26 Sept 21St–Sept 27th, 2023 phoenixnewtimes.com phoenix new Times | music | cafe | film | culTuRe | NighT+Day | feaTuRe | NeWs | OPiNiON | feeDBacK | cONTeNTs | Sophomore Success Why Sydney Sprague’s second album is part of her journey to bigger, bolder things. BY CHRIS COPLAN S ydney Sprague maintains an unwavering and endearing level of honesty. Why else would she call her 2021 debut album “maybe i will see you at the end of the world”? “That was about the world ‘ending’ and feeling that impending doom,” Sprague says. “Then, going into making this record during a pandemic, and it felt like the world did end. We’re in this suspended state of ... forever.” So, what do you do if you’re just hanging out in the end times? If you’re Sprague, you simply keep on trucking. “Touring has been the primary thing that we’ve done the last two years,” she says. “We toured with The Front Bottoms twice. We got to do a tour with Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional; it was huge for us. And then we just finished up a tour with a band called Pool Kids.” For the 31-year-old singer-songwriter, it’s a continuation of the performance-heavy streak that’s defined her entire career. “I’ve been playing cover gigs for the past 12 to 13 years before all of this,” she says. “So I was playing four or five nights a week, and at least three to four hours a night. I think that that experience helped me be prepared to play so many shows in succes- sion. I never really say no to a chance to play a show.” And when you’re willing to play almost anywhere and everywhere, it often leads to some decidedly bizarre moments. “The most cuckoo bananas show I ever played was in 2020, when I opened for Cher at a Joe Biden rally in Peoria,” Sprague says. “It’s me with my acoustic guitar, singing my sad apocalypse songs, and then Cher comes out and, I think, she played a cover of ‘Walking in Memphis,’ talked about the campaign and went straight back to the bus.” As memorable as that event was, it’s really been the bulk of Sprague’s touring that’s had the most effect. It’s been a lot of hard work and long hours, but it’s also been especially transformative. “Just mentally, touring has given me a different kind of focus than I’ve ever had before,” she says. “The physical act of having a schedule every day where you’re like, ‘I have to meet these goalposts and then I got to play the show and then we do it again tomorrow.’” It helps that there are distractions on the road. Food’s a regular favorite — Sprague loves Orlando, Florida’s Black Bean Deli and Fox in the Snow in Columbus, Ohio. But it’s her relationship with the rest of the band that’s often made it all far easier to spend weeks and months on the open road. “I feel like I have just such a good group of people that I get to travel with,” she says. “I travel with my partner, Chuck [Morriss III], who plays bass in my band, and he has 10 or 15 years’ touring experience, so that really helps a lot. My band are just best friends, and so it’s good to have that kind of camaraderie.” But perhaps the best way to survive both life on the road, and a continued exis- tence in our permanent purgatory, is by keeping the real focus on making new music whenever possible. “I’ve shoved making the second record somewhere in the middle of all that [touring],” Sprague says. “I wrote a lot of the songs on the new record before the touring started. So at least half of it was written in 2020. I had a good head start and a good chance to really pre-produce a lot of the songs and have an idea of what I wanted to do.” That new record, entitled “somebody in hell loves you,” came out Sept. 15 and is at least in part reflective of Sprague’s seem- ingly endless travels. The songs encapsu- late what she learned and the life she saw as a roving musician. “The other half of the songs were more informed by getting to play so many shows and learning the kinds of shows that I love to see and the kind of show that I want to put on,” Sprague says. “I think especially touring with the Front Bottoms, they’re just the most fun band to watch. And to see the way [their] songs can make a whole room of people just light up, it’s something that really just awoke something in me. Like, how do you write a song that can make people feel that way? I tried to channel some of that in making the new record.” The record’s title and overarching concept are very much tied to this idea of having fun amid the chaos and making the best of some rather weird circumstances. “We’re hanging in this weird balance of, like, it could just totally fall apart, but for some reason we’re just still all here,” Sprague says. “That kind of felt like where I was at mentally. We’re here for some reason, so I might as well try to have a good time. Originally we were going to call the record ‘Hell’s Eternal Disco,’ but I think ‘somebody in hell loves you’ feels a little more true to this group of songs.” While being on the road often meant “writing in my Notes app, and then whisper-singing on Voice memos,” according to Sprague, there’s a certain level of comfort involved as she worked out a lot of the same ideas lyrically. “I think I always come, at least a little bit, from the same perspective that I’m writing about my feelings,” Sprague says. “So, you know, they happen in different places and in different ways, but it’s all kind of just about my brain. I can’t escape it.” Part of that meant dealing with the prospect of even releasing a second record in the first place. “I felt very free in making the first record because it was my first big thing that I did and I felt like I could express however I wanted to,” Sprague says. “And with this one, I did feel like I’d set a precedent for or maybe a goalpost for myself of how good I wanted something to be. Maybe I will miss the mark of what the magic was in that first thing.” To some extent, Sprague recognizes that self-doubt is part of who she is both person- ally and professionally, and that its mere presence is a kind of double-edged sword. “It’s just such a part of who I am, and it wouldn’t make sense for me to make music that sounded confident,” she says. “What I tell myself, and I tell other people some- times, is that a good dose of self-doubt is, I think, one of the most healthy and impor- tant things for a creative person. I defi- nitely felt a lot of doubt making [the new record], but I think we were able to work through it for the most part.” She adds, “But I think questioning and doubting leads to trying harder, and trying more things, and pushing yourself harder. And I think it can Sydney Sprague is releasing her second album, “somebody in hell loves you.” (Photo by Ellie Carty) Sprague’s album encapsulates her life as a roving musician. (Photo courtesy of Rude Records) ▼ Music >> p 28
