Lyel Q&A

Your name: 
I am Lyel :)

Where are you from?
I am from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a small town in the Bavarian Alps in South Germany. I have lived in Helsinki, Finland, since summer 2008 working on my music.

How would you describe yourself and your music?
I think I am bit of a perfectionist with everything I do but but at the same time my mind can be up in the clouds a lot -  very active and constantly creating.
Sometimes this makes it hard to focus on one thing only and get stuff finished, like a simple song arrangement for example. But with the right team you can work out any missing peace I suppose and I am grateful for the production team I am allowed to work with at this point plus meditation and a healthy diet helps a lot to stay focused. I'd like to describe my music as  honest, melodic and unfuzzy.

Who are your main influences musically?
I have grown up with a lot of the old rock legends like Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Dire Straits since my mom quite dragged me along heh. I love that kind of stuff but generally it depends very much on my mood and circumstance what music I'd like to listen to. I believe in good music so there isn't any particular genre I'd like to wrap my mind around. Important to me is the right sound, great vibes and a good message. I always adored Maggy Reilly and Tori Amos for their vocals and musical talent but I also do love to listen to more heavy stuff now and then like Alcest, Pantera and such. Mike Oldfield is one of my heroes when it comes to guitar sounds and songwriting while in the indie and elctro-pop corner, I'd like to listen to artists like The sounds, ToveLo, CHVRES or BeBe Rexha for example. I get a lot of inspiration from soundtracks too. I guess I take my inspiration from many corners and the list could go on forever so better stop somewhere :)

What do you hope to achieve in music?
Music for me always has been about expressing and connecting with others and myself. I believe music brings people together and that's exactly what I'd like to do - since I believe what our planet needs now more than ever is togetherness. I'd like to distribute my music globally if I can and hope to play many life shows in the future. I love travelling but didn't take time to go anywhere for many years since I've focused to make my music what it is today. I wouldn't do it any different if I could do it all over again but touring and recording more music would absolutely be something I hope to do more in the future. It's all I ever wanted, as long as I can remember.

What has been the highlight of your career so far, and why?
I'd say it was the moment I realised it was all worth it, the moment everything made sense. Every sleepless night, those many times my fridge had been empty or days spent homesick. I've risked it all and that day it started making sense, the puzzle peaces slowly came together. I was on stage for my release - the first gig of Lyel which had been just two weeks ago here in Helsinki. The band had started playing first notes of the first song of the set and I thought to myself, 'What am I doing here? What made me think I could do this? This is way too big for me'. I was scared and excited at the same time. People who counted on me were in the audience and on stage so I panicked. But as soon as I started singing first vocal lines, looked into those smiling faces in front of me, it was all like wiped away. All my fear and doubts, gone. I knew this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and I had so much fun. It was a great first show. Not perfect but worth it.

And what’s the moment you want to forget?
I was on stage with the latest band-project of mine, before I started focusing on my solo career last year. We were participating in a band contest and we haven't had much time to practice the set. Additionally I totally blacked out during the first song and messed up my whole performance and for some reason you couldn't hear half of our instruments in the audience as people told me afterwards so the sound was horrible. My new in-ears decided to fail on me as well so I couldn't hear myself very well or not at all basically and I just wanted to disappear. I think contests in general never really been my thing, they always kind of freaked me out. I believe music shouldn't be competition anyways and after this contest, I decided to never take part in any band contest such as this again haha even though I was happy about this opportunity.

If you had to pick just one of your songs to represent your music, what would it be and why?
That's an easy one. My debut single was just released on April 3rd and the song is called Waterproof. It def. speaks best for the sound of this project at this point. We are currently working on more music and a second single is planned for release this summer.

Where can we listen to it?
https://soundcloud.com/lyelmusic/waterproof-1



Where can we find out more about your music?
http://facebook.com/lyelmusic
http://twitter.com/lyelmusic
http://instagram.com/lyelmusic
http://soundcloud.com/lyelmusic
https://lyelmusic.wordpress.com

Anything else you’d like to say about your music that I forgot to ask?
Music was my first love. It's magic.