Siobhan Williams: Five Questions With the Deadly Class Star Who Just Released Her First Single

Siobhan Williams may have played a genuinely awful character on Syfy’s Deadly Class, an adaptation of the Rick Remender/Wes Craig comic of the same title, but her charitable work with animals in Vancouver has landed her on our radar more than once since the series ended. This time, WIlliams has released a new single, titled “Everything,” which you can buy now on digital music platforms or stream on Spotify.The song, which was recorded before the pandemic started, is one of a number of songs on an EP that Williams has put together — which she tells ComicBook will be releasing individually.

That’s Williams’s official YouTube account, too, so if you subscribe to it, you’ll be able to catch any other songs she uploads that don’t appear on our radar.

Williams joined ComicBook to break down the new single. You can listen to it here.

What are some of the musical influences that you can use as a touchstone to kind of let people know what kind of music you make?

Some of my influences are Sia, Lorde, Borns, Florence + the Machine, Lana del Rey, Alvvays.

Is there a full EP or LP coming, or are you dipping your toes in first with just the single?

There is an EP coming! But I’m releasing the songs single by single. That’s what I find more manageable at the moment – the songs are all very different from each other as well and I want to give them the chance to take on their own personalities as they’re released. I can tell you at least 2 more songs will be coming in the next few months.

Did the time at home as a result of COVID play into the decision to record some music? I know you’re usually pretty busy acting.

Actually these songs were all recorded right before COVID. Originally, “Everything” was called “Fever” – which wrapped up the song really nicely and made it all make sense – a song about existential fever. But very quickly after covid started I was like – “well, that title won’t do anymore”.

I’ve been writing music since I was 13 though. It’s just never been quite the right time to release it out into the world until now. I wanted to make sure the first song I put out was very “me” and I feel that way about “Everything.”

There’s a bit of jagged, percussive edge that runs under the whole track. Given how sweet your voice is and how mellow the vocals are, it’s an interesting dichotomy. How early did that lock in?

Yeah so I co-produced the whole song with Steve Bays – I came to him with the demo and said “”I know exactly what I want with this one” , and he really let me take the wheel with all the sounds in the song. I had a very specific vision in mind and those huge edgy roomy drums were part of that. I was very fortunate that I was able to sit at the helm (literally the monitors) and select the synth pads I wanted, the drum tones; everything you hear in the mix I hand-picked to give the song that heaviness that you can feel reverberate in your chest.

I am a HUGE music fan – music has been my escape forever and ever, so I know what I love in a song – and that’s real emotion that you feel in the melody and instrumentation. The music I’ve written has mostly been an expression of angst that I couldn’t express in any other way. So the hard-hitting instrumentals were crucial for me, and will be for any song you ever hear me put out. I don’t have a jagged or raspy or punk-rock voice – so the rawness and impact comes from those other elements. That’s what I love. That’s what I’m passionate about.

Since we first met you on Deadly Class…If you had to perform a cover as Brandy, what song would she have picked?

Jeez, I think what I’d like Brandy to cover and what Brandy would like Brandy to cover would be two very different things. Brandy would probably do a mean rendition of “Crazy” by Patsy Cline (a song I adore) but I think it’d be pretty entertaining to see her break it down to “Baby Got Back” or something ridiculous like that. Although that time line makes no sense whatsoever ha.