, what was your reaction?

SR: I just remembered two people hugging I think, and something happening like they had gone through something emotionally. I didn’t actually know what the story line was or anything. You don’t really get the opportunity to see the script before you put the song in. But it was very cool, it was very cool. I was on the big screen, man, and that’s awesome.

MR: I hope you get a lot more big screen time and a lot of success on your album. Even though it was released last year, Atlantic is still working it, I always see it plugged somewhere.

SR: Yeah, Atlantic’s being doing really great. It was really in the States in November.

MR: It’s an excellent label.

SR: Yeah, they’re awesome. They’re doing a really great job.