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A good song is texture, a feeling of immersive warmth, something you hear as a warm embrace, a blanket & hot tea. Sydney Rose is all that, a big sonic hug waiting to be delivered whenever, wherever but seemingly ideal for laying on your bedroom floor, surrounded by the nostalgic iconography of youth. On her latest EP, ‘I Know What I Want’ this young artist doses us in melodic melodrama, sentimental and ruggedly interesting, it is a dose of sonic sunshine to pair with a rainy day. Lead by the smash viral single, "We Hug Now," the EP is a foundational success, the type of work that pins a rainbow to earth before stretching into the sky. Wanting to hear from the source of this inspiration, we zoomed into her Nashville bedroom to learn more, give her flowers (also flowers for her A&R, an OTW alum, we love you so much), and learn what this rising star wants now: 

OnesToWatch: Okay, to start: why are you an artist? 

That's a great question. I feel like, growing up, all I've ever loved was music. I loved going to concerts. I've always wanted to do music, but I never told myself I could actually do it. So, my favorite things were listening to music in my bedroom, going to concerts, and being a fan of all of my favorite artists. And then, you know, COVID happened and then I was stuck in my room and I had nothing else to do other than share and sing my music and then that's just kind of how it all started. 

Love. Growing up, were you creative elsewhere?

I really wanted to be like an animator, actually. 

I grew up near Atlanta, and that was the headquarters for Cartoon Network and stuff. I loved cartoons growing up and wanted to do all that, and then I started doing the music and that was more of what I really wanted to do. 

Is anyone in your family or friend group musical? Were there any figures that were influential in that way? 

My dad is a therapist, which is nice, and my mom's a photographer. She's like a family photographer. My brother dabbled in musical theater. 

I dabbled in it, but overall, no one really “did” music. I was kind of the first one. 

Okay, musical theater always begs the question, which is your favorite? 

I mean, basic, I could sing Hamilton front to back, easy. 

That's not easy to do, but if you say it's easy, all right. Diving into the music. It’s interesting going through your discography – some might categorize it as sad because of the pace and tempo, but it’s really not. But given that not a lot of people are comfortable exploring different lyrical expressions at that sort of pace and cadence, how did you settle on your sound? It’s definitely unique in that way.

It took me a very long time to get comfortable in my songwriting and what I wanted to make. When I started writing music, I was 16 and I was definitely trying to please people instead of pleasing my own self. And so obviously it took a while for me to really own and love what I write and fully be honest about it. This EP has been my most honest music yet. I definitely feel like I'm very comfortable in what I want to say and how I want my music to sound. 

How do you go about songwriting? Do you start with lyrics, melody, colors, abstraction? If you have a process, some people go all over the place. 

It kind of is all over the place. I kind of have to feel a feeling very strongly to write a song. Maybe I'll go through a friendship breakup and I won't write about it until a year afterwards. I mostly will sit down at my piano or my guitar and I'll write a melody first and whatever that melody feels like to me. I'll add the lyrics to it. It's like a therapy session. I kind of sit down and sing whatever I feel and that's how my music comes about most of the time. Other times it's like I have an idea and I'll specifically try to write to a specific line that I have in my notes, but mostly it's just me sitting on my bed and pretending I have my therapist in my room with me. 

You know, some of the things that always come up, I think with younger artists is this sort of dialogue of loneliness, living inside a vessel, inside a bubble. I'm much older than you, so is it technology? Is there like a sort of dual, parallel reality where everyone feels like they're not actually themselves and they're just sort of whatever version of themselves they need to be? Why does that always come up so much? 

I feel like that's a great question. 

I'm in this weird generation, where I grew up without a phone until I was in middle school and I had unrestricted Internet access and that was not great. COVID definitely messed up our social interactions. Like, COVID happened in the middle of me being in high school and that definitely gave me more anxiety than I ever had in my life. Going out and trying to make more friends is definitely more difficult, I feel like, than ever. 

So it's f*cking COVID. 

It feels like so long ago, but the effects of COVID are just so long term and I still feel the effects of it. I mean, it gave me my career kind of, but it's truly, really weird. 

Time will tell with the grappling of that, especially in your adolescence, right? Such a jarring experience when you're trying to find your footing and literally the footing gets pulled out from under you. Getting on to your current EP, also, congratulations on your label signing! Where did this EP start? Is this a collection of songs over the years, or a place in time: tell me the story? 

It's funny because I moved to Nashville in October of 2023 and it was terrifying. It was horrible. I didn't go to college, so it was the first time I was going to move somewhere that wasn't living with my parents. 

So you went from outside Atlanta living with your parents to Nashville by yourself? 

Yes, but I have roommates with me, you know. The EP started with “Dogs I Pass On the Street.” The week that I moved here, I wrote that song with Hannah Cole and it was just about moving here and it's so scary but I know I wouldn't be doing anything else with my life. I want to make music and this is what I want to do. And so I feel like that was just the theme of the project from the beginning, the title in that song. 

And all of the songs I wrote throughout all of 2024. It's just themes of like, yes, this all sucks. I'm growing up and I want to go back home but I need to work and be doing this and I'm 20 and I need to see the world even though I don't like going out and talking to people sometimes. That's just been the whole vibe of last year and what the EP is about. 

So is I Know What I Want somewhat ironic or or is it more like you actually finding your footing and knowing what you want? Or both? 

I think it's both. It's also funny, the timing, because I had this EP planned before I signed with Mercury and when I was independent and before “We Hug Now” had a moment and before all that. I still knew that I wanted to be doing this music stuff and continue writing songs and putting out projects. It's really cool that this is the project that I'm putting out where I get to do my first headline tour. Where I get to open up for my favorite artists and stuff and it is what I want to do. 

How many shows have you done, like how comfortable are you performing live? 

I did a two week tour with an artist named Addison Grace in 2022. It was really great. And in December 2023, I did an opening spot for Leanna Firestone. So I've done a couple shows, but I haven't done my own shows yet. I did a college show in October, but nothing where it was truly like, this is a Sydney Rose show. I feel like I'm very comfortable with live performances. It's one of my favorite things to do, even though it's so nerve wracking. I love singing live for people. 

I love that. I feel like one of the things my generation got to experience, is we got to play thousands of shows before anyone would pay attention to us. I feel like for you guys it's the reverse. Someone pays attention to you and then you gotta figure out how to play the shows. 

So I'm glad you're comfortable with it. Getting back to “We Hug Now.” because I think in your young career that's such a smash. Why do you think that people reacted to that so much? Because one of the things I love about that song is it feels very not obvious, you know, it's one of those things where it's a beautiful song, but in this era of the Internet, it almost feels like a counterweight to all the excess of this time. So why do you think it resonated so much? 

I feel like it's just so relatable. I mean, when I wrote the song, I felt so isolated and I thought I was the only one who felt the way that I felt when I was writing the song. 

When I posted the clip of the song and people started reacting to it, I was like, “of course people feel the same way.” Of course everyone has gone through a friendship breakup. I've never had an original experience ever. So yes, it's a thing where there's one sided relationships, one person can feel the world ended for them when the other person seems like nothing ever happened. And so, I mean, yeah, I just feel like it's so obviously relatable. 

Beautiful. Well, I hope there's more music like that in the future. Here’s some more personality exposing questions. First of all, what do you do for fun? How do you relax?  How do you give yourself some time?

It's a great question. I love movies. 

I love TV shows. I've been watching Severance. I'm locked into that. 

There's a new Hunger Games book. I'm very much an introvert and so I would rather stay indoors. I've sung songs in my bedroom for myself ever since I was a kid. I would come home from school and lock myself in my room and I would sing, and it would just make me feel better. I love keeping up with pop culture stuff. I'll do crafts. 

Well, you look like you have a little crafty craftiness in your design here. 

Very much so. 

Speaking of visuals and designs, are your visuals all your doing? 

I feel like it's always been my vibe, the whole, childhood bedroom vibe, the handwriting, journaling stuff. 

It just made sense for me, you know? 

Yeah, it's very specific. 

It's instantly recognizable. Do you think about the future? Like, do you have a plan or are you ambitious? 

You said that and my immediate thought was that all I do is think about the past. I mean, that's kind of what the EP is about. I have a horrible problem of latching on things that I could never go back and change. But that's where I get all my music from. I do think about the future in the sense that I want to be playing shows. 

I want to put out more music. and maybe move out of this house that I'm renting. 

Where would you move to if you could move anywhere? 

I mean, I love Nashville and it's close to home in Georgia.

I can drive my car. We're under a tornado watch, which sucks, but I wouldn't be anywhere else. I love New York. 

I can't stay there for more than two weeks. LA is a lot. But being here feels very much like home. 

I get that. If you could transplant your number one super fan somewhere to best understand and be immersed in your EP, where would you put them? It can be a specific place. It can be a distant planet galaxy. 

It can be anywhere. It sounds like your bedroom is probably the best place to do so. 

I mean, yes, my bedroom, lights are off, maybe a small candle in the background. Like noise cancelling headphones and just closing your eyes and listening to it. Or in the car driving, which is what I’m always doing. 

Last questions. At OnesToWatch, we love when artists put us onto other artists. So who are your OnesToWatch? 

Abby Powledge. Noah Levine. Eli Patterson. Kate Stevenson. 

TOUR DATES:

6/9 Los Angeles, CA Masonic Lodge

6/11 Nashville, TN The Basement

6/13 Chicago, IL Schuba’s Tavern

6/15 Toronto, ON The Velvet Underground

6/17 Brooklyn, NY Baby’s All Right

6/26 Berlin, DE Privatclub

6/28 Amsterdam, NL Paradiso Zonzij

6/30 Paris, FR Les Etoiles

7/2 London, UK Omeara

7/4 London, UK Hyde Park