Phoenix, Arizona-based singer-songwriter Sydney Sprague returns with her new single “Smiley Face”, which is her first new music since releasing her debut album, maybe i will see you at the end of the world, in February 2021. “Smiley Face” arrives with fantastically unhinged visuals, co-directed between Sydney and her guitar player Sebastien, executed via in3D app – watch here.
Speaking on the video, Sydney says “When we first started brainstorming concepts for the video, the idea of a CGI video came up mostly as a joke. My guitar player, Sebastien, is also a director, and turns out he’s really awesome at animation too. He’s based in Seattle but he stayed with us in Phoenix the last few months to work on music videos. He hadn’t really done much animation stuff before, but he started messing around and made the first scene of the video just as an experiment. When the rest of our video team got together to talk about ideas, we showed them the clip and it made us all laugh so hard that we knew that had to be the video. We bought him several costco-size boxes of Celsius and he spent about a month at my kitchen table making the video. There are a couple of live-action moments in the video, which we filmed in my kitchen/backyard mostly on my iPhone.”
She continues “We used an app called ‘in3D’ to make (kind of cursed looking) 3D scans of ourselves and lots of our friends, and Sebastien animated them in blender. My whole band, (Chuck, Sebastien, and Matt) are heavily featured, as well as Andy Park, who produced the song, and my parents. So grateful to everyone who granted us permission to use their likenesses to do pretty much whatever we wanted with.”
“From the beginning I knew I wanted there to be a dance element to the video, so Sebastien, Chuck and I choreographed the dance in the bridge and shot it on green screen. The visual parts of making music can be really stressful for me, so going into the making of this video the most important thing to me was that everyone involved was having a good time. That’s why I really love this video, because every part of it was us going “what’s the dumbest thing that could happen” and doing that.”
The 28-year-old singer/songwriter, now a resident of Phoenix, Arizona, was encouraged by her parents to pursue songwriting early-on. She spent her formative years daydreaming alone in her room (decorated lovingly with Britney Spears and *NSYNC posters) and unknowingly incubating a talent that would ultimately lead to her future music career.
Backed by familiar-yet-surprising hooks and hard-hitting, topical lyrics, Sprague’s songwriting continues to evolve. With eyes on contemporaries like her 90’s idols, notably Avril Lavigne, she flawlessly carries that same fire, creativity, and wit into her 2021 release – maybe i will see you at the end of the world.
Featuring singles “steve”, “quitter” and “object permanence”, the album (released via Rude Records in February 2021) creates a world of Sprague’s own creation: Every detail, down to the apocalyptic artwork, was deliberately painted so that the disparate parts become most vibrant when viewed as a whole. Though not birthed in 2020’s quarantine, the album goes a long way towards helping listeners deal with our new reality.
That’s because Sprague can only be authentic: “maybe i will see you at the end of the world is my bucket list all checked off. It was my life goal to make this album at this studio with these people, and now that it’s done, and in your hands/ears – I can breathe easy. Thank you for listening.”
Making a name for herself in the states, Sydney Sprague has appeared as a live act supporting Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional and Movements to name a few. Her songs and music videos for “quitter”, “object permanence”, “staircase failure” and “steve” have grabbed the attention of places like Kerrang!, DIY, CLASH, NPR, Refinery29, Under The Radar, Atwood Magazine, UPROXX and more who steadily keep Sydney’s songs in their New Music Friday highlights of the week. Sydney Sprague has also been added to Spotify’s top indie playlists such as Fresh Finds and Amazon’s Fresh Indie.