Stereo Jane: Making Exes Jealous and Being Badass
Stereo Jane presents an edgy blend of genres that leaves you wanting more. There are few things more powerful than siblings Sydney and Mia finding the same creative spark within themselves and working together to build something impactful. With Sydney at the helm belting out her powerfully soulful vocals and guitar and Mia driving the heartbeat of every song on the drums, the group exemplifies what it is to be a young, real band with a resonating sound.
Back in February, Sydney and Mia stopped by the Radio Free Brooklyn studio to talk about their latest single, Strangers. Read an excerpt from our conversation below, or scroll down to listen to the full interview!
PR: So you grew up in Detroit and then moved to LA. Did that change your sound at all when you moved to LA?
Sydney: Oh, definitely
Mia: For sure, we were working with only pop writers so it was different coming from a very motown rock type of feel. These writers were like… oh my god, we need to pop you guys up a little bit
Sydney: We went through the label situation where they were constantly trying to find our sound and it was always changing. It was always too pop, or too rock, too alternative, or not alternative enough. We went through so many different phases.
Mia: Now it’s just perfectly in the middle!
PR: I saw videos of you guys live, and it’s a rock show!
Mia: I feel like people see two girls, and we’re like no… we’ll rock your faces off!
PR: What kind of music did you guys listen to growing up? I know you mentioned motown, which was unexpected!
Mia: Yeah, I think being from Detroit it was a lot of Aretha Franklin
Sydney: Aretha Franklin was one of my idols growing up, and also Chris Cornell was a singer I looked up to. We basically listened to anything our dad listened to, plus Sheryl Crow, which was the only thing our mom listened to.
Mia: Her one thing turned into our one thing because her car got the CD jammed so literally for three years it was either the radio or Sheryl Crow.
PR: I wanna talk about Strangers, because this song is so good! What was the songwriting process like for this song?
Sydney: So this was a week after my ex had broken up with me, and I went through a terrible breakup where I was crying every single day, I was depressed, I was sad. I came into the studio and this was the first session after that had happened. I told them I’m kind of in this mood where I want to make him jealous. I want him to hurt the way that he hurt me. What’s the best way to do that? I want him to see me at a bar, see me talking to a stranger and for him to be jealous.
Mia: You’ll see it in the music video with the comedy aspect seeing the strangers be all so different.
PR: I want to talk about Holy Hell, that’s super soulful rock. Can you tell me about that song?
Sydney: We wrote that one during a night session when we were still signed to the label. I think it was a 10pm-3am session and we were all very delirious. I went into the booth, sang so many melodies, listened back, picked out the melodies and laid the lyrics over it. At the time, we didn’t really know what we were singing about. A couple weeks later, we were like oh this is the struggle with the label.
Mia: We could also relate it to a lot of things going on with our lives.
PR: Also, that video… was that fun to make?!
Sydney: Oh that was amazing! I actually really hurt my foot though and at the time didn’t realize, I think because of the adrenaline or something. I got home and put weight on my ankle and was like oh no… that doesn’t feel right. I kicked a drum I think.
Mia: I did not expect things to be flying everywhere! I was like, we need some goggles. Just breaking instruments.
Sydney: We built a wall and broke it.
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Check out our full interview below!