Syd Sidney

Born in Burlington, Vermont, Syd Sidney might as well have been born backstage at a festival or a music venue.

Growing up surrounded by art, words, music and theater at home, he often accompanied his songwriter and multi-instrumentalist father Don to work, where he’d watch legends like Bonnie Raitt and BB King from sidestage at festivals like Newport Folk and Jazz Fest while Don worked various high-level tour and production management gigs.

It was only natural that when his paternal grandfather’s drum kit landed in his possession as a teenager, it would provide a creative catapult for a young Syd, who quickly made a name for himself playing parties and coffee shops in high school.

The stages only got bigger when he moved to Boston to attend Emerson College and started securing festival gigs at colleges throughout the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, opening for the likes of Taylor Swift and Hanson, sharing festival stages with John Mayer and Jason Mraz, and independently making records that garnered over 500,000 plays on mp3.com.

His solo career began with 2002’s raw apartment recording Week Days, Weak Knees, which featured the enduring single “Here’s a Love Song” and led to extensive touring in the college market.

2004’s sophomore album Fault Lines was a polished acoustic affair which yielded the road ballad “Back Home,” featured in Hart of Dixie and other television shows.

In the winter of 2006, he and his band worked in a converted barn in the depths of a Vermont winter to create 2007’s The Way We Found It, featuring a moody acoustic reworking of the Gregory Douglass song “Sail the Sea.”

After several Syd records and countless miles on the road, his finely tuned knack for guiding his tourmates and collaborators to find their voices began to land him in the producer’s chair more often. In 2009, he produced an acclaimed album for childhood friend Gregory Douglass that features, among others, fellow Vermonters Grace Potter and Anais Mitchell.

A 2011 tour with Mia Dyson led to co-production duties on what Rolling Stone called “her career defining album,” 2012’s ARIA-nominated The Moment, teaming up with Lee Pardini to form a powerhouse band in the studio and on the road.

The Moment debuted at #1 on the AIR Independent Album Charts in Australia, and that same year saw the release of another Sidney co-production, the first of many records by Zac Clark to feature his production, playing and songwriting.

Nearly 10 years since his last solo effort, 2009’s power pop homage Upswing, Syd reunited with his core collaborators to record Easy Magic, which features Zac Clark, Mia Dyson, Sam Smith, Joe Ballaro, Sam Bolle and the engineering and mixing talent of Jason Mariani.

Whether producing and working with Dyson, Clark, or participating in his own projects like Hotels & Highways, Radio Skies or The Pullmen, these records and artists pulled him back to the stage, and ultimately around the world, digging deep into the rhythm of his own life through the core of the songs.
These days, Syd is slowly shifting away from just “I’ve got a new song, come listen” and more toward the practice of releasing music and encouragement / practical advice for artists trying to keep going without getting swallowed by negativity or overwhelm.

He is calling it Survival Arts: creation in the age of the algorithm.

For Syd, this new chapter is a chance to bring together the whole arc: songs, backstories, practical marketing strategies, and the real talk of a 20 year+ career. The work now is about making songs, sharing what he has learned, and helping artists keep going without losing the thread of why they started.

He currently lives in Ojai, CA.