YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Adriana McDonald and her band, Shy Blossom, say their music is for “deep feelers, overthinkers and hopeless romantics.”
That description of the indie-rock trio from Florida hits the nail on its emotional head.
Shy Blossom will make its Mahoning Valley debut Sunday, July 5, at Westside Bowl.
The show will be a homecoming for McDonald, who lived part of her childhood in several Trumbull County cities before her family moved to Punta Gorda in 2018 when she was 12 years old.
She is part of a musical family and had been a singer and poet from a young age. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she took up the guitar.
McDonald is the songwriter, singer and acoustic guitarist for Shy Blossom, which she formed with Florida musicians Nicole Alberti (bass) and Julie Copithorne (drums).
She played a handful of solo gigs in the Valley last year. The full-band Westside Bowl show will open with a set by Youngstown rocker Candace Campana.
McDonald is only 20 years old, but her songs have a heightened maturity. Her musical influences – Fiona Apple, PJ Harvey, Radiohead, Mitsky and Lana Del Rey – provide insight into her sound.
“I’ve been surrounded by music my entire life,” McDonald said in a phone interview. “My dad sings and plays guitar and used to sing all the time in the house. My mom would turn on music, and we’d dance together almost every night. So I’ve always been very interested in music, and I would sing to myself and write poems and little songs since I was 5.”
She never found interest in the guitar, though, even though her father tried to teach her.
“I just wanted to keep on writing lyrics,” she said. “But when Covid came around and I was trapped in my house and had nothing to do, I [realized] I actually want to learn guitar, to be able to write different types of music and put my lyrics and melodies to an instrument. That’s where I started. My dad just showed me five chords, and I went off and looked up tutorials on YouTube and learned different songs, and then I eventually wrote my first song on guitar.”
McDonald said her father played solo shows in the Warren area when he was younger and recently was in a band in Florida. Her mother’s family owned The Gargoyle, a live music club in downtown Warren in the 1990s.
“I have always been around people who played music and supported people in the music industry,” she said.
Shy Blossom’s first album, “Bloom,” was released in 2024 and has 11 original songs. Former Pearl Jam drummer Dave Abbruzzesse plays on five of the songs. Abbruzzesse was brought into the project by his friend, Howard Merlin, who was the producer of a 2022 rock competition in Fort Myers, Fla., that McDonald won.
The band released its four-song “Stardust” EP last year and also the single “Nothing to Say,” which features violinist Bobby Hawk, who is known for his work with Taylor Swift.
McDonald said she and her band are in it for the long haul and maintain a heavy performance schedule in Florida. She plays as many as 10 solo gigs each month, and the full band will play an additional three to five shows.
“We’ve also gone out of state a couple of times, including Nashville and Asheville, N.C.,” she said. “I’m really excited to play Ohio because all my family lives up there. And it’s finally time to get the full band up there.”
Tickets for the Westside Bowl show are $5 in advance at the venue website and $15 at the door.
Pictured at top: Shy Blossom is Adriana McDonald, Julie Copithorne, in the foreground, and Nicole Alberti.