Diana Silvers on grief, growing up, and her debut album Daughter of Sorts

Diana Silvers is cradling a hot chocolate in a West Village diner, channeling Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks as she greets a voice recorder. It’s the kind of entrance that sets the tone for someone comfortable in their own skin, someone who’s figured out how to exist in multiple creative worlds without losing herself.

But we’re not here to talk about her acting chops, though they’ve landed her roles in Booksmart, Ma, and Netflix’s Space Force. Silvers is gearing up to release Daughter of Sorts, her sophomore album dropping November 13 via Capitol. The 14 intimate folk songs arrive just as she turns 29, marking what she describes as the definitive soundtrack to leaving girlhood behind.

“I knew I wanted to make a record that was about the transition of girlhood to womanhood,” she explains. “I felt like there wasn’t a lot of modern music reflecting that.”

The Weight of Loss and Becoming

Daughter of Sorts exists in the shadow of sudden tragedy. Silvers’ father died in October 2024, just one month after her debut album From Another Room arrived. She announced this new project on the one-year anniversary of his death, transforming grief into art with a specificity that cuts deep.

Songs like “Daughter” and “Plans” wrestle with identity and regret. “What if I can’t be / What you want me to be? / Somebody’s mother / Somebody’s bride,” she sings, questioning the roles we’re expected to inhabit. The song emerged accidentally while learning Joni Mitchell’s “Little Green,” a masterpiece about Mitchell’s own adoption loss. “I was like, ‘Man, this is too hard. Forget it,’” Silvers recalls. “Then ‘Daughter’ just happened.”

“Plans” grapples with lifelong regret and the finality of death, while “8.8” features an actual voicemail from her father, named for his birthday. Recording “Plans” with her mother present in the studio became a cathartic moment. “She started crying,” Silvers says. “There was something about having my mom there that had an impact.”

Crafting Intimacy at the Houdini Mansion

Working with co-producer Jason Alder, known for his work with Rick Rubin, Silvers recorded Daughter of Sorts at the Houdini mansion in Laurel Canyon. The album is studded with interludes that feel like glimpses into her inner world: a music box purchased for a dollar at a flea market, whistled bird sounds, spoken word passages inspired by Björk’s Vespertine.

There’s a kinship here with artists tackling grief like Phoebe Bridgers, who also lost her father unexpectedly and channeled it into art. “She sings, ‘He’s not coming back as a bird,’ and I was like ‘Whoa,’” Silvers says. “Grief is universal and very specific.”

The only romantic love song is “un(Lovers),” featuring members of The Strokes and Wallows. It’s an outlier that still belongs. “It’s part of this whole process of life,” she explains.

On Acting, Real People, and Staying Grounded

Silvers recently wrapped Asymmetry opposite Richard Gere and is currently filming PREPPY, a true-crime drama where she plays Jennifer Levin. It marks her first time portraying a real person, someone she’ll never meet, creating what she calls a spiritual experience.

“There’s something to be said about feeling close to someone you never knew,” she reflects. “The veil becomes very thin between what’s reality and the ethers.”

She’s even written a song for Levin, evidence of how her creative pursuits feed each other. Her entertainment career spans multiple mediums, yet she feels most authentic performing her own songs.

“I feel very much like I can actually be who I am,” she says. “I’m not pitching on behalf of a studio. I just wrote all of these by myself in my room.”

Growing up in Los Angeles, Silvers played cello from age nine and secretly practiced her father’s Steinway piano, learning Elton John and John Mayer. She shifted to guitar at 14, recorded a “banger of a pop song” with Republic Records in 2019 that she’ll likely never release, and waited until her late twenties to pursue music seriously.

“I was really young and couldn’t have handled it,” she admits. “I value having a very normal life. Most of my friends aren’t in the industry. I like that people don’t care when I walk into a room.”

As she finishes her hot chocolate, Silvers offers a final declaration: “What you see is what you get.” For someone navigating adulthood through music, acting, and unimaginable loss, that authenticity might be the most radical act of all.

Source: Rolling Stone