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Sarah Gross didn’t intend to record her latest album. Driving through the Hudson Valley last year with her band, Gross made a pitstop to visit a friend, whose connections to a recording studio meant they’d be able to record just a couple of songs.

Mid-recording, the computer in the studio began experiencing technical difficulties, something that would typically spell the end of a session. Gross’ friend called her boss at the studio who, as an apology for the difficulty, was able to get them in at another nearby studio to continue recording. Because of this, the computer mishap turned into what Gross would describe as “the greatest Christmas miracle in the world.”

They were sent just down the street to Dreamland Recording Studios, an old church-turned-studio that had, over the years, hosted artists like The National, Sufjan Stevens and Regina Spektor. Gross and her band had known they were near Dreamland but also knew they had no way to get in or afford it. Now, they had a recording session there.

Determined not to waste the chance, Gross and her band recorded for 12 hours until about 3 a.m. The accidental marathon recording session would go on to make up the bulk of her newest album, “The Killjoy.” The parts that weren’t recorded at Dreamland were completed later in her bedroom studio on Long Island.

“We were still really fresh in our tour, we had that new tour glow, and we knew the songs really well,” Gross said. “We were excited about them. So we recorded most of the project live. A lot of what you hear on the album is the band playing at the same time, all live together.”

Gross is currently touring New York state with her band on part one of The Killjoy Tour following the album’s Aug. 31 release. The tour takes the folk singer-songwriter through Syracuse, stopping at Funk ‘n Waffles on Thursday, Oct. 12 for a performance with guest Stephen Phillips.

Gross graduated from the sound recording technology program at Syracuse University’s Setnor School of Music in 2022, but prior to SU had never pictured herself as a performer. She’d been looking for a school that allowed her to have a concentration in music so that she could try and get professional vocal lessons or participate in clubs and choirs, but once she was exposed to the campus house show scene, she knew she wanted to perform.

“Once I realized that people were coming to see original music on the weekends and bringing their friends and having a good time, and there were safe spaces to create art, I totally caught the bug. I started a band,” Gross said.

Now, over a year after her graduation, she still has the bug. “The Killjoy” is her second album, following “Songs from the Passenger Seat,” which she released while still at SU. She defines her music using a series of analogies.

“My little joke is ‘if Sheryl Crow had bangs and maybe was queer,’” Gross said. “The more professional term I use is Americana pop, kind of Brandi Carlile meets John Prine meets Kacey Musgraves.”

The album is a collection of songs spanning two years of Gross’ life. Tracks like “Brooklyn (Only Rains)” and “Liar” were written during her last two years of college, while others — “State I’m In” and title track, “Killjoy” — were written the summer following her graduation.

Feeling the uncertainty and rapid change toward the end of college life, compounded with the lack of a clear next step, Gross relied on her music to express and capture her feelings.

“I needed to surrender to that feeling of ‘I’m not really sure where I’m going to go, but I have to trust that it’s all going to work out and it’s all going to fall into place,’” Gross said. “I think every song on that record talks about that feeling in some sort of way.”

Jackson Masters, a 2023 SU graduate, began playing guitar for Gross and her band after becoming friends with her during college. When “The Killjoy” was released, he recalled listening to the record with Gross as she explained what the overall record and what the songs meant to her.

“Every song on that record is very much introspective, and it tells us the story of the current chapter of her life,” Masters said. “She puts a lot of her life into her music, but a lot of her life is making music.”

When Gross first wrote “Killjoy,” the album’s title track, about a month after her college graduation, she wasn’t entirely sure what she’d written it about. It’s something that happens frequently to Gross — she’ll write a song and not understand in the moment where it came from, but look back on it later and realize the emotion or moment that had inspired the lyrics.

At the time, Gross said, she’d been doing a lot of inner child work in therapy, and the song had allowed her to work through her feelings about reflecting on who she was when she was younger and coming to terms with having grown up. The track is her favorite song she’s ever written.

“For me, it’s really a staple of progress and growth that I had on my own journey, personally, separate from music, and I always look back on it and sing it with pride,” Gross said. “Even though it is a very sad song, and it sounds like a defeatist song, it actually is something that reminds me of all of my little victories that I’ve made in the last year.”

During the creation and development of the album, Gross would send voice memos to her friends to share what she was working on and hear their thoughts. Lauren Goodyear, a 2022 SU graduate and occasional vocalist in Gross’ band, remembered getting texts from Gross with songs.

“Sometimes I’m surprised randomly with voice memos, and then I’d wait the whole day to listen to them,” Goodyear said. “Because I’m like, ‘I don’t know what this is gonna do to me,’ so I need to be alone and really soak it in.”

Prior to releasing “The Killjoy,” Gross had been playing shows in parts of New York, doing festivals and opening for other artists. But when she was preparing to drop the album, she knew she wanted to do a tour with her band as a chance to revisit the songs on the record.

Between avoiding the sweat of touring in the summer and her love of upstate New York in the fall, the timing of the tour came together for Gross, who had been planning it for about four or five months.

While on tour, she began posting videos on her TikTok that she calls her “Gig Diaries.” Every show is something new and different for her, so she wanted a way to commemorate the performances and share the experience with fans and people curious about the life of a touring performer. It’s her way to ritualize the process of getting ready and the performance itself, she said.

To Gross, performing is a special thing. As someone who’s a self-described “very socially anxious person” and normally doesn’t do well in big crowds, she finds it ironic that her job is to stand on stage in front of an audience and share personal songs.

Many of her recent shows, though, have been more intimate. Gross said the smaller venues make it feel like she can talk to the audience about the songs and her interpretation of their meaning.

“There’s so much community when you get to perform live,” Gross said. “It’s such an interesting experience because you’ll never get those same people in one room again, ever, and you have to take advantage of that.”

Published on October 11, 2023 at 11:23 pm

Contact Abby: avpresso@syr.edu | @abbyvp08