Sydney Wayser is a striking beauty. In her youth, the singer-songwriter spent summers in France and has lived in Los Angeles and Greece. She now resides in her place of birth, Brooklyn. Wayser has just released a great record, Bell Choir Coast, her third.

Good looks, a well-to-do background and innate talent – Wayser’s music is informed by these advantages. She doesn’t hide them. With that confidence comes an ability to draw listeners in that is almost siren-like, fitting for the album title. That’s not meant to overpraise, but to state the somewhat obvious.

Before a recent show in Toronto, I sat down with Wayser to talk music, movies, and the perils of seeing The Cure while dehydrated.

You’ve described Bell Choir Coast as a place you invented for yourself. Was that to get away, so to speak, from life in New York City?

I was making a record in New York and was having a hard time figuring out what I wanted for my songs, in terms of production and sound. I started without having those basic questions answered, I was just making the record because, well, “It’s time to make a record!” After 18 months I shelved that project. I forced myself to stop and refocus, think about what I really wanted to say with my music.

That was entirely your choice, not coming from feedback?

No, it was the other way. My team said “Let’s keep doing this, we’ve invested time and money.” I had to make the decision and I’m glad I did, because it’s my own thing. “Bell Choir Coast” was a world I created, a space, after that. I had a lot of questions to deal with, thoughts to collect. I recorded in the studio apartment of my friend Dan Molad, his girlfriend sang background vocals, my boyfriend played drums, and all our friends came together to make that world. 



[The music scene in] New York is so competitive but I don’t think music should ever be like that. It came from tribalism, a collective feeling with support and it’s not about that anymore, necessarily. I wanted to make a new tribe with people who really could support what I wanted to do. Within two hours I said, “We’re making the whole record here. This is perfect.”

Do you feel a bit ahead of your peers in music, having a father who wrote songs, learning from such a young age?

I think music is something innate. Everyone understands it instinctively. I have a friend, a phenomenal drummer, who studied sports medicine until he was 23. One day he said, “I don’t want to do that, I want to play drums.” I met him at music school and he practiced harder than anyone else to get himself to the level of his peers, and now there he is.

I love that my father created music but it doesn’t matter if your parents are musicians. Except maybe for the Wainwrights, they’re all just insanely talented.

Music royalty.

I know!



I listened to your three albums in succession a few times ...

Wow ...

... and you've improved noticeably with each one.


Thank you! To me, an album “cycle” is very important, a kind of rebirth every time [you make one]. There’s something beautiful about that.

With that, fans should be able to go back to the beginning and hear ideas that are later expanded and improved with subsequent work.

My first record was released while I was in college, and I can see “baby Sydney” coming up with her ideas. I feel those ideas are better realized now. The sentiment is the same but this record is a lot more developed.



There’s a song on the record, “This One Goes Out to Ethan Hawke.” What did Mr. Hawke do to earn a song?

That’s one of my favourite songs to play. I wrote it about the movie Before Sunrise. A beautiful movie, a relationship developed in real time. I loved that idea. I could have called it something else, it is a little random, but to me [the movie] is very relevant. I write a lot about movies and paintings. I’m very visual.

Did you pull a Pink Floyd and try to sync the song with a scene in the movie?

I should have.

I have a couple random questions to close. I’ve written each on a card.

Oh, wow. I thought you were going to do a magic trick.

Here’s a good one: who would you love to have cover a song of yours?

Radiohead. I’d probably cry if that happened. I saw them at Coachella, and I was so excited I stayed in line to be in front ... I didn’t drink any water, didn’t want to go to the bathroom from about two in the afternoon to 11 p.m. The next day I did the same thing for The Cure and I just passed right out.

It was dehydration, not the sight of Robert Smith?

Maybe!

What is your favourite French curse word?



Putain. It means “whore.” It gets used a lot. It’s fun to say.



What was your most awkward interview? And don’t say “this one.”

It was a radio interview. The interviewee was young, it was probably one of her first. She kept mispronouncing my name, “Cindy Weezer,” “Sydney Weaver.” It kept happening. One of my band members corrected her, but she kept saying it wrong on the air. My favourite, she goes, “This is Cindy Weaver with her song ‘Dreams.’” The song is called “Dream it Up.”