Serena Ryder Serves Memory Well
“They brought me so many different types and styles of music and that was really amazing because I’m absolutely in love with music in general,” she says before going on to explain that access to the CSHF resulted in the initial selection of songs to plough through. Slowing down the selection process somewhat was Ryder’s desire to reach into as many genres and styles as possible. “There’s not one certain style that I can say I perform more than others. So what I really wanted was a massive, eclectic mix of different genres and styles of writing through different eras and I was very lucky to have that brought to me.”
“Different”, is key; she didn’t want to be pigeonholed right off the bat and she wanted to keep the album as personal as possible. So she kept things pretty insular, and worked exclusively with her two producers. “I was looking for something that I could sing and believe that I could actually put myself in those shoes. I wanted to be able to sing songs that I really felt came from a place of truth and that I could relate to.”
As for the “why”, as in, “Why a cover album?” Ryder keeps it simple as she explains, “I, personally, am going to do all sorts of projects in my career. I don’t ever plan on doing just one kind of thing. But this was one of those projects that I really wanted to do.”
In the end, those 500 songs were rounded down to 12, including a number of well known, though rarely considered, Canadian songs. Naturally there was a pick from the Leonard Cohen catalogue, and the now widely heard Galt MacDermott track “Good Morning Starshine, but other selections included Bob Dylan’s “This Wheel’s on Fire”, which he co-wrote with the Band’s Rick Danko, and “Morning Dew”, which was made famous by Rod Stewart and the Grateful Dead.
“It’s pretty amazing and that’s another reason we wanted to do all Canadian songwriters,” Ryder says about the patriotic benefits of the album. “There’s just a huge well of songs that were popular and people don’t actually realize that they were written by Canadians. So I thought it was a really good way to make people aware of that fact too.”
Ryder is also keenly aware of the art and history she’s representing with this album, and emphatically states that her intention was to never take these songs and make them “hers”, as the saying goes. “I would never ever take a song and try to consciously make it my own. I don’t think that art belongs to anybody and I don’t think that it ever will. Even the songs that I wrote myself, I don’t consider that they belong to me except maybe on paper. But when it comes to the real truth of art and music, it doesn’t belong to anybody so as long as it comes from a place of honesty and you sing from your heart, I think that it should be for everybody to hear.”
All-in-all, this is just the latest chapter in Serena Ryder’s musical life. She’s been performing since a very early age and was influenced onto a musical track by her mother who frequently toured as a back-up singer and go-go dancer, and her uncle who was a singer/songwriter. “It was in my blood,” Ryder says of her musical aspirations, “no one was ever really playing instruments in the house but there was always music on. We loved listening to it, so music is definitely in my genes.” She never knew her Trinidadian father growing up, but she later found out that he also was a musician. “It made sense to me,” she says with laugh when asked about any surprise upon learning that fact.
At the tender age of 19 she recorded her first EP and began touring cross country. She was discovered by Hawksley Workman when he heard her on CBC Radio and was signed to his record label which produced 2004’s Unlikely Emergency. Now, at a worldly-wise 23, Ryder has been getting more and more shining press and the reviews she’s been getting often put her voice in the same category as Aretha Franklin or Janis Joplin; a compliment that Ryder says makes her very flattered and very honoured.
Also, thanks to a heavily promoted tour and video airplay, she’s becoming a household name and a force to be reckoned with on the Canadian music scene. “I don’t exactly know what to think about that,” she says of her newfound fame. “I think it’s great that more people are becoming aware of my music, and certainly the goal for me is to reach as many people as possible and to give and take inspiration. For the most part I think the main goal is to take yourself with you everywhere you go.”
Well on this tour, Ryder isn’t just taking herself with her, but a whole back-up band complete with road manager and tour bus. “It’s sort of like touring with a big family on the road and that’s been really nice. I’ve toured a lot by myself so when I was going to different places and I’d see something, I wouldn’t have someone to share that with.”
There’s even some time for a little introspection. “Touring across Canada has been absolutely phenomenal because I feel like it’s gotten bigger for me and its always felt a lot smaller before. Especially driving because when you’re flying it’s only a couple of hours to anywhere you need to go and now I’m doing the eight hour drives where I get to see the scenery change and see how the land is a microcosm for yourself as a human.”
Ryder goes on to describe how if she wasn’t currently on a big tour for her first major record release she’d still be plugging away at the smaller venues with her music or otherwise indulging her love of art or photography. But it can probably be safely said that worrying about what to do other than being a musician is a consideration Serena Ryder need not be bothered with for some time to come; she’s here to stay.
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