Interview by Carol Wright| Photographer: Maya Fuhr
We got to chat with singer/songwriter Zoe Sky Jordan about her upcoming album Selfish, collaborating with her husband, and writing about her experiences as a woman in the industry.
Growing up, were you often soaking up knowledge about music-making from your parents?
Yes! My mom was in a play called Blood Brothers when I was 6, and I went to almost every single matinee. That definitely sparked my love of music and performance.
Although your parents are both in the music industry, that doesn’t automatically mean you would end up in the same boat. When did you discover your personal passion for singing and writing songs?
I started writing when I was 16 but didn’t really share it with anyone. I felt like it was a lot of pressure to follow in their footsteps, so I think I was actually a little later to the game than I would have been if it had just been “my thing” as a teenager. I was always trying to push against it.
Do you write poetry, short stories, or other observances to continue strengthening your songwriting muscle?
I keep a diary and write notes all day about words I like or things that are funny, or patterns I’m noticing in the culture. I’ve done some scriptwriting, and I write poetry too.
Tell our readers about your upcoming album Selflish. What themes and larger ideas are you tackling in this project?
Selfish is all about taking back ownership of your time and choosing to like your life before it looks perfect. It’s an anti-capitalist sentiment. I’m so tired of all the dinner-having and gift-giving that adult relationships center around. If you stop living for everyone else and saying no to things that don’t align with your values, you might be branded as selfish, and I’m ok with that. I hope people listening to Selfish feel greater permission to do whatever makes them like themselves.
Your song “Just Fine” has some biting and clever lines such as “It’s gotta be easier / To stand on her shoulders / Than to sit on his lap / They say sitting’s the new smoking / So there’s that.” When it came to writing this track, did you pull from your own experiences as a woman in the industry?
Definitely. When I was new to Nashville, and I was just getting to know the scene, in writing sessions, people would ask about who my influences were, who I’d worked with before, people I knew, etc. In those conversations, the success of female artists, many who were or became my friends, were usually qualified by some statement about where they get their money, if they’re easy to work with or “can actually play,” who they’re in relationships with or who used to be. Those conversations just weren’t happening about the men I worked with, even though men are a greater percentage of the people in studios. After making my last record, Topiary, with a well-known producer, I started to get really paranoid that people were talking about me, what I was like, how I afforded it, and it was really crushing. There are a few songs on Selfish about professional anxiety, like “Misery,” “Why,” and “Crazy too,” to some extent as well.
In “Achievement of Youth,” you tackle how things such as youth and beauty eventually fade. Was writing a song with these themes correlated to you living back home for a few months?
Definitely. COVID made time stop, and that made me realize how obsessed with time I was. I was worried I wasn’t going to get the same opportunities once I turned 30, and from the moment I turned 23, I started panicking. It was so dumb. Happy to say I’m 32, and no one has noticed or cared.
Your husband, Liam Russell, produced “Just Fine” and “Achievement of Youth.” What is your collaborative process like after working on multiple projects together?
Liam produced the whole album. He has been a singer-songwriter for most of his career, so he is immensely sensitive to the song and always makes sure the production supports it. It’s hard working with someone you’re married to, it can be a lot, but we also have a very easy creative short-hand. For songs like “Selfish” and “Cooler Than I Am,” I barely had fleshed them out, and he totally got the vision from these sparse little voice memos. He is a very gifted listener and maybe a little psychic. He’s also a multi-instrumentalist and did a great job leading the band in the studio.
What advice do you have for aspiring singers?
Don’t be afraid to be out of fashion for a little while. If you like it, someone else will like it, and eventually, the trend will lap itself.