Sparkbird is the project of non-binary queer singer-songwriter Stephan Nance. Their music has been featured by the National Audubon Society, Birding Magazine, Homoground, and Rock the Pigeon. Their song “Metropolis of Eden” won 2nd place in Yishan Wong’s 2021 Solarpunk Art Contest. Stephan is a 2021 Lambda Literary Fellow. In 2021, Sparkbird released their apocalyptic debut single “Minor Holiday,” featuring musicians Mathias Kunzli (Regina Spektor), Yoed Nir (Regina Spektor, Rufous Wainwright), Jeni Magana (Mitski), Lisa Parrott (Dave Brubeck), and Greta Gertler (The Universal Thump). The song came into being as the 2020 bushfires in Australia were nearing containment, but the threat of COVID-19 was suddenly looming. It captures the growing numbness of a bystander to a series of global catastrophes.
By Kamil Bobin
Discovered via Musosoup
Kamil) Hey Sparkbird, super nice to have the chance to chat with you. What first got you into music?
That’s a big question! I’ve been making up songs for almost as long as I can remember. I started taking piano lessons when I was around 6 years old. Music has a kind of inevitability in my life. No matter what other projects I take on, music has a way of rising to the top of my priorities.
What jobs have you done other than being an artist?
The most interesting job was as a seasonal bike delivery courier for UPS. Every morning I showed up at this storage pod and it would be full of packages, which felt a little magical. I liked the physical activity, and working alone but having brief encounters with people who became familiar over time. Also the structure of it, following the same routes every day, combined with the novelty of the changing packages and getting to peek into the lives of strangers.
Your latest song is 'Silent Film'. Can you tell us more about the making of it and if there were any unusual things happening during the process?
My partner Adam and I had an African gray parrot who died very unexpectedly a few years ago. We were completely shocked and grief-stricken, but after a couple days Adam had to go back into work. Without him there, I was struck by the unbearable silence in our home. I tried to distract myself from it, but in the end all I could do was sit down and write this song.
The vocals were difficult to record, not so much emotionally as in terms of technical difficulties and files getting corrupted. I needed to retrack them, but I got COVID, which messed up my lungs and my voice and led to my needing to go through a round of steroids. It became this Sisyphean task. I’m still kind of astonished I ever got the song done.
What do you dislike about the art world?
I’ll start by saying something I love: my writing community. My writer friends show up for each other, celebrate each other’s wins, commiserate, cheerlead, amplify, share opportunities. I’ve never known anything like that in the music community. Among singer-songwriters it feels like there’s more of a scarcity mindset, like there isn’t enough pie to go around and we’re all fighting each other for it.
Describe a real-life situation that inspired you?
Most of my songs are inspired by whatever is going on in my head that I need to process. My next single, “Disembodied Mind,” comes out on April 3rd, and it deals with feelings of body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria. I kept wishing I could be just a mind and a voice without a physical form, and my therapist suggested I write a song about it. I haven’t completely made peace with those feelings, but I love the song so much that I do feel a sense of gratitude for the thoughts that led to my writing it.
What accomplishments do you see yourself achieving in the next five to 10 years?
Oh wow, that’s so far out! This year I’m hoping to wrap up my next album and another music video, and start querying agents for my young adult novel. Pre-pandemic I did a lot of touring, and it would be nice to get back to that at some point. Hopefully my fourth Japan tour can happen in 2024, and another tour of Europe. Ten years, though — who knows!
What’s your scariest experience?
I don’t want to go too dark, so I’ll share one of my most overwhelming tour stories. I was playing a show at a venue in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and a drunk guy came up right in the middle of a song and demanded to know whether I played blues. Before I could stammer out a response, he pushed me off the piano bench and knocked over the microphone stand in the process, then sat down and started playing “Let It Be”. Another guy came up to push that guy away, and it started escalating into a fight. The manager came and broke it up, then immediately told me, “Go back and play.” I was like, “Um, is it safe to?!”
How would you describe the music that you typically create?
I describe my music as poetic piano pop. It could be called chamber pop or baroque pop, or even folk-pop. A big theme in my work is the intersection of the human experience and nature.
Have you ever taught or mentored another musician?
I do teach a number of piano students, and on tour I’ve done high school visits where I perform for classrooms and answer questions about songwriting, music business, and being a queer artist.
Is the artistic life lonely? What do you do to counteract it?
It can be lonely. I find the musician side of things much lonelier than the writing side. I have Zoom meetups with my writing friends once or twice a month, and those do me a lot of good. One thing that has helped on the music side has been getting back into piano and voice lessons. I love getting to connect with professional musicians in a structured way like that, where it’s built into my schedule. I’m an introvert, and I really crave big stretches of uninterrupted alone time where I can create, read, exercise, get outside, and go birding.