Sydney Ross Mitchell’s “Cynthia” is Rock N’ Roll (Whether You Get it Or Not) [Q&A]
Photo by Sabra Binder
On a sunny January day in Los Angeles, Sydney Ross Mitchell stopped by to chat about her new EP Cynthia. We sat outside, letting the birds peacefully chirping be the soundtrack to our layered conversation about her first project since 2024. As we talked, I realized Sydney is somewhat of a philosopher. No question has a simple answer and each answer requires a detailed explanation of her process, which is mirrored throughout the songs in various ways. Sydney sees the beauty in life’s fragments. She’s a storyteller who rejects chronology and connects her ideas through a higher frequency, one that can only be communicated in a patchwork of treasured ideas and lush live instrumentation. Whether you dive into our conversation before or after listening to this impressive body of work, either way you will begin to unravel the layers of thoughtfulness contributed to her art.
Giselle: We just closed out the year, how was your 2025? What are you feeling headed into 2026?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: 2025 was all about internal work. Maybe not seeing results, but shedding layers. The year prior felt so crazy, every week was a first and a new, exciting thing. I feel as if I was a slingshot, the years before that I'd been gearing up for something. But I didn't have the structure and the help that I needed to lock in and figure out how to get into my flow. Then in 2025, it was like, Okay, I'm here. I'm with a label. I don't have to waitress anymore. How am I gonna handle all of this? I started making a ton of music with a ton of different people, which is so fun. But you really have to exercise your discernment. What is the music that you really resonate with? What do you want to say? There's a constant struggle to be thoughtful about what you're doing without overthinking to the point that you become paralyzed. 2025 was me figuring that out.
I think the reason the end of the year has been a bit hard for me is because I didn't release as much music in 2025, so I don't have as many metrics to look at at the end of this year. Even though I know that I grew so much as a live performer, I became more confident, I learned a lot about my process of making music and all of that is so important. But, I don't get to look at that and go, “That's a 400% increase!”, you know? So it's been a little bit hard for me to not measure what I’ve accomplished.
Even artists that do get to look at end of year stats, they still may not feel like the metrics look good enough.
That is a thought that I tell myself often, and it can be both comforting and very frightening.
Your lyrics are so specific and detailed, it feels like I’m transported to the moment that inspired the song. Do you think in the moment “I need to write a song about this” or do you tend to reflect on it after the fact?
My internal world is very rich and I love it there, so I like to preserve a bit of a subconscious aspect when I'm writing. I didn't decide what this project was gonna be about, I just started writing. I allow the pattern to appear naturally and then I investigate once I start to see it. When the story in “Cynthia” happened, I just pulled out my phone and wrote it in my notes app. Notoriously, I will write a lyric and hold onto it for as long as I can. There's a rotating barrage of different lyrics in my head at any given time, until I find the right place for it. I can be very precious with lyrics. I never want them to get lost. So, I wrote that down in my notes and knew I’d write about it eventually, but I just never could.
To me, the through line of that song, and the majority of my songs, is not a narrative. The through line is a very specific emotion, or frequency, if you will. Each of those verses is me singing about a situation that all gave me the same feeling. That's why they all went together, not because they chronologically make any sense. Then I just have to hope that people will pick up what I'm putting down. Sometimes someone will be like, “What is this?” And I'm like, “Okay, you don't get it.” But other people get why it goes together.
Honestly, my favorite art is when some people won't get it. If everyone gets it, how deep is it really?
Frankly, I like when some people dislike it. I would rather someone have a reaction to it that is strong in one way or another, rather than just being like, “Eh. It's nice.” For the record, whenever people say “If you're looking for new ‘sad girl’ indie music," it makes me so mad. I think sad is a reductive and boring way to describe it. Within sad, there are 10,000 words that you could use. I think it’s also hopeful, playful, funny. If it truly just made you sad, nobody would listen to it.
The concept of putting “Kisses On Ice” is such a great metaphor. What was the genesis of that concept?
That was another line that I had been saving for a long time. I was really upset over this guy when I was living with my old roommate, Jackson. I was venting to him about the whole situation. He laughed and said, “You know what, Sydney? This life is long.” Insinuating that, you never know what could happen. Maybe you'll get back together. Jackson used to always say interesting things about time. Once when I was stressed about putting out a song, he said “The song's gonna be out for the rest of your life.” I was thinking about how people say life is short, which objectively doesn't really make any sense, because life is not short at all. I guess in the grand scheme of time, life is short, but for each individual, your life is the longest thing you can conceive of. Life is long. How can you say it's not? I was thinking about that and it turned into a hopeful, playful, flirty song. It felt like a way of singing about yearning that feels positive and fun. When I made an original demo in my bedroom, I really liked it, but I sat on it for a really long time. I wanted it to feel kind of rock n' roll. No one ever calls my shit rock n' roll, but it does have a little bit of that in there. And don't say it doesn't!
Maybe we'll be hearing more of that?
That would be sick. This song is a little bit of a foray into it.
So the first thing I noticed in the cover art was the stunning metal Cynthia piece, then I noticed that silver and metal seem to be recurring themes in your visuals for this EP. What does it represent to you?
I've always loved metal in general, and jewelry. All of my jewelry is handed down from my family. I was thinking a bit about a star, because I’m from the Lone Star State. I think about spurs, a cattle trailer…Something about silver reminds me of home. When I was a kid, on my great uncle's ranch there was this scrapyard and there were semi trucks half buried in the ground. We all have a different language, mine is usually very textural. The drum sound in “Cynthia” is actually a metal guitar that Mason (Stoops) had brought to the session. When I was making “Cynthia” specifically, the song was starting to sound really beautiful, and I remember saying, “I don't think this song is supposed to be really beautiful. It needs some ugliness.” The only way I can describe it is a metallic feeling. Like, a bite. I started working with Cole Silberman, who did the EP cover. I think I had a Pinterest board with some sort of metal figurine on it, so he wanted to try to make something. I just showed up to the cover shoot and he had it.
“Queen of Homecoming” hit hard for me, as someone from a small town who moved away. I would love to hear about the process of this song specifically.
I was almost writing from an alter ego's perspective for “Queen of Homecoming.” Long story short, I was reading this essay by Oscar Wilde called “The Decay of Lying”. It’s a satirical conversation between two people talking about how art is not good anymore, because nobody wants to lie. Sometimes we rob things of their reality when we try to make them too true. I was thinking about that a lot at the time that I wrote “Cynthia”, which was why I didn't make it clear that I'm a patron at the strip club. Because I don't have to tell the truth all the time, you know? Some of the most amazing, beautiful folk stories that have transcended time and space are not actually true, but they're still so human.
If it came from someone's mind, it is true. Even if it didn't happen.
Exactly. We tell them, so that makes them human. I was in that headspace when I made “Queen of Homecoming.” I'm not saying that I'm a rock star, but I've been telling people since I was in high school that I was gonna do this and I'm doing what I said I was going to do. So, when I go home and I see people I grew up with, I sometimes expect there to be some sort of acknowledgment. Maybe I want people to be proud of me or to understand that I've done something very difficult. But it's never that way, and they always seem quite unimpressed with me, frankly. I wouldn't say that I necessarily need their validation, but it does feel…I don't know, kind of sad or isolating sometimes. I was writing from that perspective, about an idea that I visited home and I went to a party, and I pissed everybody off. That's when the chorus came through. I sing, “I can't even smoke / I miss my boyfriend.” I don't smoke, and I don't have a boyfriend. But I was just imagining I was that girl. It just kind of came out and I loved it so much, despite the fact that that's not technically reality.
What is the ideal scenario for a first listen of Cynthia?
One of the only ways that I listen to music actually, is driving. I'm not a huge music listener because music can't really be background music for me. I tend to think about it too much. Driving is the perfect environment to listen to something new, so I always recommend driving. But, anytime that you're feeling receptive, whatever that means for you, I would say is best.
This project touches on the past and how it affects your present and future, which I’m sure will resonate with many fans. Is there any art that you love which has helped you grapple with that too?
I love older music, movies, and TV shows because there's something really beautiful and refreshing about realizing that we're still the same even though so much has changed. It can be disheartening when you look at everything that social media has taken from us and how much it's changed us. We can't even talk to each other anymore. But, then you read a book or an essay from somebody 100 years ago, and the language is different but the humanity is exactly the same. It’s comforting to know that we haven't really changed. It reminds me to trust my humanity and trust myself to say what authentically comes to me. I wonder why it's so easy to believe that no one will understand us when we have every reason to believe that they will? If I can read a love letter from somebody written in the 1860s and be like, Oh my gosh, I know. exactly what they mean. Then why should I ever sit here and feel alone in my perspective?
“May The Landing Come Softly” is such a powerful track to end on. What was the songwriting process for it?
I write a lot about my dreams because they're very profound and unsettling. I dreamt that I was in the back of a car going off a cliff. It was all slow motion, so I was floating in the back of the car as things were flying around me. I remember realizing that I didn’t have my seat belt on and I was waiting for the car to hit the ground. I was just hoping that I would survive it. I couldn't sleep that night and started writing about it. It was one of those that just came out. It felt like I didn't really write it. It felt like I transcribed it or something. That was a song I kept to myself for a very long time, because as an artist, when you write something that feels very precious, there's a need to protect what you've made. You have to learn who to show things to when, where, and why, because it feels like an injury when you share something so intimate and they don't understand it. I ended up in a session with John Mark Nelson and we were having a conversation when I realized that he might really relate to it. So I whipped it out and we made it. When I played it for the band, they were like, “We need to take this somewhere.” So, I basically just let them improv. It was a moment that I felt really special to all of us. I try to avoid any pressure to make the song fit an arbitrary structure. You need to just let it be what it needs to be.
How do you choose the tracklist order?
Since I don't approach projects from a chronological perspective, it just comes down to the pacing and how things feel. Sometimes it’ll be obvious. Like with “May The Landing Come Softly”, it had to be last.
What did you learn from making your first EP that you took with you making Cynthia?
After the last EP, I was really big on wanting to play everything with a band. No shade to Pure Bliss Forever, but I think there's something powerful about each individual person showing up with their best intention, adding their own contribution and coming up with things I would have never come up with on my own. I really wanted to have an experience of playing it live with the band with all the players in the room when we made it. And that's exactly what we did. This EP has taught me even more about what I'll do next.
Lastly, who are your OnesToWatch? Who are you listening to that we should be listening to?
Jake Minch, Baby Nova, Eli, Frances Whitney…and Tommy de Bourbon. He's not an artist, he's a pedal steel player, but I just think he's gonna be a legend.
Listen to Cynthia below:
February 6, 2026
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