Recognized for her talents as a singer-songwriter, music industry legends like award-winning producers Barry Fasman and Dana Walden, Sicily Jordan is a rising hitmaker. Her debut album includes a giant pop-disco record that is a sure hit, a heart-wrenching ballad, and a love song that epitomizes California Dreams. Along with these three originals, Sicily wraps your musical journey with a psychedelic, electro-infused cover of Jefferson Airplanes’, White Rabbit. Sicily‘s newest single “Queen” embraces the feminine nature inclusive of anyone and everyone who identifies with its message. It’s an anthem of empowerment that’s aggressively fierce, unabashed, and sexy. Recorded in LA with production duo Chapters, Queen is a cinematic blend of influences that complement each other perfectly and is now available on all streaming platforms! I had the pleasure of interviewing Sicily Jordan, who is hitting the pop scene strong in 2023!
- What inspired you to pursue a career in music?
Music has always been an important part of my life, and I’ve been writing songs for a really long time. In 2020, like many others, I had the pause moment to reflect on what I cared about and how I wanted to spend my life. I finally decided that I couldn’t just keep all these songs to myself, because they really deserved to connect to their audience. There are definitely a lot of hurdles to overcome to move from music as a hobby to music as a career, but ultimately I think the investment is worth it if my music can provide something important or special to someone in their life.
- What message do you hope to convey with “Queen”?
Queen is one I really care about because of the message. I wrote it because I wanted a song that would convey the power and glamour of the feminine nature and that could empower anyone who identifies with it. There are so many positive ways in today’s society where we’re flipping the hierarchy. I want Queen to be part of that discourse. As the lyrics say “I don’t need a knight in armor, I can do better”.
- What genre of music do you specialize in?
As a songwriter, I write songs across different genres, but as a singer, my heart is really in pop music. More specifically, my producers, Chapters, have helped me identify cinematic pop as my genre, and I am here for it.
- How do you hope “Queen” will connect with and impact your audience?
I really just want people to feel empowered and embrace being the star of their own story. Someone described Queen as giving “major main character vibes”, and honestly, I think that’s exactly what I want it to do. It’s important to me that this song belongs to anyone who identifies with its message. There are so many people who might be scared or hesitant to acknowledge their power because of what they’ve been told by society or the definitions they’ve been limited to, but Queen is their call to seize that power and be the queen.
- How do you approach performing live?
Still working on this one! I have pretty severe performance anxiety, so performing live is intimidating to me even as a thought, let alone actually doing it. But what has really helped is knowing that I’m not defined by any one performance and trusting that people listening aren’t rooting for me to fail.
- How do you handle the balance between artistic expression and commercial success in your music?
This might be naive, but it feels like the distance between artistic expression and commercial success has significantly decreased to the point where it’s not a tradeoff artists have to consider as much. It seems that the question now is more about discovering who you are as an artist and finding the audience that resonates with you and your music. That’s how I would define success for my music at least.
- What do you believe sets your music apart from others in your genre?
The lyrics I write. I’m obsessed with words and how much power lies simply in word choice. Because of that, there are so many layers of meaning in each song I write that I hope gives people the opportunity to experience the song in a new way again and again.
- Can you talk about a particularly memorable performance you’ve given?
Hopefully in the future, I’ll have many memorable performances! But one that I can think of is actually someone’s response after the performance. A person I had never met came up and told me he cried while listening to the song because the words meant so much to him. That’s what I think is so magical about the relationship between the artist and the audience. The artist creates a song that is a reflection of themself, and then a listener discovers something of themself in that same song. The song becomes a shared experience, and it’s nothing short of magical.
- What advice would you give to aspiring musicians?
Something producer Justin Tinucci said to me recently is “do it for you first”. It’s simple and maybe deceptively obvious, but in an industry where so much is outside of our control, the one thing we can control as artists is how we define success. If our first goal is to write a song, perform, or even post on social media for ourselves, we are successful simply in the action of doing it.
- How do you approach incorporating different musical styles or influences into your work?
This is something that for me is inherently tied to serving the song. When I write or am working on defining the mix, each song has a specific voice, and it feels like my job is just to uncover that voice. In a way, it’s like the song is already written, lyrics, melody, style, everything, and I’m the one who gets to discover it. It is the most exciting and rewarding experience I know.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
YOUTUBE LINKS
Link 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pX0nonDHyA