Memphis singer-songwriter Cyrena Wages talks new beginnings and debut solo album

“My 20s were a dumpster fire,” laughs Cyrena Wages.

The 33-year-old Memphis singer-songwriter is reflecting on her debut album, “Vanity Project.” Although it's officially her first solo effort, Wages is no stranger to the stage or the spotlight — she spent her early years on the beauty pageant circuit, then a decade playing in bands on the Nashville music scene.

But “Vanity Project” — a 10-track roots-pop confessional — represents the first and truest expression of Wages on wax. “Feels like I’m old to be at the very beginning,” she says. “But this is the first time I’ve been doing this while connected to my head and heart. I’ve never made a record while not being dissociated."

Raised in Millington — along with a pair of older brothers — Wages grew up in a musical family. Her mother played piano and sang, and her father was an ardent fan of everything from Stax/Hi soul to old school county. “He exposed us to all kinds of music, and of my mom’s musicality showed up as well," says Wages. "They produced these confusing artistic children. Because I was always drawn to music in a way that I couldn't even explain.”

Wages first began performing as a child on the Southern beauty pageant circuit. “I was a kid in a small town who wanted to sing and enjoyed the stage," she says. "My parents didn’t know what else to do so they pushed me in that direction." As it turned out, Wages would spend years amid the grind of the pageant world, becoming a two-time Miss Memphis and first runner-up Miss Tennessee.

She now admits that pageant life was fairly damaging to her soul and psyche. “I think it's the most [screwed] up thing in the world — it’s like everything that’s wrong with the conditioning of Southern women distilled into one specific experience," says Wages. "How insane is it for a child to be walking around on stage in a swimsuit with an old person judging you, telling you you’re a ‘6’ ‘cause you’re too fat? The inherent insanity of that plus my own personal sensitivity, that definitely messed me up.”

As soon as Wages graduated from high school, she left for Nashville, forming a band with her boyfriend and her eldest brother Houston called Friends of Lola. The group quickly became an unexpected success landing a publishing and record deal. “We accidentally got a deal at our first show,” says Wages of the band, which eventually changed its name to Wages and then Lost Wages. They spent years on the Music City treadmill, working with different producers and making various recordings, almost none of which saw the light of day.

“It was the thing of getting tricked into making music you’d never listen to,” she says. “We were desperate kids, we figured if we could get our foot in the door and play the game a little bit we could return to a place that felt more authentically artful — but that didn’t happen. It’s a very classic Nashville story of getting put into the machine — sometimes you become a star and sometimes you get spit out.”

Wages certainly felt she been through the ringer when she decided to quit the group and return to Memphis in late 2019. “All of the things I’d been told to do and be, I couldn’t keep up anymore," she says. "The pieces started falling apart. I left the band, and then COVID started, and I was sitting there thinking, ‘Who are you? Have you been asleep for 10 years?' I was looking back over those experiences and finally unpacking it all.”

It was at that point Wages got serious about her own music, about writing songs and pouring her feelings into the material. “I had to figure out who I was and what I have to say,” Wages says.

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In spring 2020, she connected with guitarist and songwriter Joe Restivo, a noted Memphis jazz and R&B player. “Joe and I started writing some new songs," she says, "and reworking some older songs of mine, and playing some gigs — mostly virtual gigs, because it was during the pandemic."

Restivo eventually brought Wages to the attention of Grammy-winning Memphis producer Matt Ross-Spang. “I was already a big fan of the records Matt had made, like the stuff with Margo Price,” says Wages, who began working at Ross-Spang’s Southern Grooves studio in Crosstown.

Over the next couple years, Wages would cut a series of tracks for what she initially thought would be an EP, but which eventually evolved into the full-length "Vanity Project."

“While we were making this record, I was growing up and coming back to myself,” she says, noting the album touches on elements of favorite music, from the '60s county-soul of Bobbie Gentry to the '90s R&B of Lauryn Hill. “I tried to fit in all the things I loved,” she says, “so this record is a bit of a melting pot.”

Wages also decided to self-release the album, which is out digitally May 24 and available as a vinyl LP the following week at her record release show at BarWare on May 30. (In addition to that concert, Wages will also headline a show at The Grove at Germantown Performing Arts Center on June 20.)

“The whole thing about this record is it’s an honest expression that I wanted to create and release without some else’s assessment of its value,” she says. “That’s what the songs are about, so I wanted the business side of that to be about it as well."

Wages will be hitting the road soon, playing shows in California, before a Nashville record release event in June. “I’m doing it all grassroots trying to tour and build fans that way,” she says. “For the second record — which I’ve already written — I would love to have some support. But for now, I’m happy to be able to do what I’m doing the way I'm doing it. Like I say, it really does feel a new beginning for me.”

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Cyrena Wages

'Vanity Project' record release

7:30 p.m. May 30 at BarWare, 276 S. Front St.

Advanced tickets are sold out, but a handful will be available at the door for $40.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Cyrena Wages' 'Vanity Project: What to expect on this debut album