Spotlight on Sedona: New Music, 2020 Plans, and More

We’re not quite certain how Sedona entered our world here at WMF, but we’re definitely glad she did. While her publicly-released body of work currently — and tantalizingly — boasts a mere handful of songs and associated videos, what we’ve heard and seen so far has piqued our interest. Both the track and video for “Picture Perfect” especially stand out, and bode well for Sedona’s upcoming work.

With her pop appeal that somehow just manages to subtly sideswipe completely mainstream territory, as well as an ambitious visual component complementing her tracks, we were curious to find out more about Sedona’s background, current work, and future plans. WMF spent an autumn afternoon in Silverlake with Sedona talking recent tracks, upcoming music, her videos, and more. Photographer Cameron Murray snapped an exclusive photo series following the conversation, and we’re excited to share both with you here.

Bobby Weirdo: You recently released your fourth song*, “More Love,” accompanied with a music video. Out of all your songs, “Call Me Up,” “Same Sky,” “Picture Perfect,” and “More Love,” is there a common thread throughout all?

Sedona: All four of these songs have to do with the heart. Writing songs is my way of coping with love, in all its pain and all its glory. I try not to focus on placing too much meaning onto each one. I hope my listeners can paint their own, personal meanings onto the walls of my tunes, just like I do as they take shape.

BW: Is Sedona a character exploring the themes and stories in these songs? Who is Sedona?

S: Sedona stemmed from one of my earliest childhood memories. I remember watching two horses walk across a shallow river in Sedona, Arizona - I must’ve been two. One of the horses slipped on a rock nearby and that image stayed with me forever. Sedona is the inner workings of my mind, immortalized in these really kitschy, over-the-top worlds that I’ve created with each song. But it’s also way bigger than just me – Sedona is me, Sedona is my band, and Sedona is a community of all my favorite people creating together. So it’s kind of this other planet – Planet Sedona – that you can take a trip to and get lost in.

BW: You’ve been working with a harpist lately.

S: Tatyana! When I was in London last, we wrote a really lovely tune together. Right now the title is “One Heart.”

BW: What’s your plan with the EP?

S: The EP! We’re hoping to put it out Summer 2020. Half of the songs were written with the band and the other half were written with different friends in various bedroom studios. Stay tuned...

BW: As someone who loves visuals, what part does that play in your songwriting? Are you already seeing something before you write a song, or do you start with the song, and the visual aspect comes after?

S: I am always in the mood to create. Most video ideas are born while the songs are in demo form, but sometimes I think of video concepts or stories that create a song. It really just depends on the day.

For [the video] “Call Me Up,” the song was still in the works when I started writing a script on the back of my boyfriend’s car manual. It read, “Exterior: Sedona sitting in the forest, watching TV.” That sentence alone got me hooked on creating the honky tonk world that is the “Call Me Up” music video. That’s how [the video for] “Call Me Up” was born.

That video inspired the video for “Same Sky” in a lot of ways. I wanted to create this really kooky, hyper femme world, but this time in the desert, rather than the forest. “Call Me Up” started the fire, and “Same Sky” was the water to soothe its flames. Sonically and visually, I really try to think of everything in a natural way, because I think I’m very primal in my nature. I eat with my hands and love to roll around in the sand.

BW: It’s a good thing you like In-N-Out.

S: Yeah...speaking of, I’m in love with all things spicy. I drink jalapeno juice out of the jar. And if you know me well, you know I eat too many peppers at In-N-Out every single time. I pay for it later, but they’re worth the burn.

BW: You were an “Arts in Context” major at The New School. It’s a big question, but what does “arts in context” mean to you, and how does it affect the work you’re doing now?

S: I was originally going to design my own major and call it The Art of Storytelling. I think storytelling is at the heart of both music and film, so I decided to do Arts in Context with my art being Music in the context of Culture and Media.

I think music and film are a direct pathway to connect people in the most vulnerable ways. Film and music expose the energy of the times, and I think that’s what culture is – an effervescent ball of energy from everyone.

BW: Your mom is a singer-songwriter, and your dad is a bassist, jazz photographer, and piano tuner.

S: Yeah!

BW: How does what your parents do connect to what you do today?

S: It connects a lot more than I originally thought it did, because I have always been in a home full of music, and I’ve always been around music. I went to my first concert when I was around three months old.

BW: What was that concert?

S: I think it was ZZ Top. It was at The LOVERIDE – my dad was in a biker gang while I was growing up. The LOVERIDE is this huge motorcycle festival. I think [that background has] given me a great diving board to explore without any fears or reservations, because my parents are very out there when it comes to being yourself and doing your own thing.

My mom is a singer-songwriter. She’s from Wildwood, Jersey. She left home at a young age and came to Hollywood all on her own to pursue music. She has these cassette tapes of her music and they’re amazing. I love singing her songs. She never ‘made it,’ and it’s crazy to think that there are so many artists – and a lot of my favorite artists – who just never got the recognition that they deserved. But I think the best artists don’t. When you reach that mass bubble, you lose your potency, in a way.

BW: What are your parents’ names?

S: My dad’s name is Elde Stewart, and my mom’s name is Marlee Stewart. She used to go by her stage name, Marlee Black. My dad was also in a bunch of bands in Michigan: Colorados, Bob’s Yer Uncle – these really funky blues and rock bands.

They’re both amazing musicians and people, and I think they passed on a lot of creative juices into my brain when I was growing up. They both used to play music for me when I was in my mom’s stomach, so I think that helped me grow as a musician before I even understood the existence of music.

BW: In the course of our conversation you’ve mentioned both artists who never made it as well as artists who have become so successful that it’s perhaps detrimental to their own creative process. What’s your sweet spot for what you’re looking for as an artist, success-wise? As you work on these tracks and videos, what is motivating you?

S: My sweet spot with music is being able to have a lifestyle that allows me to create every day. I don’t need a fancy house or a fancy car. I just want to have time to do what I love. I don’t like to think of success in terms of being a huge star or being a niche artist with a cult following. I’ll let everyone else decide that, because I’m not in it for that. I just want to make songs with my people, play live, and if nobody’s there, I’ll still do it. If there’s a million people there, I’ll probably be a little bit more amped, but either way, I love every minute of it.

I think it’s really hard to truly mean that in today’s world, with Instagram, [because] you have to promote yourself in a really narcissistic way. I’m good at it because I’m a little cute girl, I have all these cute friends, and I think that you’ve got to play the game if you want to be heard. But being heard isn’t why I play music – it’s for my own satisfaction, to wake up every day and make a song rather than jumping off a cliff. That’s why I do it.

BW: Of the tracks you’ve released so far, I think “Picture Perfect” is a standout. It’s definitely in the pop realm, but also deviates just slightly from being completely straightforward, and I think the same can be said about the video too.

S: I think I like to be in the outfield with my music and my film, because I don’t really feel like I fit in anywhere. I don’t listen to new music often. If you were to ask me who the ten biggest pop stars are right now, I wouldn’t know. If you looked at my listening history, it would be bands and artists who were big twenty to thirty years ago. I think it translates into my own music because I am a sucker for nostalgia, and I try to bring that into my own work. Where it’s not quite there, but it’s not quite here. It’s a purgatorial world.

I wrote and produced “Picture Perfect” with my friend Matt [Koenig], who is in The Undercover Dream Lovers. Earlier that day I had just spent time with my dad, who is a photographer. He has a huge cabinet of vintage film cameras that he’s collected over the years. And during the session when. I was thinking what I’d like to write about [while I was] going through a rough time with a lover, and that’s where I got the idea to compare my romantic turmoil with the actual body of a camera, the actual inner-workings of taking a photo. So I put [those two things] together with “Picture Perfect.”

The same thing happened with the visuals. One of my best friends, Sammy King, helped put the video together. I was in London, and she said we should do a camgirl cooking show [for the video], because it was [about] this picture-perfect love – this cookie cutter thing that doesn’t truly exist. And since the heart of Sedona is a feral child, we put in a bunch of nature shots, which I had filmed over the course of a few years on my Dad’s VHS camera. We just spliced them in, and it created the visual world that is “Picture Perfect.”

BW: When you say you listen to older music, is there a group of artists -- or a genre in particular -- that you’re referencing or thinking of?

S: Definitely artists I’m obsessed with: The Blue Nile, my boyfriend got me heavily addicted to Prefab Sprout…I love adult contemporary, 80s power pop, and I love Virna Lindt. She’s so good. I love New Edition, Cameo, Keith Sweat, and Chuckii Booker. I listen to a lot of different genres, but if I had to box them in, it would be 80s synth/power pop/experimental pop and 60s/70s singer-songwriters like Bridget St John, and Nico. I love Patrice Rushen, Aztec Camera, Swing Out Sister, Style Council…so many bands. And I can’t forget the legends of my love: Cocteau Twins, Duster, and Connan Mockasin.

The reason I think I’m so obsessed with sentimentality is because my dad has over two hundred hours of my childhood filmed. He created a log – he bound a book that has every fucking thing: her first step, her first meal, her second birthday at this park…it’s crazy. It’s a little obsessive, which is probably why I’m a little obsessive too. But those pieces of footage are going to be a huge visual element in the EP.

BW: Besides the EP, what’s coming up for Sedona?

S: We’re going to do a couple of one-off shows in the beginning of 2020, and then in summer or fall of 2020 we’re going to try to hit up a support tour for a bigger band. I think my sweet spot is living on the road and touring constantly. I love playing live so much. I don’t know what I like more – the actual writing of a song, or playing live. They both create this high – the writing is the downer and the performing is the upper. They’re different highs – but I need them both to survive.