Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks 'DB.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is the Brand News single Alone with You from
La based Kiwi Baun singer songwriter Alyssa's Islith. Ulyssa was,
of course, the lead singer and founder of band The
Naked and Famous, but with the band on hiatus, Alyssa
is out on her own and on Friday she released
her debut solo album. It's called Slow Crush and Alyssa
joins me now from Los Angeles. Ulyssa's islif, good morning,
(00:34):
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Hi, how's it going?
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It's been a big week, hasn't it.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
It's been a massive week, it's been.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
It's been a weird first Q one over the year.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
I'd say it's just a very polarizing.
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Time where things are happening that are worth celebrating but
also worth commiserating, and it's just holding space for both
sides of the coin. And it's just a strange dichotomy
to walk every day.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
But we're here. You just have to live life.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
We are here, and we're got to take a moment
to celebrate your album because I think it was December
twenty twenty one that you released your first solo single,
so it has actually been over three years that you've
been on this sort of solo journey, and now the
debut full length album is out. It's a bit of
a milestone, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
It's a massive milestone. I mean this album just looking
back at the time that it was made and the
songs that came out of it over the last few
years of writing. So many of these songs sit at
the intersection of my girlhood going into womanhood, and it's
(01:57):
really cool to kind of commemorate memories and experiences my
life that have happened while also growing into this artist
that I am becoming, which is strange when you're someone
like me, with the history that I have and the
(02:20):
amount of experience I already carry with me from being
in the music industry. Everything feels really new right now.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
So what have you got out of going solo or
learnt about yourself?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
I think I learned I was talking about this. I
actually speak about this quite a lot with young artists
that I might be doing songwriting sessions with. Is I
learned how to build up my own kind of vocabulary
for communicating what kind of sonic palette sounds, ideas that
(02:56):
I wanted to articulate into a room to somebody who
might not necessarily have knowledge or understanding of me as
an artist, and where I want to go, and learning
my own vocabulary outside of the one that I had
been speaking for years and years and years and years.
(03:17):
That was the most important to me because I was
able to move through rooms and communicate articulate. I would like,
does he sounding guitars that sound like the Smiths and
the cord progressions to just shimmer? And I want my
vocals to be more contained. I don't want to be
(03:39):
I want to kind of move away from what I've
been known for because that's unexplored territory for me.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
I want to learn how to be soft.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
In my femininity because that feels like something that I
really need right now to fortify myself and this project.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
So just being able to.
Speaker 4 (03:56):
Speak this language and claiming my vision and claiming the
softness and femininity that I was really wanting was massive,
because in my band days, it was just like, ya,
what do you boys feel like?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Done?
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Yeah, that's cool. I guess I could do that. I'll
try it. You know, it's just so different.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
It is different, and you don't want to be the
person that walks into the room going, look, I know
what I want, I just can't quite explain it, or
I know what I I know what I where I
kind of want to go, but I'll know when I
hear it. It is quite important to be able to
as you say, you're on your own now, and to
express what you want.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, you want.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
The songwriting part like familiar to me. I can talk
about what I want to write about, but being on
my own journey and not having like a producer that
can telepathetically understand my taste, I would have to communicate
that and articulate it clearly enough so that the person
in the room with me is like, I totally get you.
(05:06):
You know, because there have been so many rooms that
I've walked into where I hadn't done that, and I
walk away with a song at the end of the
day that just doesn't feel very aligned with what I
want to make because I just went kind of went
along with I was too easy going in a sense
and not specific enough. So I've grown a lot in
the sense that I learned I've developed a new language
(05:30):
for myself when it comes to making music and sound design,
and you know, I'm not a producer, so I feel
like it's very important to be able to communicate that
kind of all of your ideas clearly to somebody who
can be like, oh, I get you.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
And our listeners are probably picking up from this conversation
that the sound on this album is quite different, and
I'm wondering, is this is this just another side to
you as an artist, or do you think the work
represents is a little bit more of a genuine representation
of who you are as an artist.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
I've been, It's a genuine At this point in time
with what I've made, I think it is a pretty
genuine representation because I go back to feeling like I'm
thirteen years old again. I'm sitting in my bedroom writing
songs on my guitar, and there's like a singer songwriter
element to a lot of the songs on this record
(06:30):
and with how they were started or how they were written.
And then there are things there's like Sonic Palette, there's
guitars where that were inspired by The Strokes, because I'm
a massive Strokes fan, so you might hear a little
bit of that guitar, really cool guitar sounds. It kind
(06:50):
of come across and the song kissed me like I'm
so in love. And then you know there's always stabbed
vocal harmonies and lush vocals that it's just like an
amalgamy of like all the things I love about making
music that make me feel really good and excited. And yeah,
(07:16):
I think it's all over this, all over this album.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
You're a bit of a sneaky thing. I believe that
you ran away and got married last year eloped in California?
Is that right?
Speaker 4 (07:27):
I did.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
It wasn't a hectic time.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
I eloped in Big Sur, which is on the coast
of California. Gorgeous sunrise ceremony on this cliff side overlooking
the ocean called Painter's Point. It was just myself, my husband,
the officient, his mum, and a photographer. It was an
(07:52):
our dog and that happened. We got married on our
dating anniversary November one, which also happened to be the
Rolanees there for Ordinary Love, which is a song inspired
by me finding a stable, secure relationship and this partnership
(08:17):
that I'm in has healed so many parts of me.
It's just It's the most healthy partnership I've ever had,
and as a result, I've become a version of myself
that I just really love.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
It's so good to hear. And I wanted to mention
the wedding because this is an album filled with a
lot of stories about love and relationships and finding yourself
and some beautiful tributes there as you say to this
relationship that you're in now. I also read though that
you've you talked about a songwriting tip that you came
across about how you don't always have to be the
(08:54):
good guy in your songwriting. What impact did that have
on your work?
Speaker 4 (09:00):
I think it was just I think it just I naturally,
naturally write about heartache and love and ah and heartbreaken.
And when I read that tip, I was like, oh,
I've never really painted myself as like the bad guy
in the song before, and it just like opened up
(09:21):
a new world of writing perspectives and playing with other
writing perspectives and I just kind of dove in a
bit more and I think maybe maybe that will, you know,
my next project will be something that I get to
discover a bit more. And you know, I wrote write
stories from the perspectives of other people.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Other stories.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Yeah, at the angles, Yeah, that was really cool.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
But when I wrote that, I came home.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
My husband, who hears every single song I write like,
He's like, oh, so, do you what.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
What's the song about.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
I'm like, oh, maybe something that a confrontation, something that
I did in the past. He's like, oh, you're still
thinking about that, are you?
Speaker 3 (10:07):
You're still not over.
Speaker 4 (10:08):
There, are you.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
I'm like, well, what can you do? You married a songwriter.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
But this is and I know it's a real cliche
when people talk about that, you know, writing music is
a way to navigate our way through the world and
to cope with things, or to make sense of things,
or to process things. But it is true, isn't it.
And I actually think it's a huge gift. It's why
everyone tells us we have to journal, you know. But
I think it's a huge gift if you can turn
(10:34):
it into something that you can share and that people
can resonate with. And you mentioned something at the beginning
of this interview about your life and the experiences you've had,
and it has been a really interesting upbringing that you've had,
Elissa with your parents were refugees, they left, they fled
the Vietnam War. You lost your mum when you were young.
(10:58):
Does that have an impact on who you've become as
an artist and also drive you to do what you
do today?
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Absolutely, it's the way I think, looking back at it,
it was a way of me kind of just coping and.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Getting out of my head, you know, busy.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
Like if if you're anxious, usually if you do something
with your hands and your voice, it kind of just
gets you out of your body and gets you moving
forward through your day. And I think I learned that
at a very very young age without realizing it.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I love singing.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
I loved learning how to sing Maria Carrie songs, leaned
the On songs.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
Like those aren't just casual singing some but I.
Speaker 4 (11:48):
Realized I loved singing those kinds of songs because singing
out like that is somatic and it's healing. And being
a little seven eight year old girl, I was just
always gravitating towards singing groups and choirs because it made
me feel good. And I didn't realize why the time,
but now it was because it was a way of
(12:09):
healing from the kind of difficulties I was living through
my daily home life and writing music and turning to music.
It's just you just feel, really, I felt really connected
to something higher than myself and it's kind of spiritual
in a sense. And I just think for whatever reason,
(12:32):
I've just always chased wanting to do music because there's
nothing else in life that gave me that kind of
healing kind of feeling and want to and passion to.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Continue just living, you know.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
So yeah, I think music was really really important for
me growing.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Up, and it's taken you to so many incredible places
and given you so many opportunities. I saw that you
were singing back up on Jimmy Fallon last year. I mean,
is that just because is that just because you're in
LA and these are the kind of opportunities that can
arise and you can take.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
Yeah, honestly, it's just that was just a proximity thing.
That was because like I knew the MD and he
messaged me It's like, hey, what are you doing? I
need some background singers for this felling gig with foss
of people. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I know those guys,
and and I walked I walked into the rehearsal room
(13:27):
and I was like, oh, Lisa, he plays keyboards and drums.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
It's like, I had no idea it was gonna be
you walking through the door.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
I'm like, what's up, I'm singing in the band Who's like,
it's an absolute honor to have you like, and we
just caught up about life and it was like a strange,
little full circle moment, you know, because they fast of
the people were coming up and naked and famous of
coming up and you know, they're having another windfall in
(14:00):
their career and I'm kind of like beginning another branch
of it, and it was it was really cool.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Now, is there a tour coming with this new album?
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah, there's gonna be a tour in North America with
an awesome band who I'm opening for. They're called Sunday
nineteen ninety four and they're one of my favorite new bands.
And their tour is called the Debut Tour, and I
feel like it's just perfect jumping on with them because
(14:30):
it's also my debut tour, and I'm really excited about
it because the people that are going are going because
they have found a new band that they love and
they want and seek out new music. So it's just
like the perfect first tour for me.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
And that sounds lovely, But what about a tour back here?
Speaker 3 (14:53):
I would love together.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
And you know what, I'm going to time it with.
I'll try to time it with renewing maybes and where
and I'm going to have to leave the country and
come back home. So if there is a way where
we can kind of streamline it, that would be like
the perfect the perfect timing.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Fingers crossed with the visa and fingers look and congratulations
on the album. It's so exciting. It's a beautiful album.
I'm absolutely loving it. Enjoy enjoy this release.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Yay, I am.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
I will thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
That was Alyssa Zilith. Her debut solo album, Slow Crush,
is out now.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks It'd be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.