Spotlight: With Nothing Left to Prove, The Wren Finds Her Wings
FROM ALL THE WAY FROM PARIS, FRANCE — Kennedy Reed still makes the time to talk with Luna despite the time zone difference between France and LA. Reed tells the story of teen years spent overthinking and feeling too much, and a period of her adulthood in which she felt she was still doing the same.
“I was always kind of in this negative headspace,” she admits. “I was in the trenches emotionally and I was like, ‘Listen, I cannot feel this low — it has to be for a reason. I’m gonna make it be for a reason.’”
She’s certainly made good on this promise. Reed, who records and releases music under the name The Wren, recently put out her debut EP, this is gonna hurt, featuring six self-written indie-folk tracks that evoke long, wind-swept drives through the southwestern canyons of Reed’s childhood. In addition to the EP, Feb. 9 marked the premiere of a live set video in support of the project’s titular track.
As a collection, this is gonna hurt showcases the wide range of stories The Wren is able to tackle in her songwriting, from the feeling of making a decision you know isn’t in your best interest to navigating challenging conversations with struggling friends. With a ’70s Laurel Canyon flair and delicate yet richly textured vocals, The Wren takes listeners by the hand and guides them through what feels like an afternoon of overheard exchanges.
The artist reveals that in addition to the wide range of music she listens to (which extends far beyond the sonic landscape of the music she releases), she also draws inspiration from other art forms, such as cinema.
“I really love [Richard] Linklater and the ‘Before’ trilogy,” she says. “Just because of how naturally the conversations flow between the actors. I find that really fascinating, and I hope my songwriting can carry a conversational quality.”
The Wren’s interest in film and carefully cultivated aesthetics, the attention to which can be seen in all the visuals for the EP, makes sense for an artist who originally started out studying film at the University of Southern California. In fact, it was a student film project she worked on during her USC days that spawned her moniker, a nod to the official bird of her home state, Arizona.
When asked about the decision to use a stage name, Reed describes it as a mechanism for veracity. “When I was getting back into music, I thought, ‘I want my stuff to be really honest,’ and I thought I wasn’t going to be able to do that until I had a stage name,” she shares. “I needed a separation in order to be more myself.”
The Wren describes her music as “confessional” and calls her stage persona “very much” herself in that regard, though she adds with a laugh, “But The Wren is cooler! She has a red Mustang, and I don’t.”
These aesthetic details are all part of what The Wren describes as the project’s “mysterious storytelling,” which is on full display in the live set video for “this is gonna hurt.” The visual features The Wren, a four-piece band, and three backing vocalists, all dressed in muted earth tones and playing in a foliage-filled living room with the iconic Hollywood Hills peeking in through the windows behind them. The staging of the players in the room creates the cozy atmosphere of a friend-filled jam session, even as the musicians retain all the stage presence of a much larger show.
Directed by Madi Boll and featuring the excellent sound design of Ryan Rajagopal, this intimate video manages to get at the heart of the song’s emotional tension: just as a full band might seem somewhat out of place in such a homey space, perhaps the romance being sung about is a mismatch as well. “But I don’t care,” The Wren sings. “I’m diving right in.”
Despite the undertones of heartache in the song, the video radiates with the warmth of art created amongst community. “We had so many questions going into it,” Reed says. “But we decided to just wing it. Part of the fun was just making something with your friends.”
Despite having been out for barely a month, “this is gonna hurt” has already found a home on several editorial Spotify playlists, including Fresh Finds and Fresh Finds Folk.
“I’m just glad people are listening to it,” Reed admits with a nervous laugh. “I’ve wanted to do this since I was 12, so it’s been a long time in the making.”
Reed hopes that her experience making something out of her own pain can be a lesson to others that they can do the same. “You don’t have to feel sad and stay there,” she insists. “You don’t have to feel hopeless and stay there. You have the power to do something.”
