Looking for the perfect album to help you transition from summer into fall? Look no further, Sidney Bird is here to deliver with desert person!
With just one listen, desert person had us completely hooked! Front to back we feel like this album showcases what a special artist Sidney Bird is! We were lucky enough to get to chat with Sidney all about this record and so much more! We hope you enjoy!
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Stream desert person here!
Hi Sidney! Welcome to The Honey Pop! To start us off, how would you describe the music you make to someone who is tuning in for the first time?
I would describe the music of Sidney Bird as a cactus pop type of sound and to describe cactus pop would be western, ethereal, pop, cinematic, singer-songwriter storytelling vibes. Influences are Sheryl Crow, Chris Stapelton, Leon Bridges, Kacey Musgraves, and Harry Styles.
The time is almost here! desert person is out in just two weeks! What are the emotions you’re feeling leading up to this album being released?
My emotions towards this release are very proud. This album feels the most cohesive project I have ever made and it feels very personal to me. I definitely can make a lot of songs that aren’t about my life specifically and that is my love for storytelling but this album in particular is personal and I am really excited to feel the confidence to share my personal life with the world!
Four of the tracks from desert person have already been released, how do you narrow down what songs to release as teasers for the full album?
I think the four tracks I released leading up to the album were the strongest but also the most little teasers to the whole album in general. ‘Hey Cowboy’ is a banger, a pop starry song while ‘desert person’ leans into the personal aspect of the album, ‘son of a gun’ and ‘learning to love what i have’ are also very different in their own worlds. ‘learning to love what i have’ has a songwriter aesthetic while ‘son of a gun’ is cinematic. So I picked songs that encapsulated the words of cactus pop cinematic, singer-songwriter, ethereal, and western.
desert person is made up of ten tracks! Has there been a track you’ve been most looking forward to seeing fans’ reactions to?
Yes, I am most looking forward to seeing fan’s reactions to ‘butterfly in conflict.’ It is my favorite track on the album. It feels like my Hannah Montana dreams come true in a song and I am so excited to see how people react to it.
Now, while you’ve said this record is a collection of songs you’ve written over the past few years, were these songs that just didn’t fit on Snowbird or Bad Timing? Or was this always an album you were specifically writing for?
Yeah, I guess they could be in Snowbird or Bad Timing but I was waiting to see and holding on to certain songs including ‘lazy river.’ ‘son of a gun’ and ‘secret’ that I wrote a long time ago that technically didn’t fit in the other albums. I wanted them to fit in something I knew I was going to create and it came out to be this album.
Was there a song on desert person that you could immediately visualize while crafting?
Yes, visualizing is a big part of my songwriting because of my musical theatre and acting background. The song I could immediately visualize was ‘something I’ll never know.’ I just imagined this girl who grew up in a trailer park area fighting with her dad and her dad is upstairs gambling, drinking, smoking and not paying any attention to her. I had this whole TV scene in my head while writing this song and that’s the most fun I have when writing songs is when I can see it in my head.
Where did the title desert person come from? Was that always the title, even during the crafting process?
The title desert person came from my being from Arizona and then moving back to Arizona while finishing this album here. So I am technically a desert person cause I live in Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah, I just knew that desert person = Sidney Bird and I wanted to show you that.
We know that the process of making an album can take a village, and it’s hard to single yourself out to pat yourself on the back, but what is something you’ve done during this album process that you are particularly proud of?
In this album process, I am particularly proud of asking for more help from songwriting friends. I wrote songs four to five years ago and thought I would do this all by myself, I never wanted a co-writer, I wanted to be all alone. In the process of these four to five years, I’ve noticed that some songs I definitely need help finishing and writing and this album I was not afraid to ask for help, and I did that with the majority of the songs in the album, I would say half. So that is something I am really proud of, I am letting my ego go, wanting the art to be the best it can and getting other people’s insight and inspiration and people I trust and want to write with.
We had to throw in a question to ask you about our favorite track from Snowbird, which is ‘Ms. Jones.’ Where did the inspiration for that track come from?
‘Ms. Jones’ is fully inspired by the book Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid, my favorite author ever. She actually found the song and messaged me and said the sweetest thing and I was fangirling so hard, I couldn’t even believe that she DMed me. But I am so infatuated with that 70’s laurel canyon rock and rock era, it is a time I was meant to be born into but alas I am here in 2024 living out my popstars dreams. Yeah, it is inspired by that book and that story- that girl Daisy Jones not being loved by her parents, wanting so desperately to be seen and heard through her music, and kind of coming into turmoil with sex, drugs, and rock n roll.
Once again, thank you so much Sidney for chatting with us! Before we let you go, is there anything you want to let fans know about that is coming up?
I am already writing, I am feeling very inspired by the concept of love and the west. So I am writing a lot and I am excited to see what happens with this album. I am going on a little tour for four live shows, I just hope y’all feel the need to go camping in Joshua Tree and listen to this album and just sit back and relax. Thank you!
We would love to hear from you! What is your favorite song off of desert person? Let us know by commenting down below or by tweeting us @TheHoneyPOP! We are also on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok!
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