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PEOPLE caught up with the “Die on a Hill” singer before her Soho Sessions show in N.Y.C. on July 21
NEED TO KNOW
- Sienna Spiro performed for a star-studded audience at her July 21 Soho Sessions concert
- The rising British artist spoke to PEOPLE, opening up about her life after breaking through with her hit “Die on This Hill”
- “I’ve learned a lot through making it, and it’s just changed the way I am,” she says of her album Visitor
Sienna Spiro is stealing the show.
With her retro-soul rasp and ’60s style aesthetic, the English singer-songwriter, 20, has quickly become one of the biggest breakthrough acts of the year. Since dropping her wistful hit “Die on This Hill” last fall, it has shot to the Top 20 — and her sophomore album Visitor, which debuted at No. 9 on the Billboard 200 chart following its July 3 release.
Spiro is currently making the rounds on the festival circuit before kicking off her My House Tour in October. And on July 21, she played for a star-studded crowd as part of the Soho Sessions concert series in N.Y.C., where she helped raise money for North Shore Animal League America.
“It’s super overwhelming, but it’s crazy, and I feel so lucky and so grateful and just insane, to be honest. I don’t even know half the stuff happens when it happens,” Spiro tells PEOPLE. “Yeah, it’s been mad.”
Last fall, the British export cut her teeth opening for Sam Smith during their To Be Free residency in Brooklyn.
“They are one of my idols and such an inspiration,” Spiro says. “Just being here in New York and learning about performing and opening for somebody, I just learned so much watching them do their craft every day and being on the stage here, learning a new skill.”
Since Spiro stepped onto the scene with her sky-high beehive bouffant and raw, candid lyrics, Spiro’s music has been dubbed “sad girl” by some — a label she doesn’t necessarily dispute.
“I mean, I would say my genre is a little bit more like jazz-infused soul,” she says, before adding with a laugh: “The sad? It’s just me. Unfortunately, that is, I’m quite a melancholy person!”
Between her big voice, yearning lyrics and mod fashion, Spiro has earned comparisons to Adele, Amy Winehouse and Lana Del Rey.
“Those three names, they’re the greats, and of course it’s intimidating, if anything, to really be compared to them because no one will ever be them — not me, not the next person, no one; they’re completely individual artists,” she says. “I do want people to see me as my own artist. And do you know what? I understand people need references. That’s just human nature: ‘Oh, that’s like this.’ I do have people take what I’m giving for what it is and see it as its own thing. But of course it’s flattering.”
The nascent star has already charmed a devoted fan base of her own with the release of Visitor.
“The reason why my album is called Visitor — I’ve heard [the word] so many times, but someone said it, and I saw it in a new way and I was like, ‘I’m a visitor.’ Of course we all are, but that is me in life; that’s how I see myself in love and friendship and everywhere. I just explored that whole topic and so many different aspects of it,” Spiro says.
She adds: “It’s kind of all about this theme throughout my life, which is this massive fear of impermanence I’ve had and this kind of overwhelming feeling of being temporary and being very aware of, I guess, my position in certain relationships and how fragile my identity is and how fragile we are as humans and how susceptible to change we are.”
The closing track, “Mono No Aware,” drives home the record’s spirit of ephemerality.
“[It’s] a Japanese phrase or a Japanese philosophy, which means the gentle sadness of knowing everything beautiful is temporary and loving it more because it won’t last. And when I found that, I was so moved by it and so inspired and really reframed the way I was moving about life,” Spiro says. “And I thought it was so beautiful and a perfect end to this album.”
On the fan favorite “Pure,” Spiro lays bare her insecurities — but she hadn’t planned on even releasing it when she first wrote and recorded it.
“I never wrote that for anyone here. That was just a little song for me to be like, ‘This is a moment in time I need to get out,’” says Spiro, who at first was hesitant to be so vulnerable so publicly. “That was the first time I was a bit scared. I was like, ‘Yeah, we can put it on.’ But the ways people have received that is sort of mind-blowing for me. Genuinely, I can’t even believe that that is a song people reacted to. It kind of just shows you that honesty [is what people want].”
Spiro flaunted her formidable pipes as she performed original tracks — as well as a rendition of the standard “Autumn Leaves” — during her Soho Sessions set, where celeb attendees included Katie Holmes and her new man, Summer House star Ciara Miller and actor Ryan Eggold. (The Soho Sessions are an exclusive downtown concert series produced by Greg Williamson and Nicole Rechter and have become a coveted experience in N.Y.C. nightlife over the past two years, thanks to shows by Paul Simon, Kate Hudson, Maren Morris, Keith Richards and more. So far, Williamson and Rechter — who also co-founded the Love Rocks NYC benefit concert — have raised more than $75 million for various charities.)
Like fellow Brit and previous Soho Sessions headliner Olivia Dean before her, Spiro has sparked early Grammy buzz for Visitor, which is expected to snag her a Best New Artist nomination. Accolades and chart positions aside, the rising star is trying to enjoy the breakneck ride.
“I really feel like I’ve come out of it a different person,” she says of the album. “I’ve learned a lot through making it, and it’s just changed the way I am.”
Read the original article on People
