As a journalism student at Oklahoma State University in 2017, Kyra Bruce had the vague assignment of interviewing someone about something they were passionate about.
Her head immediately went to focusing on one of the many garage noise bands around Tulsa, which her professor told her she shouldn’t cover. Just to spite him, Bruce submitted the video project anyway and was totally inspired. Her passion project, People To Wave To, was born.
Bruce’s YouTube series is made up of roughly 10-15 minute concert documentaries. She blends live footage from a local performance with interviews from the artists in their rehearsal spaces (often their homes).
“I find it so fun to have access to someone in that way where they’re in front of you and you get to ask them anything you want that you’re curious about… because I’m a music fangirl at heart,” Bruce – also a Chronicle contributor – says.
Bruce records with a DIY style and takes on the videos as a sparsely done hobby on top of her food service job. She took almost two years off upon first moving to Austin, learning more about the music scene before starting the series back up six months ago.
The break also gave her time to get started with a band. And, she admits, her interview subjects – friendlier than musicians in her college town, she noticed – gave her advice.
“In Tulsa, it was such a weird cool kids club and clique-y, and the music scene was super inaccessible. That [brought a mission] of this series: Don’t be afraid. Don’t let these people scare you. Come in, it’s fine. Everyone’s nice.”
The last installment of People To Wave To spotlighted local alt rockers Queen Serene. Reflecting on the interview, the band’s founding singer-guitarist Sarah Ronan says it reminded her of the three-part music documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, which chronicles pockets of the 1970s-1990s L.A. rock scene.
“[It] captures that specific time in that specific scene, and I feel like Kyra has the ability now to do the same thing with Austin, which is really cool,” Ronan says.
Funnily enough, the documentary is Bruce’s all time favorite movie – her “North Star,” as she puts it. Bruce says it’s hard to achieve the “laid-back thing” Penelope Spheeris does, but it’s ultimately what she aims for. If a band would let her just follow them hanging out, playing basketball together, Bruce says she’d love that.
“[Austin is] saturated with musicians, which is a great thing,” says Matt Galceran, Queen Serene’s other singer-guitarist. “It’s nice that there’s people out there shining a little light on some of these niche sections of the scene and really documenting it, being on the ground, showing what it’s like to be at these shows, [and] getting a vibe for the people involved.”
Aiming to produce People To Wave To more consistently, Bruce plans to branch out from documenting mainly alt-rock bands. She has a 30-minute docu-concert on experimental masters Blank Hellscape dropping next week, and she’s eyeing Libby and the Loveless to star in her first honky-tonk video. She also hopes to do a People To Wave To live showcase eventually.
“In my dream life, this is my job. I think I’m working towards that,” Bruce says. “That’s like Kyra Bruce Dream Life: in a band [and] getting paid for People To Wave To. That would be really fun.”