INTERVIEW: Azure Ryder on new EP 'Crazy With The Light': "I want people to feel a journey, not only within the EP, but within the song, within the video - it's all very important to me."

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Australia’s Azure Ryder was born into a large Australian-Lebanese family just outside of Sydney and grew up surrounded by the music of Elvis Presley, Dusty Springfield and Sam Cooke. Despite always feeling a pull to music, she found herself stuck in a retail job before realising she needed to push herself out of her comfort zone if her dreams of a career in music were to come true. After travelling to the USA to study at Berklee College of Music she returned to Australia, where after being tagged by her friend in an Instagram story as ‘a singer with the most beautiful voice” she found herself with a manager and a record deal.

Her debut EP Running With The Wolves was released this March and at the end of November she released her second EP of 2020, Crazy With The Light. The four tracks showcase what is becoming her signature sound, a beautifully warm soul-guitar-pop vibe full of heart and depth with all-consuming melodies and Azure’s gorgeous bluesy emotive voice which connects directly with your soul.

With praise from outlets such as the BBC and Triple J, and more than 11 million streams to her name already, Azure Ryder is primed to be one of the artists to watch next year as she takes on the world. We recently caught up with Azure to find out more.

Azure, so lovely to chat with you today, how are things with you?
I'm very well. Lots of exciting things happening right now. So just taking it as it is coming.

You have a new EP Crazy With The Light just months after your debut Running With The Wolves. How does it feel to have your second body of work out into the ears and the hearts across the world?
It just feels quite magical really. I think especially this being the first year I've put anything out and being lucky enough to release two EPs, two chapters really of my stories has just been really incredible. I've been quite mind blown by the support I've been given so far so early on. The connection is the most important thing about this and to see all these people connecting in the way that they have has just incredible.

I'm so glad you described it as chapters of work. In a world of streaming and downloading and accessibility to music, do you feel a body of work such as an EP or an album, has become much more personal to the artist, as opposed to going for hit after hit? Do you think it's now very much something for you?
Yeah, I like to hope that it is still something for the people that choose to listen as well. I was actually having this talk about bodies of work with my manager in London last night, and how important I still feel it is to have those bodies of work, to have those journeys shown within music. In a world at the moment where people generally  struggle to have as much patience, everything comes so quickly. But I think especially in this year, where things have been forced to slow down, and people have been forced to sit, it's also allowed people to listen. And I feel really grateful that I'm able to put out this work in the way I've put it out. I wouldn't be doing it in any other way because, as I said, there's a journey in literally everything. I want people to feel a journey, not only within an EP, but within the song, within the video. It's all very important to me that people see that beginning, middle and end, because everything is a beginning, a middle and an end.

Absolutely. I agree with you. I wanted to talk to you about your latest single ‘Stronger’, which is just all piano and oxygen and soul. First of all, where did this one come from?
I actually wrote it middle of last year, it's actually the first half to ‘Oh What a Relief’, which is the song that came after it. It's about the same situation. It goes through that process and that journey from part one being ‘Stronger’ and part two being ‘Oh What a Relief’. ‘Stronger’ was me in the more beginning, middle stages of how I felt in that emotion in that situation. And then ‘Oh What a Relief’ was that resolve and that ending and for me, I wrote it about a certain situation, but it's definitely a thing that I feel relates to a lot of situations not only in my life but other people's life. Whether it's about a past relationship, a past friendship, just any interaction really of that thing of people not seeing you for the strength that you are and feeling that you need them. Or they make you feel that you need them to be your complete self or to be able to stand in the darkness by yourself without their light as such. So, that was really me delving into that emotion and literally and metaphorically untangling myself from it - if you’ve seen the video.

I was gonna say, you've actually made me completely abandon a Christmas tree this year and I'm just gonna wrap my family in lights.Why have we not done that before?!
It would make us all a whole lot happier!

Lyrically, its beauty comes in simplicity and it's so chant worthy. It is this kind of mantra that centres you. I love that line. ‘Don't feel cold, since I gave you up / Thanks to you, now I've got thicker blood’. Do you usually pull the prose from your mind first and then put them to music? Or does it start with a beat a hum, and then do the lyrics just follow?
At this point in my writing every single time is a different situation. I have always been a writer from since I was very little and I always would see words in melodies. The lyrics, just like the voice, I think are the most important part of the song because that's what's telling you the story. I'm very fascinated by words and the beauty of them, and how there are so many ways to express a certain emotion. We don't communicate and use words enough and so I hope that my music makes people want to use words, makes people want to talk and express themselves and understand those feelings and seeing that those feelings not only have different ways of saying them, they all have different ways of expressing them. I'm just very happy that I can do that.

You are a musical champion with one hell of a discovery story. How did your music get from your mind to your throat and out onto our collective radar?
Well, I definitely knew, I knew from a very young age that I was going to be a musician. My parents put me in my primary school church choir when I was about five. There wasn't anyone specifically musical in my family but there was definitely no lack of music in my house, I was definitely surrounded by it all the time. So going into this primary school church choir, it was the first time of me really finding my voice, hearing it and realising what it could do for my heart and what it could do for everyone else's hearts. I knew that that feeling that I felt then was a feeling that I didn't ever want to not feel anymore. I knew that I had to be a musician from that point really or express myself in that way. From that point to then, my discovery story of my manager finding me at Blues Fest in Byron Bay from an Instagram story which still baffles me, but at the same time, it feels very of this world now.From that point, music's always been the most important part of me, and despite this sort of roller coaster way of getting there, it was never not going to be what I was going to do. It just happened in the time it was meant to. I know that for sure now. I know that I needed to experience all the things I did from the age of five to 22 when my manager found me, because before that point, I know I wouldn't have been ready because I needed to go through the things I went through to that point to be ready for you to hear me how you hear me now.

And you've got such gravity to your voice already, I'm almost terrified to hear what it sounds like in another 20 years’ time. And lastly, you've got gigs coming up at Oxford Arts Factory, which is incredible. Your sound with the social distancing, cabaret style gigs is going to go insane and the audience are going to get such a kick out of it. What are you looking forward to the most?
Oh my gosh. I say this all the time, but the live part of being an artist is so important because it is really where that connection that was made through someone hearing your song on a streaming service or on the radio… they finally get to be in that room with you and you get to be in that room with them. What you're feeling and what they're feeling is seen by each other and I really believe that there's no other experience, no other place, where we can be in that space where there's that collective high or collective energy where people are open and free to feel what they want to feel. I'm just excited to see people. Whether it's one, two or 1,000 people. Any person that I get to make this face to face connection with I am so grateful for. I just hope that anyone that comes into the Oxford Arts Factory can step into this world that I can hopefully create for them and they can feel everything that they want to feel.

‘Crazy With The Light’ is out now via Universal Music. You can download and stream here.

To keep up with all things Azure Ryder you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Azure Ryder is performing at Oxford Arts Factory in December.

Wednesday, December 2nd - Tickets here
Thursday, December 3rd SOLD OUT