Sydney Ross Mitchell sits down with Atwood Magazine to talk about womanhood, songwriting, and the beautiful contradictions at the heart of her ‘Cynthia’ EP.
Stream: “Cynthia” – Sydney Ross Mitchell
I’m thrilled by the understanding that I’m free. I’m fascinated by the agency that I possess over my life. I’m also overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices one woman can make, must make, and what the implied sacrifices of our choices are. That’s the emotional place that I’m writing from.
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Sydney Ross Mitchell’s music doesn’t just tell stories – it lives in them.
Raised in a West Texas town on the holy trinity of faith, family, and football, Mitchell learned early how to hold her own in a world that didn’t make space for softness. Now based in Los Angeles, she writes with the sharpness of someone who’s had to fight to be heard and the grace of someone who’s made peace with the fight. Her new EP Cynthia, out February 6 via Disruptor Records, holds both truths at once – a lush, intimate portrait of a woman reckoning with the past while claiming her future.
Across stripped-back ballads and swelling anthems, Mitchell explores the contradictions that define modern womanhood – especially for those raised in deeply religious households. Her work evokes both church pews and smoky bedrooms, pedal steel guitar and whispered confessions. There’s no neat resolution, no polished answers’ just vulnerability, beauty, and a fierce commitment to emotional truth.
Two days back in Texas,
my mother looks me in the eye
She says that marriage and having
babies are the reasons for my life
I find it to forgive her now,
’cause it’s all she’s ever known
So I just kiss her head as she asks me
when I’m finally coming home
And I know I’ll be forgiven someday
Heaven smiles when I call out your name
Still I know there is so much love to make
‘Cause you have such a beautiful face
You have such a beautiful face
– “Cynthia,” Sydney Ross Mitchell
With Cynthia, Mitchell turns memory into myth, asking what happens when the versions of ourselves we tried to outgrow come back home with us. Her lyrics feel like handwritten letters to past selves and silent prayers for future ones, held together by a voice that’s both raw and incandescent.
In this exclusive interview with Atwood Magazine, Mitchell opens up about how songwriting became her safe space, how moving to LA shaped her artistry, and why she’s more interested in asking the hard questions than giving easy answers.
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:: stream/purchase Cynthia here ::
:: connect with Sydney Ross Mitchell here ::
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A CONVERSATION WITH SYDNEY ROSS MITCHELL
Atwood Magazine: Cynthia feels like a deeply personal return home, emotionally and spiritually. What did it feel like to write about your roots from the distance of who you are now?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: I found it to be very cathartic. Where I’m at in my life now has allowed me to look back on my experience with the culture that raised me with more grace than I expected, both for myself and for the people around me. It felt a bit like communicating with my younger self in a way that was very healing.
You’ve spoken about growing up in West Texas surrounded by faith, family, and masculinity. How has that environment shaped the way you write about womanhood today?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: Good question. I suppose it’s hard to say because this perspective is the only one I have. I do know that the culture I was raised in did not present me with many different ways to live a life. Womanhood looked like one thing – and I certainly felt alienated by it. Now I think much of my writing is me actively exploring what it means to me now. I’m thrilled by the understanding that I’m free. I’m fascinated by the agency that I possess over my life. I’m also overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices one woman can make, must make, and what the implied sacrifices of our choices are. That’s the emotional place that I’m writing from.
Your music often lives in the tension between the sacred and the profane – God and desire, guilt and freedom. Do you feel like songwriting is where those contradictions finally get to co-exist?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: Those contradictions co-exist in my life every day, but I’d say songwriting is where I acknowledge them. I write about them because writing about things is, for me, ultimately an attempt to understand, or maybe to make peace with.
There’s such a strong thread of “you’re always seventeen in your hometown” running through Cynthia. Do you think we ever really outgrow the versions of ourselves that formed us?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: Do we outgrow them? Absolutely. Do we transcend them, forget them, become a new or different person entirely? I don’t think we do. I’m glad we don’t.
Many of your songs feel like quiet confessions rather than performances. When you’re writing, are you thinking about the listener, or are you writing purely for yourself first?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: Myself first, yes. And as it happens, I think that serves the listener best as well. It’s important to me that I do not underestimate people’s ability to understand me, or to relate to what I’m saying, however confessional it may feel. And I think people are sick of being pandered to in general. It’s the authenticity that touches people.
Moving from Texas to Los Angeles is such a huge cultural and emotional shift. How did that transition change your relationship with your voice, both artistically and personally?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: Too many ways to count. I’m a big believer that if you want to be a writer, you have to live a life worth writing about, and there’s so much life to live in Los Angeles. I’ve dreamed of moving here since I was a little girl. To this day, the city feels novel to me, exciting and intimidating. There’s a degree of anonymity that comes with moving to a big city – that was new for me. I found it to be incredibly liberating, empowering, to feel like nobody knows you, like you can be born again, like you’re going to choose. Los Angeles gave me that.
People are sick of being pandered to in general. It’s the authenticity that touches people.
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Your storytelling is incredibly cinematic – kitchens, strip clubs, highways, bedrooms. Do you see your songs as scenes from a life, or do they emerge more intuitively?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: Thank you for saying that. Do I see them as scenes from a life? Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t even think of myself as a storyteller, actually. Not that I disagree, but it has never quite resonated. For me, the spine of the song, if you will, is less of a narrative point and more of a particular frequency, if you’re into that kind of language. You know how in dreams you’ll find yourself moving from one room or place to another in a way that does not at all alarm you, despite being completely nonsensical when reflected upon in the morning? That’s what the songs look like in my mind.
Faith appears in your work not as dogma, but as memory, conflict, and longing. How has your relationship with belief evolved as you’ve grown into your independence?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: Very beautifully, I would say. Without going into too much detail, I can say that I feel very at peace with it all, with what I believe. It’s a good feeling.
You write about desire with such softness and honesty, without glamorizing it or apologizing for it. Was that something you had to learn, or did it always feel natural to you?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: I think I began writing about desire out of necessity. Though it might come as a surprise, I was very shy and particularly modest when I was young. I think I was a very self-conscious child. I remember struggling with the fear that most of my thoughts could never be spoken aloud, that I would be trapped with them bouncing around in my head forever. Songwriting became the place where I could put those thoughts, where “artistic liberty” could protect me from scrutiny or judgment. From the beginning, I saw it as a place for the taboo. So, I guess you could say it felt natural, or maybe I’ve just been exercising the muscle for long enough that it eventually became that way. It certainly feels natural now.
There’s a quiet defiance in the way your music holds space for complexity instead of resolution. Do you think you’re more interested in asking questions than answering them?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: Yes.
I remember struggling with the fear that most of my thoughts could never be spoken aloud, that I would be trapped with them bouncing around in my head forever. Songwriting became the place where I could put those thoughts, where “artistic liberty” could protect me from scrutiny or judgment.
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Your lyrics resonate deeply with women navigating faith, sexuality, and selfhood at the same time. What does it mean to you when someone tells you your music made them feel seen?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: I’d say it makes me feel relieved. Like I’ve done one thing right, like I’m not as uniquely tortured as I used to think. That’s a good thing.
Do you think growing up with so many brothers shaped the way you understand power, tenderness, and voice?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: I’m certain that it must have. I know it made me tough, and I know it made me acutely aware of the fact that I wasn’t one of the boys, even if I felt like one. I was different, I was a girl, and that means something in the world we live in. I remember how much this frustrated me, and am still learning how that experience developed my relationship to traits like tenderness, strength, vulnerability, power.
There’s such an intimacy to your delivery; it feels like you’re sitting across a table from the listener. How do you protect that vulnerability while sharing it with the world?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: I guess I try to protect it by being sure of it, whatever it is that I’m saying. When you’re sure of yourself and when you’re proud of the thing you’ve made, any criticisms or misinterpretations from the world roll off the back a little easier. I used to care a lot about being understood, but I’ve learned to appreciate the fact that not everyone is going to get it. And that can be a good thing.
If Cynthia represents one emotional chapter in your life, what do you feel yourself moving toward next?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: I have no idea! I’m very excited to find out, though.
Finally – when a listener presses play on your music for the very first time, what do you hope they feel before they understand anything else?
Sydney Ross Mitchell: I hope it resonates physically somehow, either in the chest or the stomach or the base of the skull or wherever. I hope it feels like a living thing.
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Contradictions co-exist in my life every day, but I’d say songwriting is where I acknowledge them. I write about them because writing about things is, for me, ultimately an attempt to understand, or maybe to make peace with.
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Sydney Ross Mitchell doesn’t just write songs; she creates emotional landscapes where contradiction and clarity can live side by side.
Her music is a mirror held up to the sacred, the strange, the soft, and the strong parts of being a woman navigating desire, identity, and faith in real time. Cynthia is the beginning of something powerful, and yet it already feels like a classic – the kind of project that makes you want to write your own story more honestly. If this is the start of Mitchell’s next chapter, we’re lucky to be witnessing it in real time.
Whatever comes next, it will be worth listening to – closely, quietly, and all the way through.
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:: stream/purchase Cynthia here ::
:: connect with Sydney Ross Mitchell here ::
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