Serena Ryder

Part 1

0:00Hey there, I'm Serena Ryder and you're watching MSN Exclusives. Gotta get up. MSN.ca Serena Ryder, how are you? How are you? I'm really good. It's all a bit good. You can grab what you want. It's crazy. So I was just telling you, the first time I saw you was many moons ago in this very room. Exactly. With Hoxley Workman. That's right, he's amazing.

0:45How did that come about? Because I mean, that's a big person to get started your career with. Yeah, no, it was huge. Working with Hoxley was integral to my career as a musician because he is such a phenomenal performer and such a phenomenal singer, artist. He heard me on CBC Radio and him and my now manager got in touch with the radio station and brought me out to Toronto. I was 19 and I was super excited, super star struck and like, oh my god, what's happening? And yeah, I became one of his biggest fans musically and learned so much of what I know now about performing from him because we got to tour with each other all of the time and he's one of the best live performers.

1:31Do you do the big dinosaur steps that he does? No, no, I left the doc. He left the doc. Well, yeah, for sure. I didn't do any copying necessarily, but. It took stuff and worked with it. Well, this record kind of reminds me of a Hoxley record only in the sense that it spans everything. Like you're just throwing everything out there. It's like a gospel tune, that little short one at the end. Obviously, the big hit song stomp up and maybe we'll start there because. Where did that, like, I mean, I know what it means stomp your feet. Yeah. Stomp, but to make a word up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. That is cool. I never thought about that. I did. I mean, where did it come from? Why stomp up? That was the first song that we wrote for this entire record. That was the first one and it was the first writing session that I had with Jared Batiste who ended up producing half of this record.

2:17And when I came in with a guitar riff, I just had the guitar riff and then he did the drums and he put it on there. I started singing stomp up came because I make sounds when I'm singing. Like I make noises that aren't words and I know a lot of musicians do this where they just start singing and then the like sounds will come out and be like, what was I saying? You'll play back the recording and you're like, what? And stomp up. It was just, it just sounded right. Like it was like, okay, so I'm like, this song makes me want to get up out of my seat. Like I was listening to it and I was like, gotta get up. It just happened right there. Did you have that dirty guitar sound when on that demo? No. You were running away there. I come from it. Yeah, well the dirty guitar sound came from Jared. Okay. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty phenomenal sound. But I just wrote it on my acoustic guitar.

3:03I see I heard this record was written less on guitar than ever before. Is that true? Okay. So that tune was written on guitar but a lot of the other stuff wasn't I guess. Well the thing is I would write lines but I wouldn't sit down and write an entire song while I'm playing guitar. So I would write like a riff, record it and then I would start singing without a guitar. Which I think is what changed this entire record from the other stuff that I've done before. Because I'd always write with a guitar in my hands. And so I would always write songs that sounded like how I learned how to play guitar. Who I learned to play guitar from. Neil Young. Um, like Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Tracy Chapman, Ben Harper, all of those people. That's how I learned how to play guitar. Listening that over and over again. But I learned how to sing from Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone and Roger Miller and AM radio

3:55you know when I was little. So I feel like a lot of those influences came as well because I set the guitar down and just sang. So I went Ella Fitzgerald, there's that one tune. Oh for you. Oh for you. It's like this old like it's strings. Yeah. It's like this little James Bond kind of you need to sell that to the Bond people. Oh my gosh. It was it's Nina Simone's version. Yeah. Of of of I put a spell on you. So we took the strings from that. It sounded familiar. Okay. Yeah. So he was gonna ask you how you arranged it but I guess you just took it. Well we took the string part which is like just a few bars and then John wrote the rest of the track like years ago he wrote this track for me to write to. It was so super rad. He played it for me when we were writing with each other and I was like this is awesome. So you're saying before Stompa was the first song written for this record but there are 65

4:43or some odd tunes that I keep hearing that you had written and said some of the best songs you've ever written but not on this record. Yeah. Why aren't they why did you why did you want to hold off on that many songs that are good and now put them out. Well it was really the intuition of my manager. She has you know really really really amazing intuition and really good gut sense and a feeling and so I had all of these songs and I was ready to make a record. I thought I was ready to make a record and she didn't think I was ready to make a record and so I just kind of stopped and I was freaking out like I was like what are you talking about. I've written all of these songs like dude like I'm ready to make a record. She's like well I just have a feeling this isn't the record. This isn't what we're gonna I don't feel like this is what we should be doing right now.

5:29The songs like what was it about. She just had a feeling. It was a vibe you know and I trusted her and I went to LA and started working with Jared and something else happened. It was almost like I had to write all of these songs all of the 65 songs to get out something so I had this like blank slate to start from. It was almost like you know clearing out a lot of things that I needed to clear out first so I could start fresh again. And did songs come quickly after that? Yeah yeah they came so quickly. Literally I would start writing a song in the daytime with Jared. We would record it and it would be finished by the end of the day. And I was like okay this is how I want to work. It's like Beatles style real quick.

6:15This is how I want to work and this is so much fun because I'd never written like that before. And I want to do that more you know. I feel like there's something really cool about that first piece of inspiration of starting and finishing it in the same moment that it was created. That just makes it really really fun. So I kind of want to do something with you. I hear you mimic voices and you can do accents. A little bit yeah. What's your specialty? I don't know I can do like Jamaican and British. Oh yeah. Yeah. You want to answer the next question in an accent? Yeah sure. You have a Sarah Silverman story. I'd love to hear it from a different form of it. Okay I'll tell it with a Jamaican accent then. I was in a hotel right in Los Angeles California. Me look over the corner and we see a right in front of me. Sarah Silverman and I freaked right out you know.

7:04I look at her I love her. Oh you make me laugh so much you know. I walk right up and I say you make me laugh I love you. She kind of gives me a weird strange look but I run back to me room grab me CD. Say I got some music for you Sarah. I give her the CD. She looks at me strange but says thank you anyways. That was about it you know. But I really love her. She's great. You're incredible. Thank you so much for doing that. You're welcome. That was a little uncomfortable for me but you're welcome. Did you ever hear from her after that? I never heard from her. No but maybe I should have waited for this record to come out. For the big hits. Yeah well just you know. Where's it sitting set? Like now that you have this massive single.

7:50Like where do you play that line? Do you start it? Do you throw in the middle like? I switch it around a little bit. Okay. I would like to keep it near the end because it's really cool you know to have that explosion at the end. It's really fun. Speaking of explosions at the end five foot questions one word answers. Okay. Roder studio. Studio. Landon or McCartney. McCartney. When you hear a song what usually hits you first lyrics melody or rhythm. Melody. This one might take you a second. Song you've written you're most proud of. Stampa. Oh and it was one word. In one word. It's a greener rider. Love. That's a good one. Thank you so much. I didn't even think about what I was saying I actually prefer Landon. And I also what did you so it was the first one. Roder studio. R-Roe right now. So it was pretty funny.

8:36I like it. You clarified. I just let everything kind of I just answered you without thinking. More fun. I like it when it's quick. Right. Yeah. There's no wrong answers. You're awesome. Thank you. Amazing. Thanks. That was fun.

Part 2

0:06I've got a whackload of questions for you. Oh my gosh. I know. Well, every time I see you, we end up doing accents together. So maybe we'll get one. Maybe. We did the thank you, the Adele one. Yeah. And you gave me a Jamaican Sarah Silverman story once. That's right. So I thought, and I saw you, okay, we'll start there. I heard you saw Sarah at the airport the other day. I did. And you didn't say hi. I didn't. Even though you once gave her a CD years ago. I did. Why didn't you say hi? Because she looked kind of mad that I gave her the CD when I gave it to her years ago. Like she was just like, just don't bug me. And I wish I could not understand. She was in Mira and LA. And I was staying at this hotel or whatever. And there's a diner in it. And I saw her. And I ran to my room to get my CD to bring in a Sarah's element because she's so awesome and funny. And then she just was like, thanks.

0:53So I was like, ah, you know, I don't want to feel really bad today. But maybe it's a good story. Yes. No, sorry. I got confused. I noticed a guitar pick. But you're logo on the guitar pick. It does, yeah. And I've noticed this logo everywhere recently. Where did this come from? What does it mean? What is it? It means harmony. So it's the four different elements, earth, air, fire, water, and symbolism put together into one symbol, which means harmony, which is what my record's called. This could be a bad question. I don't know which do you most closely relate to out of those four? Oh, no. I relate to all four. Good thing. First air, fire, and water. OK, fine. You need them all. You need them all. You need them all. We've got a bunch of fan questions here that we took on Facebook. And maybe we'll start with this one. I don't know what this one means.

1:39Email the mutual friend of ours this morning. I'm sure they mean. Well, I don't know what this one means. Email the mutual friend of ours this morning, Hoxley. We talked about last time. And I said, give me a question for Serena. OK. And his response, I don't really get this. Is there anybody prettier than Terrapi Richmond, or Terrapi Richmond? No, there's nobody prettier than Terrapi. Who is this? He is a perfect person. Yeah, it's a perfect person. Is there anybody prettier than Terrapi? No, there's not. Who is this person? He's gorgeous. No, no, no. He's a drummer that lives in Australia. And he's a surfer and a drummer. And he's, yeah. Yeah. I think he's of like a Maori descent. And his mom's Irish. And his dad was like Maori. And he's got like green eyes.

2:25And he's like perfect in every way. So he serves. All right. Let's keep going. He's like, I'm bored. I'm bored. No, it's just it's not me. So it's fun. Now let's talk about the video for Fally's Shot yesterday. Yeah, for sure. Justin Broadbent won a Juno for metric. And now we're working with you on this. So what's the video? What can you say? The video was a lot of fun to do. The song is about loving yourself first and not having to hurt yourself to be in love. And so that's kind of what the video is about. It's about falling in love, obviously, which is what the song's about too. So it has a lot of kind of youthful fun energy. We had a lot of fun. We had like popcorn fights in a movie theater in the East end. Like gigantic popcorn fights.

3:11It was really fun. And then there's like a bunch of fun scenes too. There's a little girl who's in the video who was in her name's Violet. She's been in all my music videos for this record. And yeah, it was really fun. When did that idea come to have a same person all the video? Well, I had her in the first one. And I just love having her around. So I just was like, you have to be in all my videos because she's so cool. That makes sense. She actually might just do my next one. Oh. I'm not joking. It's an interesting idea. Yeah. Talking about Justin winning the Juno. Where's your Juno? Last time I saw you was in the Juno's. Where do you keep that triple A Juno? It's in my manager's office. OK. Yeah, for sure. I mean, they're the ones that they work they're bought off all the time. Not saying that I don't, but I think

3:56that it's important that they're there so that they can see all the awesome stuff that they're doing for me. That's really nice. Yeah. Let's take some fan questions, shall we? OK. Karmin Iacono. I hope I'm saying that right. I'd like to know how you came up with the terms stompa and clappa. I think it is so cool how that makes it work. Oh, that's cute. When I write songs, I kind of write them without really knowing what I'm saying. I make sounds. And that's how I've always written songs. It's just kind of based on sounds and having fun. Like, like, scatting kind of? It's kind of like scatting. Yeah, for sure. It's like you start saying different words and you hear something that sounds really good and you keep on going with it. And I feel like there's, I don't really quite understand song writing from like an intellectual perspective.

4:43I feel like I understand it like a child where I feel like I just want to have fun and I want to make sounds and noises. And so that's how stompa came. I was like, because I always stop my feet when I'm singing and I have a song called Sing Sing, too, which is just me stomping my feet and clapping my hands. And that's kind of where it started. I feel like the idea, subconscious idea. But what's the clapping thing that you guys do, like counting to seven before going on stage? Oh, yeah, yeah. So it can be any number. But before I go on stage, I get my band together. And we listen to Lean On Me by Bill Withers. And we clap in a circle. So there's like a beat that you have to stick to. And it's depending on however many people want to clap with us, it could be like one, two to 12 people.

5:32And you have to clap on the beat. So it's like, what to do for 5678910? What to do for 5678910? And you can't stop. So when somebody screws up, you have to start again. So that's why you're late for stage sometimes. That's why I'm late sometimes. It's like, the claps aren't working. Leave. Beat four, leave. Amy Snowsmith, it's admirable how you invite young local artists to join you on stage and give musicians a share of your spotlight. Do you do this because you were given the opportunity as a kid or because you weren't? I invite anyone to sing with me, not just young people or any kind of people. It's whoever wants to come up and sing with me. And I understand that kind of passion and that kind of wanting to be on stage. And it's exciting, right?

6:18Like doing something like that is so exciting, especially for someone who wants to pursue it as a career, or even not just wants to have fun. I had a three and a half year old sing stomper with me a few weeks ago in Banff and it was amazing. She was so great. She's like, clap your hands. Stop, Aunt Faye. Like she just like screamed. It was so awesome. That's good. Pierre Cormier, you have a French version of stomper, right? I do, yeah. That's why. Well, not why. Maybe that can be wrong. I'm from Montreal. I'm from Montreal. I'm from Montreal. I can say that. You're on camera. No, no, no, no, not why in that way. But not everyone released. It's not tricky. It's scary. Not everyone releases a French version of their song. You do a stomper. I want to release, well, French,

7:05I kind of know how to speak French just a little bit. And Quebec is a really, really awesome market to play for. And they have such a passion for music. And I wanted to do a version just for them. So that it's more special when it's in your language, you can hear. And also, it was really fun for me to be able to learn how to sing it in another language. It's pretty cool. It's a lot different. Toulement d'uatre vais joure nui. Aunce d'anjamais d'a. And I kept the chorus. How do you translate stomper clap? I was like, they don't exist anyway. So it's just like, it's not English or French. It's Serena, really. OK, so Pierre Comier's question, that's

7:51got me thinking of Quebec. What, when and where, was the most memorable concert that you've played and who was the most memorable person that you played with? Oh, my gosh, that's so hard. Those questions are so hard. We can skip them. Yeah, skip those. OK, do you believe in love at first sight? Kevin Stewart. Do I believe in love at first sight? Yeah, of course. I believe in love at first sight. I believe in hate at first sight. I believe in everything. That's my problem. Hate at first sight. Don't give people a chance. Just not only. Yeah. That happens sometimes. You look at somebody like, no. No, not you. No, there's just something about you. And I'm like, yeah. You know? No. I'm out of a sign film on me. Yeah, you totally not. No, I do. I don't. It's been telling me that he's trying to make up that French comment. Yeah, I'm scared to talk now.

8:38And Les Burons, wondering what you do when you're not playing or creating music. Are you outdoorsy into camping, kayaking, hiking, city or nature, girl? Yeah, I love camping. I love being by the ocean as much as possible. I feel like the ocean's really awesome. I love hanging out there. I was just in LA for some time off a couple weeks ago. And my favorite thing to do was go to Malibu and hang out on the beach. I also like hanging out with my friends' kids, little kids and chilling out. Like we were on the beach and I was hanging out with one of my producers from the record and his wife and his kid. And we were hanging out on the beach painting rocks. So we painted like 12. I like doing stuff like that. Another one of the questions was how and where was it? Who chose the producer for your last record and how come?

9:25I did because I like him. That is a very good answer. Yeah. I liked what we did together. So we initially, my A&R guy put us together to write with each other at Fraser Hill. And we wrote Stamba. And I was like, well, this is really good. So let's just like, I don't know. You knew it was really good for that. More records. Yeah, for sure. Is it a career-making song? Like do you think like you'll be able to play for people forever because of that too? I hope so. But I don't know anything. Fair enough. You never know. What have most been a crazy year? Like when we spoke last time March or February or something. Yeah. And the song just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah, no. It's been a crazy year for you. It's been amazing. It's been so much fun. And I'm really glad I wrote that song.

10:12I feel like very happy about it. And if I can play to people forever because of it, that's an honor for sure. I guess this kind of goes to the songwriting process. Nishita Menon, you've been writing songs since you were very young. Tell us about the songwriting process then and now and how has it changed as you've matured as an artist? Yeah. So then when I first initially started writing songs, I would write them about something. Like I'd sit down before and have an idea of what I wanted to write about. It's like, I have this crush on this person. Or I'm feeling this way inside and I want to put it on paper. And really thinking about what the songs meant about me when I was writing them. How does this portray who I am and is this true to who I am and all these things.

10:58And over the years and now, especially, I write, like I said before, for fun and to have fun and to write from a really primal place of music that I love and the things that I think are great are things that make me want to move and dance. And I can relate to them. So I don't really put as much thought into my writing. I put just more heart into it now. Are you writing? Do you write constantly? I just wrote a song last week and I thought it was really shitty. But it's actually awesome. And I played it last night for a bunch of friends and they put it on repeat like six times and dance to it. I'm pretty excited about it. Maybe it'll come on this Michael Franti tour. Try it out. Maybe. Yeah, that's true. That's a good idea. Yeah. I love Michael Franti.

11:44Yes, so I hear you're a juicer. I do juice. Yeah, so what's a good juicing recipe for everyone at home? Well, I feel like I feel like juicing fruits. Yeah. Just in case you don't know what juicing is. Juicing fruits. Yeah. You're a juicer. I am a juicer. I'm a juicer. Sorry. It's OK, this is great. It's got stuff in it. Yeah. It's good stuff. So we'll get a recipe. It's like he's like, come on. Come on now. I think a good recipe if you're like kind of just starting juicing is like it's celery, apple, and mint. It's really, really, mmm. See, everyone's like that. I could do that. Celery, apple, and mint. And it's fabulous for you. It's really cooling too for your system.

12:30You can add some cucumber in there, and it's quite good too. Rick Zaughtsman, what is your reaction when watching a show like Raise Anatomy and Wamo, there is one of your songs playing. Is it shocking? Do you blush a little bit? Or is it almost like, oh, commercial time. I can go to the bathroom. I get really excited. I was in an airport a couple months ago, and Stompa has been on a Cadillac commercial for a while. And I was by myself, and I was sitting down, and I came on. I was like, I kind of recognized it. I was like moving. I was like, what? I got up, and I was kind of like looking around. Like, is there anybody I can say that that's me on the? I'm just like, there's a lot of like, I think I called you.

13:18I think I called one of my managers just to be like, guess what? Because they played over and over again too. In airports, you know, they have like a certain amount of, they don't think someone's going to be there for like three and a half hours, which I was. So I got to see the commercial like about 55 times or something. I get excited about it, and I want to tell people. Sometimes I do. Hey, that's me. I'm like, that's him. And they're just like, leave me alone. Yeah, they're like, no, it's not. Go away. If it was you, you wouldn't be saying that. Yeah, but you don't know me. I know me. Oakley Mishlin, you have a lovely voice. Will you be doing any more of? You have a lovely name, Oakley. Yeah, I like that name too. I like that name too. I'm using it first. Oh, I like it too.

14:03I saw it first. Yeah, well, you'd be doing any more of Leonard Cohen's works. The ones I heard you do were so well done. Oh, that's nice. Possibly. Yeah, I haven't thought about it, but now I am. Oakley wants some more Leonard Cohen. I've done a version of That's No Way to Say Goodbye with his son Adam Cohen, which was pretty cool. Edward Larson, what has been your best musical accomplishment? This record. Well, that's nice. For sure. Cool. Easy answer. Jessica Bemister, what has been your greatest struggle as an artist on the flip side? Greatest struggle, I think, is everybody's greatest struggle. It's been happy. Being satisfied, being satisfaction, I feel like,

14:48is always the thing for everybody, where it's like, you're always looking to do something else or piece of more instead of just kind of being there with yourself, which is, it's pretty intense when you're traveling and touring and always going somewhere. But I think the greatest struggle is just to be satisfied with right here. What I'm doing right now. With you guys. Are you satisfied? I am pretty satisfied. Those are pretty rocking parties on stage. You guys were dancing and singing. It's pretty cool. Tuesday night, rock and roll. I know. I love it. That's how we do it, Emma, send in TD. I feel bad leaving what I would do earlier. Now it's all that I have in my head. What I wouldn't do is what I would do. You said what I would do.

15:33Now I can fuse because of anyway. I know what I would do. But we haven't talked about fall. We've talked about stomp. But I don't want to leave that one. Yeah, what I wouldn't do. Yeah, that was a really fast one to write. It was the first song that I'd written with an open D tuning, which is basically what was a woman's name and one, the guitar. Stacey Keoh. Stacey, just tune your all tune it for you before I leave. Tune it to open D, and then it's like it's always a chord. It's like strum it. It's pretty cool. I don't know why mine is, but it's not here anymore. But yeah, you don't even know how to play it. You just like strum it and open. That's what what I wouldn't do was about for me. It was like, you didn't even really have to think about the song. It's like when you're falling in love, and you just kind of let yourself go down that river.

16:21And that was the open D for me. Stacey, do it. Write a hit. Give it to me. You're doing pretty well yourself, right? Oh, thank you. So we did this last time. Five quick questions. One more to answer. Think about them last time. You just answered as quickly as you could. Yeah, that was weird. So give a little thought this time. I give it a little thought, yeah, because it was really awesome. Yeah, you re-naked on every answer. Give it a little thought this time. Road or studio? You don't need to think thinking about it. No, I was thinking about it. What did you say, studio? I said studio. Landon or McCartney? Oh, yeah. You asked me this one last time. I know. I just said that. McCartney. When you hear a song what usually hits you first, lyrics, melody, or rhythm. Rhythm.

17:07If someone's never heard Serena Ryder before, what song do they start with? Baby, come back. And in one word, Serena Ryder. Smiley. Smiley. I like it. Thank you so much for answering the Serena. Thank you. Thank you.