The Daily Gamecock

USC alumna releases inspirational new album

Tonya Tyner to play at White Mule Thursday

A native Kansan and a 1995 graduate of USC, Tonya Tyner, who now resides in Austin, Texas, has moved fairly widely across the United States, living, at times, in Virginia and California as well. It seems somewhat appropriate, then, that the singer-songwriter croons a soft and twangy Americana. Her music is largely dominated by her lyrics and vocals with strong themes of love, heartbreak and God. Though her debut album "Beautiful Light" won't see its nationwide release until Sept. 12, copies will be available at a discounted price of $10 at The White Mule this Thursday, where she will be performing at 7 p.m. The Daily Gamecock spoke with Tyner while she was visiting Columbia for her 20th high school reunion.

The Daily Gamecock: So obviously you're from Columbia. How has that influenced your music, and how did you start making music?

Tonya Tyner: A lot of my strong friends came from this area; your core personality is sort of fleshed out ... through your high school and early college years, and that all happened here. I was really more of a poet in high school. I hadn't really started writing any songs; I was just writing poetry, you know, teen angst ... But I was singing, of course, in chorus all four years, and I learned a lot about tone and as a vocalist learned a lot of skills there. But it was my mother's guitar, and I picked that up at the end of my high school days and had my first gigs here in Columbia [with Dave Britt and former local rock band the Dharma Dogs] at Groucho's Deli, and they had me open up for them.

TDG: What are your biggest inspirations, and in high school, were there any artists who really influenced you, and what about now?

TT: Well honestly, in high school, I was just following the trends; I was big into classic rock then, like Steve Miller. Then I got more into the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin. I think everything you listen to affects [your music], but most of the influence most people hear in my music is more from music I listened to with my family. Running through all that is a common ground, which is the song and the lyrics. I'm a lyrics person; you can probably tell that from listening to my music. I like words, and I want them to mean something, and I want to hear them and discern them from the music, and in that respect everything I listened to shaped that a bit.

TDG: How would you describe your songwriting process then?

TT: Oh, it really just depends on the day. It's almost always very lyrics-driven, though. Like, I'll think of a phrase, and I'll play with it and jot it down. I have a balcony in my apartment in Austin with a big sliding glass door, and I got those wax crayons that you can write on the windows with, and I'll just write down that phrase, and I'll leave it there so I can see it clear across the room. That way it stays on my mind ... It's like writing an article or an essay; you need to have a theme, a main idea. As you start to figure that out, the language and other little snippets. Once I've got enough of an idea, I'll sit down with my guitar, and I'll try to hammer out a melody to go with it. That process is very long and tedious. It's painstaking because you want to get it right.

TDG: Listening to "Beautiful Light," it's pretty clear that religion plays a prominent role in your music. How would you describe that relationship?

TT: Well, I would describe it, as you said, as a relationship. I think people get afraid of the word "religion," and there are a lot of negative connotations. I myself left the church for a good 20 years, and I have a great respect for the body of the church as it was intended, and I'm a very active member of my church now, but it wasn't the church that moved me. It was my relationship with God, which is something that happens through prayer and studying. One day you're sitting there, and you feel the presence of God. Once you experience that, if you have that grace, it's a constant craving of trying to continue to connect. It kind of just creeps into my music; I never really intend to put it in there.

TDG: So I guess it's not entirely purposeful, but are those goals you try to achieve with your music, trying to share that relationship?

TT: In the long run, I'd like to start a conversation with somebody. I would like for people to experience the peace and the forgiveness and the love that I personally experience, but that's my path. I'm not about to force that on somebody else ... but if I can sing a song that touches someone and helps someone remember, "Oh man, I miss that in my life," that gets them thinking about that and praying and exploring that relationship, then that would be totally awesome. I would love to help someone feel and experience what I've experienced. I can only share what I've experienced; it might not be your thing.

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