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Prodigious and music obsessed, Stacey Ryan is the type of artist whose talents are easy to register, her very nature melodically compelling. On her sophomore album, Blessing In Disguise, the now-independent Stacey Ryan can reveal in lyrical & choral detail all the pitfalls, trials, and romantic errors that have beset her over the past few years, while taking up residence in Los Angeles. It’s obvious why the emotional bruising is now considered a blessing, as this is an ambitious, absolute pop reckoning of a record is as close a statement of superstardom as there is this year. We luckily summoned this ex-Montrealer to our garden level abode to dig into this amazing record, tips on closed restaurants, and much more here:

OnesToWatch: Who are you? 


Stacey Ryan: My name is Stacey Ryan. I am about to turn 25 years old. I am from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and I'm now based in LA. I am a singer, songwriter, artist, musician, producer – I try to wear a lot of hats. 

Now my question is, why do you do all those things? Why are you an artist?

Part of me feels like that answer is 100% clear, while part of me doesn't, because it's just always been there. Since I could form thoughts, I’ve been putting them into songs. I’ve never known life without it, so that’s probably a reason. But also, growing up and really diving into the craft of music made me fall in love with everything about it – how creative it is, how scary but awesome it is to live your life this way. And now, signing and gaining a fan base and connecting with people, I feel that in my soul. Every time I connect with people, I'm still in disbelief. With my song, “Fall in Love Alone,” it's a song about yearning and hoping that the person will feel the same way about you, and some people will message me and say they’re with their partner because they played them that song. I'm Cupid. So it's mind blowing. 

Could you imagine what you would do if you couldn’t play music?

I've never been asked that question before, and I don't know what I would do. Music is such a big part of my life, my voice, my body, my hands, it’s what I do. But I also have so much amazingness in my life, with my relationships, my friends. And life wouldn't end if my music ability went away, but I think it would be hard to have a sense of purpose. 

How long have you been writing songs with the intent to share them with people? 

You know, it's funny because my first ever song that I wrote, I was very young, maybe nine, ten years old and writing songs in my little Justin Bieber stickkered notebook. I was writing lines like, “I feel so invisible, you broke my heart.” Meanwhile I’m nine. Why was I writing about that? Because I heard Kelly Clarkson and Beyonce and Rhianna on the radio singing about all this stuff. But, I really got into writing when I was around 16, getting ready for college, studying music, and starting to find a musical identity for myself. I was so adament against writing until I’ve lived experiences worth writing about. I hadn't been in a relationship. I felt like I had nothing of note, which of course isn’t true. But I had this weird rule for myself: don’t write until you’re ready. And then the first song that I wrote, I remember playing for my singing teacher in college, when his students would gather at lunchtime and share songs and assignments that were outside of the regular curriculum. I think I brought my ukulele. That would have been six, seven years ago now? 


Do you think anything has remarkably changed in how you write songs from then to now? 

Absolutely.
I have learned so much from collaborating with other songwriters and producers. Just doing this professionally is so different from writing songs on my guitar in my bedroom. Which I still love to do. I still write songs on my own, now more so than ever. I enjoy the duality of being able to write something that's just completely me, and also collaborate with someone and have our ideas blend together. I've grown from writing with those writers that when I write alone now, I impressed myself sometimes. When I first got signed in 2022, I just did session after session after session and that was the first time I had ever written with other people. It was months and months and months of being bombarded – not in a bad way – with all this new information. Now, after a few years, it’s evened out, I have a balance. 

For a lot of writers, I think it’s really tough to share something that's so personal with collaborators who are essentially strangers. Why do you think it's worked so well for you? 

I was just thrown into it. I signed in New York City, flew to LA, and did a session the next day. So I was in full-on sessions all the time. Sometimes, we would approach it by writing a story, rather than a personal experience. Four out of the six songs on my EP were written in that way. Doesn't mean I love those songs any less. It just wasn't something that was written from what I was going through directly in the moment. Funnily enough, I ended up living most of those experiences after the fact, which is sad because they're all bad. But, there are sessions where it’ll be three strangers, I tell them a super sensitive story, and then we write an incredible song about it. The songwriter community, we understand each other. Especially when it comes to industry drama, we can relate. 

Where would songwriters be if humans were good to each other? 


Out of our jobs. Only writing happy songs. 

You were trained in music –did your studies in jazz ever feel compromising while trying to navigate pop writing? 

Honestly, no, but I kind of felt it the other way around. I felt like because I knew jazz, my music couldn’t be too pop. Which is a wild thing to think because music genres are so spider webby, but I felt that I needed to fit this mold of a jazz musician, making my music sound complex, big, and complicated. But now, as I've had different inspirations and lived my life and grown as a human, I know there’s no one right way to do things. At the end of the day I just want to sound like me, and that’s whatever feels most true. 

Let’s dive into your album. What's this album about? What does it represent for you? 

It represents everything, because it is my first ever full length album. That has been a goal of mine ever since I was a kid and saw people dropping CDs. It just means the world. What I also love about it, is that it came out of a time of severe life changes, like when the label dropped me and my world flipped upside down. Obviously that brought up emotions that I've never felt before. We were about to submit a whole different album to Island right before they dropped me. I was ready. That sparked a whole new wave of writing, and we wrote 10 more songs in two months.
And we didn't even try. I was just feeling so many things. And when we finally signed with Sound On for publishing and label services, we felt like we could attack this again. When we looked back at the songs we had from after that period, they explained the journey so well of not only just the label thing, also me moving from Canada to here and all the shit I've gone through with men, which we will not dive into, because there's so much. Every song was a lesson that I needed to learn. Because if I wouldn't have learned it, I would make the mistake again and again and again. 

So other than the two songs you rescued from the prior album, what's the timeline?
How old is the oldest song?

The oldest song is actually the last song, “Good to Be Alone,” and that's from September 2022 Okay. So she's an oldie. And then the second oldest is from, I think, November 2023, and every other song is 2024 and up. 

You mentioned that this wasn't a cohesive conceptual construction. You mentioned that this wasn't a cohesive conceptual construction. 

It was a natural trauma dumping that became cohesive. 

So one thing I’m always curious about on albums, is the self-editing. What did you not keep when editing down the tracklist? 

One thing to note is that all the songs that we almost put on that old album, we were able to leave Island with those songs. So they’re still in my universe and I love those songs so dearly too. They will come out at some point – if I have a say in it and endless money. They're so special to me. And that's why choosing the tracklist, it was like choosing kids.
I love every song I write. But I value all the opinions of my producers and manager, and it’s our album, because they’ve worked endlessly to make this happen, even when we didn’t know if we could. No one was getting paid. We were just doing it because we love and appreciate each other and love the music we made. So, I would hear out their opinions, and put my foot down on others, but it’s that collaboration again. If I had to sit alone and choose, it may be too hard. I think I need that outside help. 

What's your personal favorite on the album? 


I actually have an answer, which is crazy, because normally I feel like all of them. But I just had this moment. I was back home in Montreal. Wink, wink.
Because the song is “Montreal,” which is the title track. Going home, back and forth between LA, every summer and Christmas has been different. Sometimes I go home and feel so strange and just want to come back to LA and sometimes I don't want to leave. That song was written out of a feeling that I'd never known how to qualify. It feels so weird when you go home and home doesn't feel like home. So, that song is my choice. It's about my family and my whole life growing up. When we got the masters, I listened to that one and started to tear up, then bawled when the choirs swelled. It was a culmination of so much stress and anxiety, but also, pride, so many things leading up to this moment. I had bottled up a lot. So hearing that song, in my childhood room, in my hometown, something feels so special about it. 

If everything turns out the way you hope it does, where does this album take you? 

I’d go back to Indonesia, Southeast Asia, because I'm on TikTok live all the time and people are like, “Come back to the Philippines, come to Malaysia, come to Indonesia.” 
And I'm like, as soon as I have the funds, you bet your ass, I'm coming out there. I want to go back to Europe. UK, Paris, Germany, I got to speak French to all my French girls. I just put the album out, now it’s go time. And of course, if money was grew on trees, these tours would already be planned. But let’s just hope the album picks up. I also want to get a car. I have one in Canada but she’s a 2011 Honda Fit and would not survive the cross-country drive. And I'm a very responsible driver, but a responsible menace on these LA streets. 

What car would you get? 

Couldn’t care less. Gets me to point A to point B. If it looks nice, bonus. 

Perfect. You seem to have a great audience. What do you attribute that to? 

So many things. TikTok and social media didn't start out as a job, as it probably does for no one. Now it's a little different, with how the internet is. But also, in COVID times, everyone was sitting around and making content all day. And now, I’m connecting with an even bigger audience and it’s awesome. But, you know, the algorithm changes and the app has very much changed from what it used to be. Like, during COVID, it was so musical and collaborative and everyone was doing challenges with each other, and now it's just very much more commercial, with TikTok shop ads every second video. So now, the game is to adapt to what they push. Going viral is great, but it still has to be content I love. 

What a world we live in. Let's get into some more fun questions. What's your favorite TikTok trend? 

That's like asking me to choose my favorite song on the album. As of late it’s the one where all the girls are putting on the Alexander Hamilton costume and lip syncing to the one sound and it's the one that goes, “Alexander, come back to sleep.” If you haven't seen it, you need to watch it because it's hilarious. 

Montreal's famous for many things. But I think the food culture there is pretty remarkable. If a bunch of hungry friends pulled up in Montreal right now, where would you send them to eat? 

Well, there's a couple spots because I grew up like 45 minutes outside the city off the island. Because Montreal's an island, like the island of Manhattan. A lot of people like don't know that. Anyway, off island, there's this spot called Pat Perci, which translates to, I think, like, parsley and potato. They have such good food.
They have sweet potato fries and fried cauliflower, with like red peppers and the curd cheese and this creamy chipotle mayo. It's their play on poutine. There was also this Thai spot I would go to in college that was the owner, his wife and his daughter, just the three of them, and they lived above the restaurant. And they were there all day, every day. They literally knew us because we would go there all the time. They were the nicest people, the food was so good. We would eat there like twice a week. It was called Presto. Unfortunately I don’t think they made it through COVID. 

If you were concocting your dream performance – any place, anytime, with anyone – where would it be and who would it be with? 

Oh, my goodness. Well, it would be in some kind of beautiful, wood-lined, jazz style room. A smoky dark room. 
There would be a band wearing white suits, because I would be wearing black.

Where in the world is it? 

Honestly, Montreal, man. Or New York or Paris. 

Do you have a dream co-headliner, someone you'd love to perform with? 


I would like to just be in Raye's vicinity. I think that woman is fucking incredible. Her music is incredible. She’s everything I want to be. She's playing with big bands and sits on the stage in her dress with no shoes. I'm like, that's hot bitch shit. She's such a baddie. She blends the jazz with the soul. I’d co-headline, open for her, go to her show. Anything. Also, I have to attribute so much of my musical upbringing to Al Jarreau. I was so obsessed with his two pop jazz blend albums. He would scat, beatbox, do solos. He was so creative and used every musical output that his body could give him. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I burned those albums into my brain. He passed away before I could ever think to meet him. So, if he were still alive, I would want to perform with him. 

What do you do to relax? 

I spend time by myself. I love having a quiet moment of peace with no sound. I love outside. I actually have a backyard with a pool. So I go sit out there, I watch the birds. If I'm alone and no one's home… I love my roommate so much, but I just love when I know that no one's around and no one's gonna come in when I'm just in that relax mindset. Like, people ask me what I do before shows, and I'm like, I just sit and do nothing. I just wait because I just want to go on stage. I know it's so strange.

Okay, finishing up, I’d love some recommendations. First, a non-musical rec – an activity, place to visit, thing to do, read, consume, watch. 

I recommend beach volleyball. My friends and I go to the beach all the time and play volleyball. It’s a crew of all creatives in all kinds of variations of good at volleyball or not. It's fun to play and it's on the beach, so I’d also recommend swimming in the ocean. 

Awesome. Now, a music recommendation. Who are your OnesToWatch? 

My roommate, and a friend of ours, they have this band called a Few New Friends. We all make music in the house, so I’ve been hearing this music months before it’s released, and it’s so good. Ryan Nealan, love that man so much. Kings, she is dropping a project too, my bestie with the yellow highlighter hair. Jessia, my Canadian queen. My roommate, Dominic Charles, is putting out his new artist project, and he has a band called Them Fantasies. 

Those are great. Alright, finally, any advice or wisdom you’d like to part on? 

Don’t forget everything you've accomplished in light of what you're trying to go for. Becoming independent and doing this whole album release on my own, I often feel stuck and like I’m failing. Meanwhile, there’s two years of huge accomplishments right behind me. So, give yourself grace, and remember your accomplishments. I feel like I'm on an episode of Wheel of Fortune and I’m saying hi to my family at home. But, seriously, hi to my family – they’ve been the biggest support of all time, even all the way from home. My producers and manager, it's been us the whole time through everything. We've literally become as close as family. I could have never made a better album with better people. I’m so, so grateful and thankful for them. James, Gio, Matt, Nils, my friends, my support system keeping my head up as I navigate this. It is overwhelmingly amazing, you know? Life's pretty good. 

Thank you so much for your time. 

Thank you!