Being in the room where it happens has always been a coveted seat, but for a multitalented storyteller like actress and singer Diana Silvers, being in another room, listening, can be even more valuable.
On her debut folk album, From Another Room, Diana turns that distance into an asset, offering a vulnerability that feels like private overheard whispers or borrowed pages from a locked journal. However, when Diana recognized a certain urgency in what was happening beyond her four walls, she realized that opening the conversation had far more power.
“I wrote [Airplane], and then I was like, I’m too shy to do anything with this because who cares what I think?” Diana explained, in conversation with 1824 and Juice Box Press, of her song and the catalyst for the album.
“And then a month later, a certain person was reelected to run the country. And I was like, you know, this is actually—like, this is f*cked up. Excuse my language, but this is f*cked up,” she continued. “And I was like, enough is enough. And I actually do have something I need to say.”
“Airplane” eventually grew into a thought-provoking 11-track record, written and produced by Diana herself, a role that was new for the actress and model, but felt entirely natural. “I’ve never been an active participant in a studio. Like, I’ve been a spectator. I dated a musician for quite some time, and when I would go into the studio space, I was just kind of like a fly on the wall,” she explained. “When I stepped into the role of, like, oh, now I’m the musician and producer in this room, I was like, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. But it was interesting how quickly something else kind of took over. And then it was like the music itself, and how the music wanted to be and sound, dictated what instruments I would play and how well I could play them, which was really fascinating.”
She also credits her co-writers, Paul Spring and John Nellen. “They also just knew when to let me figure something out too, you know what I mean? And they knew when, like, if I’d hear a line and I’d be like, I’m not going to be as fast at playing this part, so can you please play this part? And I’d just dictate what the part would be with my voice.”
That ability to creatively communicate and problem solve also extended beyond the studio as Diana began creating DIY visuals to accompany songs like “Airplane” and “Burning in the Sun.” “Directing is also a lot of creative problem solving because every time you think you have an idea, you realize you’re like, okay, so I’m not allowed to set fire on the beaches in Long Island. Got it. So now we have to pivot. And I guess I’ll just use this weird spotlight that I got from my mom when she went to an estate sale, and she found this weird spotlight thing.”
But Diana was up for the challenge. Just as she had spent time in the studio, she’d also spent time with storytelling and film as a child. As one of six children, she was known to “go off by [herself] and like invent a whole world and tell a whole story around this world.”
She went on to write her first screenplay at just 13 years old as a way to survive a summer without internet, and eventually made “three very bad short films as an 18-year-old,” while studying at NYU.
She continued to fan that creative flame, which carried her into feature films like Booksmart and, most recently, Netflix’s series The Abandons, a project she worked on before writing the album. “I was doing this production, a huge production, like so many people all around me all the time, which was amazing. But it was also like, I think really overstimulating, and the material of what I was working on was heavy and intense, and all of it just brought up a lot of stuff that I think I was forced to confront when I finally was alone, coming off the job, and had this private time to myself. And that’s sort of what pushed me into going into a studio,” she confided.
Like her experience on set, Diana draws inspiration from the environments she’s in, and the art she consumes, especially her favorite film Almost Famous. “What you consume or like, what you listen to, or what you watch, all those things kind of seep into you… It’s like what you breathe in is what you breathe out, right?,” she said.
Beyond film, Diana often looks to singer Joni Mitchell as a source of that inspiration and motivation, “I talk about her a lot because I just think she’s so smart, she’s so wise, and being the great writer that she is, she always knows what to say.” Diana pointed to an interview with Mitchell, where the singer shared that she’d like her music to be a reflection of the listeners and not herself. For Diana, this is her north star and her hope for her own music. “The last thing I want is people to be thinking about me when they’re listening to these songs,” she said. “Like it’s not about me at this point, it’s about you. And I think for me, you know, if even just one person sees themself in a song, any of these songs, or a song offers healing or, I don’t know, happiness or like anything positive, then it’s successful.”
Diana revealed that she has no plans to end these conversations anytime soon. Inspired by the women in her life, her next record is about the transition from girlhood to womanhood. “It’s a very singular and yet universal thing,” she said, “And it’s something that I feel I haven’t heard in the way I want to be seen and heard in music.”
In the meantime, Diana is eager to bring From Another Room to a room in a city near you. Although nothing has been officially announced, Diana is ready to see her music reflected in real time.
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Featured Photo Credit: David O’Donohue