Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Eleri Ward is ready to release an album. It's titled Internal Rituals. It's the Chicago-raised, New York-based artist's first full length project of original songs. Some of you might remember Eleri's last few releases have featured acoustic covers of Sondheim's music. On her new album, you'll hear a bit of everything from pop to jazz. It covers karma, gratitude, self love, confidence, and even astrology. With me now is Eleri Ward, here for a special live performance and to talk about the new called Internal Rituals, which is out September 26th. Eleri, welcome to All Of It.

Eleri Ward: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really, really happy to be here.

Alison Stewart: You said on your Instagram each of these 12 tracks are rituals.

Eleri Ward: Yes.

Alison Stewart: How did rituals help you discover your voice as an artist?

Eleri Ward: I think the biggest way I can explain it is the internal aspect of it, the fact that songwriting and music and introspection for me happen in this very private space. Songwriting helps me really access the breadth of what I'm experiencing and what I'm ultimately feeling and what the outcome is, my own growth, essentially. To me, that process is the ritual. I think it's a really spiritual thing to process your life through song, and that's what this album really encapsulates.

Alison Stewart: The first song you're going to perform is called Stepping Through. What is it about?

Eleri Ward: It's the first track on the album, so it definitely sets the tone of walking into a portal, a portal of, "I feel I am becoming a new version of myself, and I have no idea where this is going to lead me. I have no idea who is on the other side, but here we go."

Alison Stewart: Here's Eleri Ward.

[music - Eleri Ward: Stepping Through]

Eleri Ward: Now I'm stepping through the bend

Trying to catch myself I lean to the left again

But maybe this is where I fall, Gravity's the only thing that gets me at all

I'm scared of my fragility

If I hit the ground what will become of me?

All the broken pieces put together

Making something unfamiliar

Am I really who I thought that I would be?

Now I'm stepping through myself

Or was it really me or just a concept for someone else?

Now I'm on the other side

All the expectations broken from me crossing the line

It's not about approval, no

Not taking any questions either

Something that you're losing 'cause

That something died

Am I really who you thought that I would be?

Now I'm stepping through the bend

Now I'm stepping through the day

Now I'm stepping through myself

Now I'm stepping through

Alison Stewart: That was Eleri Ward singing Stepping Through. That was gorgeous, by the way.

Eleri Ward: Thank you so much.

Alison Stewart: So is your guitar.

Eleri Ward: Thank you. She's one of my prized possessions. I love this guitar so much.

Alison Stewart: Do you remember where you were when you got it? It's gorgeous.

Eleri Ward: Yes. I was at the Midtown Guitar Center. I actually didn't even plan on buying it that day. I just went to check it out because I was looking at stuff online, and I wanted to play things before I purchased, and it's a big purchase. I just knew, I was sitting in that room playing it, I had to buy it, and I'm glad I did.

Alison Stewart: When you were writing your songs for your new record, what was something that you discovered about writing songs? Initially, people came to know you because of your Stephen Sondheim covers, but what is something valuable about songwriting that you learned writing this record?

Eleri Ward: I think the most valuable thing I learned about songwriting through the process of this album, really, was that it can be whatever you want it to be. You are the orchestrator and the creator, and the song will tell you what it wants to be. You don't have to place this idea of what it should be or should sound like or what a song structure is. A lot of the structures of these songs are a little strange. I don't even know what the structure of that song that I just played really is. In that way, I let it be less about thinking, more about feeling. The songs spoke to me, and then I was just the vessel. I was just the messenger.

Alison Stewart: A lot of people talk about songwriting as storytelling. Are you in that category?

Eleri Ward: 1,000%, yes.

Alison Stewart: What stories did you want to tell on this album?

Eleri Ward: Majorly a story of self transformation and how nonlinear that experience is. I think when you are entering a new version of becoming and who you are, you see the world around you differently, you interact with your own memories differently, with past versions of yourself differently, other people's behavior in a new way. A lot of the storytelling in this album is just a lot of curiosity and discovery.

Alison Stewart: That's interesting because it reminds me of this quote that you brought up, saying that your Sondheim era of your life brought a lot of transition, but also internal upheaval. What was going on?

Eleri Ward: Well, when you have a certain level of success being the vessel for someone else's work, and you are an interpreter, and then you go through this great schism in your own life to jump across that gap into interpreting your own stories, there are growing pains there. Also, I really used the acoustic indie folk dressing of the acoustic Sondheim work as a filter or a means to interpret that music. I really write ethereal pop music, which is very different than that. Instead of using a genre to tell a story, I'm living in the genre of my home base to tell my own story, and there comes a little bit of a transitional, "What is that?" period.

Alison Stewart: My guest is actor and singer songwriter Eleri Ward. Her new album is titled Internal Rituals. She's here to give us a preview and to perform live. Let's hear another song. This one is Someone, Something New. Tell us a little bit about it.

Eleri Ward: Well, speaking of interacting with your own life and memories a little differently when you become a different version of yourself, this is very much that experience. In a very base way, it's about my daddy issues, but it's for anyone who is recalibrating and changing their relationship with their past.

Alison Stewart: Here's Eleri Ward.

[music - Eleri Ward: Someone, Something New]

Eleri Ward: In the present I'm not thinking

"What about that Christmas morning?"

Little girl now left behind me

Or not?

Here I am, a woman crying

Wondering why I am not moving

He's the reason, he's the ending

He walked

But no it was you

It is always always you

I try to forget

Oh but then you're back in someone, something new

If you were erased completely

I don't think I'd have these feelings

I would be unshaken and free

From you

Playing out these roles to solve things

It's so subconscious, you surprise me

Showing up in my other scenes

I miss my cue

To see it was you

It is always always you

I try to forget

Oh but then you're back in someone, something new

I thought I had it all figured out

I thought I let all the memories drown

But deep in the water, way way down

I tried not to notice but I hear that sound

He calls my name but he has your voice

He calls my name but I hear your voice

He calls my name but I know your voice

He calls my name but I know it's your voice

I know it was you

It is always always you

I try to forget

Oh but then you're back in someone, something

Knew it was you

It is always always you

But I will forget

Oh and then you won't be back again

It's true

It's true

It's true

In the present I'm not thinking

Alison Stewart: That's Eleri Ward. Her new album is Internal Rituals. You're an actor-

Eleri Ward: I am.

Alison Stewart: -as well. You starred as Jordan Baker in Florence Welch's Gatsby at the American Repertory Theater.

Eleri Ward: Yes.

Alison Stewart: What do you use from your acting life and your singing life when you perform?

Eleri Ward: Oh, they are so intrinsically connected. I think the way I look at my emotional world is very tethered to my interpretive lens and to my emotional lens and just the accessibility of my emotions. Like we were talking about earlier, the storytelling aspect of it is at the root of everything that I do, whether it be being in a musical or singing one of my own songs. It's a story that I'm telling, and if I'm the performer, then I want to embody that fully.

Alison Stewart: What song on the new album are you looking forward to performing?

Eleri Ward: I don't know. I love all of them so much, and they all feel so cathartic for me to perform. I think this next song is one of them because it brings me back into what it's really all about, which is just being present with yourself and allowing yourself to trust the journey. Trusting is so hard for us as humans. We love control. We love white-knuckling through things to feel safe. I think this song and the last song on the album, which is Venusian Light, are two favorites to perform because they really touch on that feeling of, "Let go. You are you. It is all okay. You are safe to be you." I think that safety is a really beautiful thing to be able to express.

Alison Stewart: The name of the album is Internal Rituals. It is forthcoming this fall. I've been speaking with actor and singer songwriter Eleri Ward. You're going to play Float for us?

Eleri Ward: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Let's hear it.

[music - Eleri Ward: Float]

What if I just fell into the pool

Open arms, a doubtless dive to blue

And when I hit the water top

I don't have to swim at all

What if I just fell right into you

And float

Float

Maybe I could be just where I am

Held by water, weightless as the air

Nowhere that I have to be

So let my mind please stay with me

Maybe I could feel like this again

And float

Float

I don't have to move

Just float

What if, what if I

What if, what if I just

What if I

What if I just fell into the pool

Open arms, a doubtless dive to blue

And as I hit the water top

I don't have to swim at all

Now that I just fell right into you

I float

Float

Float

Float

Alison Stewart: I've been speaking with singer songwriter Eleri Ward. Her album Internal Rituals is out September 26th. It has been a pleasure to speak with you.

Eleri Ward: Same here. Thank you so much for having me.

Alison Stewart: There's more All Of It coming up after the news.