Serena Ryder
| Serena Ryder | |
|---|---|
Ryder performing at Bowery Ballroom in May 2013.
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| Background information | |
| Born |
December 8, 1982 Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Origin |
Peterborough, Ontario Canada |
| Genres | Folk rock, indie rock |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, songwriter |
| Instruments | Vocals, guitar, harmonica |
| Years active | 1999–present |
| Labels | Universal Music Canada, Mime Radio, Isadora, Atlantic, EMI, ABC Music |
| Website | serenaryder |
Serena Ryder (born December 8, 1982) is a Canadian musician. Born in Toronto, she grew up in Millbrook, Ontario. Ryder first gained national recognition with her ballad "Weak in the Knees" in 2007. An accomplished songwriter and musician, she also possesses a three-octave vocal range and is considered a mezzo-soprano. Her timbre has been described as slightly nasal with a raspy lower register.
Ryder was born on December 8, 1982, and she is the daughter of Barbara Ryder and her second husband Andrew McKibbon. Ryder was raised just outside Peterborough in Millbrook, Ontario, grew up listening to old Beatles and Leonard Cohen records that she found in her parents' collection. She was the only child in her family. At age seven, Ryder would sing at Legion halls and motor hotels. Having received a guitar from her stepfather, she began playing the instrument at the age of thirteen. Songwriting efforts followed. At fifteen, Ryder was playing old classic and folk tunes with her piano teacher in coffee houses and legion halls.
Ryder has stated "I'd been writing a lot since I was maybe eleven years old. I wasn't doing diary entries; I needed to express something a little deeper than that, which I couldn't express in conversation. And I'd been singing since I was a little kid, doing cover songs at gigs. But when I got my guitar, a whole other world opened up to me. I realized I could put the poetry I was writing to song and bring two very separate things together."
At age seventeen, Ryder left her home to go to Peterborough, Ontario and settled into a community of artists. Within a year, while working at a Cajun restaurant, attending the Integrated Arts Program at the Peterborough Collegiate and Vocational Institute, Ryder played solo and shared the stage with bands from the Peterborough area including Thousand Foot Krutch and Three Days Grace.
In early 1998 she was approached by Damon de Szegheo, owner of the Peterborough Ontario-based independent record label and recording studio, Mime Radio, about doing some recording. de Szegheo had noticed her while she sang during a set change for a local on-stage production of Gone With The Wind. The resulting product of their sessions was a self-titled promotional cassette named Serena (limited to a run of 100) and her first full-length CD titled Falling Out, released in December 1999.
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