Student musician’s new album ‘FISHBOWL’ inspired by mental health struggles

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Sedona Regan’s journey as a musician started when she was nine years old, with The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Juicy.” Regan sang the chorus during karaoke at her aunt’s wedding. Amazed by her singing, a family friend taught her the major scale right then and there and persuaded her to join choir.

“She was literally the reason that I started making music,” Regan said.

Now as a Syracuse University junior, Regan — who goes by the artist name Sedona — has dropped two albums in her time at SU. Her second album, “FISHBOWL,” drops today, Nov. 8, and the LP reflects her state of mind while creating the project, Regan said. The musician dealt with problems regarding her mental health and at times felt stuck in a fishbowl where she felt isolated from the music scenes around her.

While brainstorming the name of the album with her friends, Sedona said she wanted to have the album centered on water because she believes water represents the unknown.

“What ‘FISHBOWL’ represents for me is that we’re all in our own little fishbowls,” she said. “I’m still trying to reach outside of the glass, like it’s almost like there’s this place outside of the glass that I don’t know.”

“FISHBOWL” is the most energy she’s put into an album to date, Regan said. What started out as an EP with around three songs turned into an LP with 13 tracks as she worked out her unfinished songs. While she initially planned to release the album during the summer, she delayed it to make sure it spoke about her present emotions.

The junior also delayed the album to work on her production just as much as her singing and songwriting. Regan first started producing during her sophomore year, and she spent about a week and a half mixing and mastering “FISHBOWL” from her bedroom.

On a past project, when she wasn’t the main producer, autotune and other artificial elements added to the music presented her voice unauthentically, Regan said. While she’s open to support from her friends, it is important that she has the last word when it comes to the music she makes.

“Not that I’m opposed to help, but I always want to be able to do things by myself,” she said.

Xiaoxian Qu | Design Editor Meghan Hendricks | Asst. Photo Editor

Along with a family friend, Regan said her dad had a huge impact on her, not just musically but creatively as well. As a mostly stay-at-home dad for the first 10 years of Sedona’s life, he had her and her brothers express their creativity through artistic mediums “every day,” like spray painting their backyard walls and painting their shoes, the singer said.

“When you’re a kid, it’s just fun. You’re just doing all this stuff, and you don’t really think about how that’s going to affect your character,” Regan said. “But … I’m so grateful that that was the experience that I had as a kid.”

Madonna Regala, Regan’s mom, said her daughter learned most of what she knows about music, including playing instruments like guitar, on her own. Music is the one area of her life that gives her daughter true joy, Regala said.

Along with brainstorming the name of the album, Regan asked her friend and SU senior Jasmine Rust to help her best represent the emotions she wanted to convey through the album cover. Rust took the photo for the cover of the album, which depicts Regan fully clothed in a bathtub filled with water while she puts her hand against a broken window. The image represents how she feels trapped in her own world as she dealt with anxiety and depression, Regan said.

Rust and Regan met during a meetup for students accepted to SU from the Bay Area. Since then, they’ve bonded over their passion for nature and art. It’s because of the bond they have formed that the two are able to work as a creative unit, the musician said.

“Jasmine’s energy is very down-to-earth. And so, it’s really easy for me to create with her because she’s very in tune with my creativity, and I’m very in tune with her creativity,” Regan said.

One of Regan’s goals for this semester was to play a house show at Syracuse, which she accomplished in October with NONEWFRIENDS. and a kid named rufus.
Meghan Hendricks | Asst. Photo Editor

The two friends had to be strategic about the shots they took of Regan in the bathtub filled with water since they also used the tub as a setting for other photos, Rust said. While it was an experimental process for the both of them, they were both pleased with the results.

Even though the SU senior only recently started getting into photography, Rust said it’s cool to be able to look at the photos she captures.

“It’s very satisfying to capture a moment perfectly and be able to look back on it and see it,” Rust said.

Regan also holds her friendship with Elizabeth Stuart, the lead singer of NONEWFRIENDS., near and dear, she said. The two first met this semester, and Stuart said once she found out Regan made music as well, she knew they had to play a show together.

“We have gotten so close since meeting, and I’m constantly inspired by her,” Stuart said.

After taking off the 2020-21 school year, Regan said performing at a house show near campus was one of her goals since returning to SU. The junior met this goal quickly on Oct. 2, with help from her new friend Stuart, she said. Regan played her first house show — an outdoor, sunset concert on Sumner Avenue — with NONEWFRIENDS. and another student musician, a kid named rufus.

Regan said that while the atmosphere at her first concert at SU initially felt a little weird with everyone staring at her, the audience showed her love after the show.

“The people that came up to me, and the things they had to say about me and my performance, were just so kind and compassionate,” she said. “It was the coolest experience in the world.”

Having grown up on ‘80s and ‘90s hip-hop and R&B, Regan said those two genres have impacted her music the most. R&B has a lot of influence on her voice, and her production style is also heavily influenced by hip-hop.

Even though she described the music on “FISHBOWL” as mostly R&B and rap, the junior said she isn’t afraid of potentially expanding to other genres. When she first started making music, she mostly made pop, but she said she’s open to diving into making different genres of music like rock and EDM.

“At this point in my life, I feel like I’m in no place to limit myself to one genre,” she said. “(My listeners) can expect whatever.”