Born in Lubbock, Texas, singer/songwriter Sydney Ross Mitchell had an immediate welcome to Los Angeles moment when she arrived four years ago.
“One of the first parties I was ever taken to in L.A., they had dancers, and there were silver platters with pretty favors on them. Party favors, you know what I mean,” she says. “Being carted around and offered to people, and at this point in time, I think this was maybe the second night I was in Los Angeles ever in my life. I was absolutely terrified. My mom is going to kill me,” she points out, laughing at telling this story.
Mitchell didn’t just grow up in a small Texas town. She grew up in a deeply religious environment, so her move to L.A. to pursue music has been full of wtf moments.
“Which one was the most culture-shocking? Literally everything about it. Restaurant culture here is so different, [like] when I started serving here. Even the culture of there being hot new restaurants and who owns them is the same; it’s the same guy who owns this one, and then the menu is curated by this celebrity chef. That was all completely foreign to me,” she says. “Something that really did shock me, even though it might sound silly, is how many people who are in their 30s and are not married and don’t have kids. That was just a group of people that I never knew growing up. It was very normal for me in the culture of my hometown to be married by the time you were 22 or 23. My mom, when she was my age, had me, and I was her third kid. So, when I got here, and I met people who are 32, single, and just focused on their career, that was something that I had really never seen before, but was really exciting to me, and I think kind of opened my eyes a bit to there are so many ways to live a life.”
That juxtaposition between the two worlds – “I do know that whenever I’m at home and I tell people that I live in L.A., they usually go, ‘Do you feel safe there?’ It is usually the first thing they say,” she says – has led to the stunning EP Cynthia, a brilliant eight-song collection driven by the contrast between her two worlds. What makes the EP so compelling is the authenticity. As you are listening to it, it feels like Mitchell is right there telling the stories directly to you.
“There are several songs where I talk about my mom and my religious upbringing. And I think I was surprised by how emotional it made me to go back there,” she says. “I didn’t realize that there was still so much I had to say regarding that stuff. But ultimately writing about it did feel very healing, and I feel like it has brought me a lot of peace, I would say, overall in regards to the subject matter.”
Having grown up around choral music and literally in the church building, her grandmother worked as director of children’s ministry, Mitchell was a latecomer to music as a fan.
“It wasn’t until I was probably 17 or 18 that I had this huge awakening. I made a Spotify account, and then all of a sudden had access to this extraordinary world of music that I didn’t know existed. I got really into the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. Of course, your Joni Mitchell phase, super into Fleetwood Mac, and the great Townes Van Zant. I got into Outlaw Country for a while. And so there was a really great time there. And I think that has blended a bit,” she says. “I think you can definitely hear some of the country in my music. I still love country music. But I also think you can tell that I really loved Lana Del Rey when I was 13. I loved M83. I loved how cinematic that felt. I feel like my influences are quite broad musically, which I love.”
She also reminds herself that she is a late bloomer as a working musician. “Something I have to remind myself of often is that I’ve really only been very seriously pursuing music…I met my first managers about two and a half years ago. And prior to that, not very long ago, I’d never played a real show. I’d never done a real session in L.A. I didn’t have any sort of social media presence. I wasn’t sharing my music anywhere, I’d released probably three songs,” she says. “And so there definitely was kind of a come-to-Jesus moment for me of it’s time to lock in. It’s time to take this seriously. Which I always did, but I feel like everything just started making sense to me a couple of years ago.”
But now that she does, the sky is the limit. Mitchell can’t wait to play live. “I’m really looking forward to figuring out what I want the show to be like, who we’re going to take, who the band is, and how I want to arrange things. It’s going to be very exciting. I really want to make it an experience as much as I possibly can. So, yeah, I’m very nervous, but very much looking forward to it,” she says.
So are we.
Syndney Ross Mitchell’s new EP Cynthia is now available everywhere on Disruptor Records, a division of Sony Music.
