Sunny War

Sunny War revitalizes longstanding folk and blues forms via her updated performance style and songwriting that engages present-day themes. Worthless marked her initial full-length release in 2014, after which she steadily built visibility across subsequent years and assembled a devoted audience that reached its height with the arrival of With the Sun in 2018. Following multiple independent projects, she joined New West to deliver Anarchist Gospel in 2023.

Born Sydney Lyndella Ward to an unmarried mother in Nashville, the singer and songwriter passed a mobile childhood traveling the country with her parent and logging extended periods in Nashville as well as the Detroit suburb of Rochester. Throughout these years she absorbed an eclectic range of music and began playing guitar at age 13. After navigating a difficult stretch of substance issues and economic hardship, she gravitated toward blues and folk, relocated to California, and moved between San Francisco and San Diego before establishing herself in Venice Beach.

Performing under the name Sunny War, she sometimes appeared with her punk group Anus Kings, yet the folk-blues material on a self-issued album drew attention from local observers—including writers at LA Weekly—in 2009, the same year she secured a BMI publishing contract and a promotional arrangement with Gibson Guitars. Several years later she issued her official debut, Worthless, which surfaced in 2014. A follow-up independent effort, Red White and Blue, appeared in 2016.

War signed with Hen House Studios for With the Sun in 2018, an album that incorporated contributions from Micah Nelson’s Insects vs. Robots band. After that release she left Venice Beach for downtown Los Angeles and quickly completed Shell of a Girl the next year. The record was introduced by the single “The Place,” a collaboration with French-born singer/songwriter Edith Crash. Following the 2020 EP Can I Sit with You?, she independently released Simple Syrup in March 2021. War joined New West in 2022, issuing the singles “No Reason” and “Higher” ahead of Anarchist Gospel’s early 2023 arrival. Andrija Tokic produced the album, which combined understated atmospheric details with songs examining Ward’s internal conflicts around self-destruction and structure.