Wyland - Ryan Sloan

What brought the band together?

Ryan Sloan: We actually had, kind of, fate working its strings to pull us all together. Originally, I started this group based off a bunch of songs that I wrote myself and I brought in a couple of my friends and I was like 'can you guys just help me bring these to life?' and through that, you know, when I saw what we were doing as a group, I was like, we really need a guitar player that - I can play guitar, but I'm not that good - we needed somebody that was going to really, really bring these songs to life and just really help create moments that people can hear and be like, 'yes, this is great'.

We made a Craigslist ad that nobody answered except for one person and that one person moved out here from California a year prior and was just so tired of classical music. He came out here to study at Montclair State and he was just doing a bunch of repetitive classical training and he was like 'I'm losing my love for music and I wanna just, kind of, join a project and just see what happens,' and he went on Craigslist and the first thing he was interested in was our list, our little post. We met up with him and we instantly - we tried out a bunch of people - but he was the one that just made sense. As soon as he started playing I was like, 'you're the one'.

So, right there it was me and Mauricio at that time and us two were like, 'alright, we're definitely in this band,' and we were on the search for a bassist. We had a couple fill-in members when we went on tours and stuff, but nobody felt like they were a part of Wyland. We ended up doing a tour up North in New York near Syracuse and I reached out to this band called The Overnighters - they were really good - and we saw the band play - they opened for us - and the bassist of the group shined. He had this life about him: he was almost like the leadman of the group. The band was great, but all I watched was the bassist and, a year later, he's now our bassist, so that's how he kind of came into the mix.

In terms of our drummer, somehow I was friends with Ricky on Facebook, which was really strange - I guess, at some point, either him or myself added one another in hopes of collaborating and then we just never reached out to one another until, one day, I was just like, 'listen man, we don't have a drummer anymore and we really need one,' and he jumped on.

Everybody comes from very different backgrounds, which is what's interesting. Mauricio, the guitarist, is just like a big Beatles-head; he's a die-hard Beatles fan. The bassist, Zach, is a huge prog rock/classic rock fan and then our drummer, Richard, he has a very pop/funk background, but is also a big fan of The Police. But then, I kind of grew up on U2 and Lynyrd Skynyrd, which do not jive well at all [laughs] but, apparently, all four of us work well together. So that's strange, but that's kind of how the group came about. It all happened over the past two years. I would say that this past September is when the band was solidified and we finally are a tight group; these four individuals are the band.

As a band which artists do you take inspiration from?

I think that, as a whole, we kind of take all our individual influences and push them into Wyland. Like I said, Richard is a big Police fan, Zach and I are big U2 fans, and Mauricio, he uses a lot of the theory and experimentation that The Beatles used and he applies that to Wyland. I think everybody's individual passions and interests in other bands collectively works together to influence what we do in Wyland.

Why choose the name Wyland?

The last EP was called You're In The World, Get Off Your Feet, and that EP title was an accident. I was listening to Bon Iver and he has a song called "Holocene" and, in the song - I can't understand what the guy's saying half the time [laughs] but the music's so good - one of the lines in his song was "you're in Milwaukee, off your feet" and I misunderstood that as "you're in the world, get off your feet," and then, when I found out that wasn't the line, I was like, 'I'm totally stealing that'. I wrote it down and I was staring at that for a long time and I guess I had that title long before the band name and long before that EP, but that long title, You're In The World, Get Off Your Feet, kind of made Wyland: why ever get back on the ground? Then, we just took off the 'h' and connected the words.

Originally you wrote all the songs, but what's the songwriting process like now?

When I first started the band it was just me, so everything kind of came from me. Now, the process is just, I guess, what, hopefully, every other band is kind of like. Somebody will come up with an idea, whether it's a riff or a vocal melody or a bass line, a drum part, a groove, whatever kind of puzzle piece, and if there's something there, something sparks, we'll kind of build off of it. We have a new song coming out that we kind of just wrote in ten minutes as a group and it just all comes together. I think, at this point, it's just kind of everyone bringing little pieces of a puzzle together until it all makes sense and there's a clear image of what we want and what we're doing.

How would you describe your sound?

As a band, I feel like we have so many influences but, I mean, at the end of the day, we just call it alternative rock, of course, because it's just easier that way, but we use a lot of atmospheric sounds and ambient guitars to just try to create this cinematic experience for the listener. A lot of the times [laughs] - my bandmates hate me for this - but a lot of the time, I'll put on the producer hat and be like, 'make this feel more like a movie, like imagine,' and then I'll put out this whole ridiculous scenario, like, this guy losing the girl and then running after her. I'm like, 'I want to hear what the music would be like when he's running to her; play that on guitar,' and then Mauricio looks at me like, 'why am I in this band?' [laughs].

What was the inspiration behind your latest single, "Lifeboats"?

"Lifeboats" is one of my favorite songs that we ever wrote. I feel like that's one of those tunes that kind of just came together, as well. I sat down on the acoustic guitar and, I don't know what happened, but I just started playing and I tuned out a couple strings and the song came out verbatim, like, lyrically, everything just came out at once and I remember it was just a miracle, so that song definitely means a lot to me and the group.

For the video we have this beautiful girl that's kind of dancing with the sunlight and we actually shot it in Long Beach Island in New Jersey and there's a lighthouse there and we shot all this really great footage on this really expensive camera and when we went back and watched the footage we were like, 'okay, this looks beautiful, but where's the story?'. So we were like 'there's a lighthouse, and the light's spinning on it, so let's find a place where it can look like the band is inside the lighthouse and she's reaching for us'. It's like we're singing to her from the lighthouse and she's dancing with the sunlight, trying to get to us, and then she finds out that she can't. We kind of just tried to build it as best as we could around the song but, you know, due to circumstances, we shot something and it didn't necessarily work out so we had to go back and kind of make it all work.

Is the sound on "Lifeboats" indicative of what we can expect to hear on your forthcoming EP?

Yes and no. I would say that the songwriting is the same, in terms of, I think I use a lot of the same melodic ideas and progressions, but in terms of the sound and the guitars, we amped up the guitars a bit more so it's more electric. We have a lot more unique soundscapes. For instance, we pride ourselves on our live show and everyone who comes to see us always complains that what they hear on the recording isn't as good as what they see live and we were like, 'okay, we need to capture what we do live,' so we went to the studio and we recorded everything live. So, everything is on the spot live and the energy is there, which I think was lacking on the past EP.

Are there any tracks on the new EP you're excited for people to hear?

I'm excited for people to hear every track [laughs]. We're really, really, really excited about it. We recorded at Lakehouse Studios in Asbury Park because they have a state of the art facility there and everyone can see everybody; we're all in the same room and we're all looking at each other and feeling each others energy and applying that to each moment, so every song that we already felt strongly about prior to is just amplified to a whole new extreme. In terms of picking a single, we don't even know which one we want to pick. We feel like they're all worthy.

Any songs you're hooked on right now?

Yeah, absolutely. I've been listening to this Norwegian group called Highasakite and she is unbelievable. What I like about her is she's an incredible songwriter, but the sounds - there's something about female songwriters that I think just trumps any guy and I think it has to do with the fact that women have just so much more imagination than men. I don't know why I feel this way, but just something like Sara Bareilles and Regina Spektor and this incredible woman on Highasakite, the songwriting is just so much more real to me than anything else. I don't know, I guess I just like female artists much better. Definitely check her out if you get the opportunity; she just takes you on an adventure. I feel like I see the world through her music, like, when I listen to it I feel like I'm traveling and I'm on the road with a bookbag and just going through mossy hills and beautiful sunlight. It's so good; I love it.

What do you hope listeners can take away from your music?

On the new stuff, hopefully a similar thing. Like I said, we used a lot of atmospheric things and I try to pull from groups like Highasakite and try to create these cinematic moments where, hopefully, a listener can feel energy and feel this inspiration to go out and do something that they normally wouldn't do. That's definitely my personal goal with these songs.

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Kate Copeland

What got you interested in music?

Kate Copeland: I grew up in a musical household. My father was a composer and singer/songwriter and he encouraged me to take piano when I was a little girl, so I started piano lessons when I was five and when I was about ten I started to experiment with writing my own songs while playing piano and that got me into taking composition. Then I started taking private composition lessons and studying composition more intently but continuing my songwriting. I think sometime around middle school, maybe junior high, I started to think of my songwriting and composing as two sort of separate branches from the same tree, so I started composing, like, concert music and sort of contemporary classical pieces, but then I would also write songs that felt a lot more intuitive and personal. Then, I went to Oberlin Conservatory and got my composition degree there but continued to write songs sort of between classes so I sort of kept both branches going and I guess I saw that modeled in my dad who was both a songwriter and a composer in his own right; I think that's kind of how I got started. And, just being around music a lot - as a kid it was everywhere and I knew a lot of musicians. 

Do you remember what the first song you wrote was about?

[Laughs] Well, the first song with words, oh, it was called "Home" and it was about being lost and trying to find my way home because I get turned around really easily. I have a really poor sense of direction so I think I had a lot of anxiety about going out on my own because I was worried I wouldn't be able to find my way back and my sister has, like, a built in compass [laughs] so she would always be running around independently and always knew where she was, but I was always turned around. I had a lot of anxiety about that so I threw it in a song when I was like ten years old about being lost [laughs].

Are there any artists you're inspired by?

Oh, there are so many artists I'm inspired by. I grew up listening to Stravinsky, the Russian composer, a lot and also Jethro Tull - my dad was a big Tull-head and he got me into Tull when I was young. The Beatles and The Stones, Joni Mitchell and, more recently, artists like Fleet Foxes and Beck and Radiohead and Björk. I don't know, is that enough names? [Laughs]

Which artists are in your playlist right now?

Yeah, so some of those artists, also The Oh Hellos, a band called Big Thief that people should keep their ears open for - a newer group and it's really good, really cool. What am I listening to right now... probably also Baths, yeah, those are sort of some of them. Gosh, I'm sure there are more; I rotate around things a lot. I've also been really enjoying this friend of mine, Nick Drummond, from this group called The Senate. He's just about to put out his album and I got a release, a special secret copy, so I've been really enjoying listening to his album - Nick Drummond, Seattle based guy. Yeah, so that's kind of been my current thing. Oh! And POWERS, a really fun pop group that I'm recently very excited by.

How would you describe your own sound?

Well, I think of myself as a musical chameleon. I think that I really like experimenting with what my sound is, specifically with production and arranging, so most of my songs, I sit down with a mandolin and I write something that's generally pretty folky but then, when it comes to actually recording the songs, there are so many options that open up when you introduce the recording studio. So, with my LP that "Far Away Place" is on, I collaborated with my friend Alex Overington and we sort of co-produced the album and he helped me integrate a lot of electronic components into the songs, into the arrangements, and I wrote a lot for orchestral arrangements. So, "Far Away Place" for example has bass clarinet in it instead of a bass - there's no electric bass, just bass clarinet, so that album sort of has a lot of unconventional arrangement choices that were produced by my mind and Alex's mind, so there's a meeting in the middle at this interesting place that I call electro-orchestral. I would sort of refer to that album as being an electro-orchestral folk album or pop folk, something like that.

But, more recently, I've been recording an EP of five songs that is primarily just me singing and playing mandolin and it's much more like how the songs are when I first write them. It's sort of a way of following up the LP - which is very dressed up production wise - sort of a way of following up with something that's more exposed and a little bit more bare and is something that reveals, essentially, the origins of my songwriting process; people can sort of see that I also encompass that sound. So, my sound, that was your original question, is an always evolving, morphing thing and I'm really excited about experimenting with it and collaborating with other artists to sort of stretch it this way and that way. The EP is definitely what I would call acoustic folk. It's just me playing mandolin and singing and one other musician friend of mine, Doug Wieselman, playing bass clarinet and a little bit electric guitar, so very stripped down and very honest and vulnerable.

How has your sound changed since that first album?

I also work as a producer and an arranger with other artists so I really like thinking of an album as its own kind of medium, its own art form, you know? I think you can, if you're an artist, you can just go into the studio and say, "I want to create as realistic of a rendition of what I could do if I just picked up my guitar and played live as possible," but that takes a lot of the fun possibility of the recording studio out of the project so, for me, as a producer and an arranger, of course I'm going to take full advantage of what I can do with the studio, because I particularly love the thing that having a recording studio affords you. Like, why would I want to go in and do something that's exactly like what I do live when there's so much more available to me?

"Far Away Place" is your most recent release, what was the inspiration behind that song and its video?

The inspiration behind the song was, I was going through a pretty large transitional phase in my life about four years ago - I think I wrote this song almost exactly four years ago - and it felt like a time where I was having to let go and say goodbye to a lot of things and people that were important to me but that I recognized I couldn't take with me where I was headed in my life. It's very much about that sense of nostalgia that you get when you visit happy memories of a time or a place or people that you've had to let go of. I really do think that if I could define the song in a word it would be nostalgia, like, that was really the thing that I was driven by and it was a way of coming to terms with where I was at in my life, transitionally, and sort of the letting go of one thing and walking forward to the next.

And the video was actually, most of the footage is me wandering around the Oregon County Fairgrounds, which is place that I've been performing at every summer since I was a year old with a Vaudeville Troupe that I was born into, so that location is very deeply personal to me and has meant a lot to me just sort of in my formation as an artist and performer, because that's where I learned to perform and that was a huge part of what inspired me to do music, was being at that festival every summer. I think I chose a meaningful location that would sort of reference the nostalgic feeling of the song, that I'm sort of surrounded by memory and meaning in that space. Then, the other shots are me in Port Townsend which I've been splitting my time the last three and a half years between New York City and this little town so, of course, the town means a lot to me too and I've become a member of the community in a very beautiful way.

What do you hope listeners can take away from your music overall?

I think that, as a songwriter, the most important thing for me, in terms of engaging with a listener, is that they find something that resonates with them personally. I think about the times when music has meant the most to me, when I've really connected with the song I'm listening to - you know those times, I'm sure you've had them, we all have - where we have to put on that one song and we have to put it on repeat 1 and we have to sink into it and it's sort of the only thing we can hang onto, right? And there's no words that can express what you're feeling, there's just this feeling and the song is this incredibly cathartic way of connecting with that feeling when it's hard for us and I think that, if I can create music that does that for other people, that's huge. Because, that's when music matters the most, I think. And that can be a happy feeling too, I think sometimes you're bursting with joy and you just want to dance around your room to that one song over and over again but, more often, I find that it's when things are more difficult that I'm really going to music as a form of medicine and healing and I would really like to be able to offer that for my listeners.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

I guess, what do I wanna say... Well, maybe that it's interesting to notice, over the past couple of years, that I'm really just as happy working on other people's music as I am my own, that the projects I've done in the capacity of being a producer and arranger have been every bit as fulfilling as when I go into the studio with my own music and I get a lot out of that process - the process of partnering with a songwriter and helping them fulfill their vision with an album. I've most recently been doing that with an artist, Doug More, and I did this also with a singer/songwriter named Abakis, and I have a few other of these kinds of collaborations coming up in the future that I'm really excited about because it's a different form of being creative and there's less pressure on me, specifically, because it's not my songs, so I'm just there as a translator between the ear and the mind of the songwriter and what their ultimate vision for their project is and trying to tap into the psyche of one of these songwriters and pull out of them what it is they're really trying to create, what experience they're really trying to create, what their record is, and then make that happen; help guide them through the journey of making that happen and then use my own skills as a composer and arranger and producer to really make the most of what it is the project can be. 

That's fun, it's not just the Kate Copeland show. I really, really like to make it about other artists too and I would say that, if I had to choose between the studio and the stage, if I could only have one or the other, I would definitely choose the studio. I like performing for people, but there's something about being in the recording studio, in that space, and just the limitless possibility that really excites me and I just get so much energy from that; you know, fourteen hour days, no problem [laughs].

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Chris London

What got you interested in music?

Chris London: I grew up in a mostly classical household; my father is from Austria and he definitely has a passion for the old classics, Beethoven and Mozart, so I always grew up around really eloquent music. It was definitely complex music that I grew up with and I was five and I just remember hearing that we had a piano teacher living behind us, our neighbor, and I was just drawn to it. So, I feel bad for my parents because I probably whined for weeks before they finally signed me up, but that's how it sort of all started. Then, the songwriting sort of kicked in around nine. When I was nine, I sort of just started writing little jingles on the piano and, by thirteen, I was writing songs with words and it sort of just has become part of my being. It's been almost three decades since I started playing and, when it's gotten to that amount of time that you've spent with an instrument, it's a relationship and it becomes something that's just an extension of your soul and expression, so it's definitely got me through a lot in the past almost three decades.

Do you remember the first piece or song you wrote?

The first song I wrote with words was in memory of my grandfather when he passed away, it was around the time when I was thirteen or fifteen, around that time, and that's the first time I wrote with words. In terms of the songs in music, you know, I don't even remember [laughs]. It was just kind of little jingles that sounded good to me and I just kept playing over and over and they were definitely extensions of what I learned in my piano lessons. I did ten years of pretty intense classical training and by the time I decided to let go of classical and do more songwriting I had learned a lot of scales so what I composed at that young age was very much my own interpretation of what I had learned, so it was a lot of just playing around and whatever sounded good to me was what stuck. Now that you mention it, I haven't played those little pieces since that time, it's been more focused on the songwriting, but that's where it started, with just those piano jingles.

Which composers or artists have you been influenced by?

Composers, definitely Chopin. Chopin's been like, you know, I like sob when I listen to Chopin [laughs], it's just something that, the decisions that he made in terms of how he wrote just moved me amazingly and every time I hear a Chopin piece it just does the same thing to me, doesn't matter how many times I've heard the piece. Branching away from that diet of classical music, around middle school I started really just being curious about checking out stuff that I connected to and here I am a middle schooler listening to Fiona Apple, which is deep and dark and heavy and probably totally age inappropriate but, again, it had something to do with that root in piano and that sort of just led to me finding Tori Amos - which was a whole other exciting adventure of mine to just discover her music - and it wasn't until actually later when I started playing with musicians that I discovered artists that people have known about for years but, to me, it was all new and it was all exciting. Like, right now I'm really into Stevie Nicks' record In Your Dreams, that's what I'm listening to right now, and it's almost like these artists that have been around for so many years I'm discovering and it's like they're new to me so, yeah, that's kind of where I'm at in terms of the music that I like. But, Chopin definitely and I grew up, for many years, listening to Tori Amos and being influenced by how the piano became something totally different after watching her perform; it wasn't just an instrument, it was like a band member, it was like 'her', it was just another human up there with her performing. I'd never seen a piano used that way, played that way, and it was just mind-blowing for me. Definitely love R&B, big fan of Erykah Badu, Elton John, really enjoy Queen, Björk, there's so many, and it doesn't matter what genre it is, whatever I connect to is just what I listen to.

Are there any tracks you've got on repeat now?

There's a track on that [Stevie Nicks] record called "Everybody Loves You" that I just can't get enough of. I discovered this new artist - he's not new but he's new to me - Teitur Lassen, and I just discovered his music and it's wonderful and exciting for me so I'm listening to him a lot too, but In Your Dreams is probably the record that's being played most right now.

How would you describe your sound?

Well, like I mentioned before, a lot of what I feel I express musically is centered around the relationship I have with my piano. When people see an artist at the piano, for some reason they always fucking want to see the artist away from the piano, like 'can't you just stand up and sing this song?' well, no, I don't want to [laughs] because, you know, I guess it's just something different but, for me, anytime I feel like I want to express something musical, it is just directly influenced by what happens when I play. So, there are moments where it's just me and the piano and it's incredibly intimate and it's really quiet and just peaceful, then there are times where I'm playing and I'm feeling a certain way and might be with other band members and suddenly the sound is totally different and insanely powerful and my voice sort of connects to what's going on musically with the piano, so I like to consider it 'piano soul' because it is connected to the emotion I'm feeling, but it's also connected to how I'm playing the piano, and they definitely go hand in hand.

What was the inspiration behind this latest single, "I Will Not (Say I'm Sorry)"?

Definitely growing up. It's a song about developing emotionally and I'm in a place now where, in my personal life, I have two kids and I've been together with my wife for almost ten years so, you know, you get to a place in your life where the thoughts in your head that dictated how you behaved growing up, you know, trying to get everyone's approval and not disappointing people and everything that really has nothing to do with who you want to be but who everyone else wants you to be, it's that moment in your life when you're letting all of that go and you're kind of relinquishing the obligation to be that for everybody else. To summarize, it's like this declaration of independence, this emotional declaration of independence and writing that song, to me, was the culmination and sort of this pivotal point of letting all of that stuff go. So, it's a very personal song and it's very deep, but I know everybody has had that journey in their own way and it's a journey that everyone will take; maybe people will get there when they're seventeen, maybe others will get there when they're fifty, I just happened to get there in my mid-twenties when I wrote that song. I know that probably happens multiple times in someone's life, but it was probably the first time that it happened for me, and that's where the song came from.

I know you've got a couple singles in the works, have you got plans to release an EP or album soon?

Hopefully over the summer we're going to get back into the studio. I worked with an amazing producer named Tommy Uzzo whose career is based around music engineering, but we were introduced and we hooked up with three tracks and his musical career is so unbelievably diverse and amazing and to be able to hook up with somebody like that just made what I had on my end of songwriting, it just made all of that so much more powerful and epic. He's just amazing so hopefully I can get back together with him and maybe crank out three or four songs so that we can get a six song EP by the end of the summer and I'm working on a video for "I Will Not (Say I'm Sorry)" right now, so that's in the works and that's being done and I'm excited to get that out, as well.

What can you tell readers about the forthcoming tracks?

They're very much my experiences expressed through music so they're very personal, but they're very human and it's something that I know other humans go through and it's an honest, raw look at those experiences. I remember being asked 'what is a live performance by Chris London like?' and it's pretty much, you get what you get. I'm not going to come on stage with makeup and a fucking cape [laughs], it's not this show of 'wow, look at how well I can dress up' and 'I'm going to wow you with all this other stuff,' it's really just about the human experiences that I've had and I love to share through music and I know that that's going to be a magnet for people to connect to, so pretty much all the songs are songs of just experiences, human experiences that I know other people in this world go through. I'm just trying my best to be honest enough to write about it and, hopefully, people will connect to it.

What do you want to say about your music?

Pretty much, to summarize what we talked about, it's just an opportunity for connection and it's an honest look at what I've been through in my personal life that goes along the lines of just being a normal person going through feelings and just touching the core of what those feelings mean to me and just being honest about it. I have a hard time not expressing how I feel, that's just who I am, and music has been an incredible vehicle to express those things. You know, I suck at drawing, I'm a terrible photographer - all my pictures are photobombs, even if no one is photobombing the pictures - but something about being able to sing and play and write, that has always been constant and consistent in allowing me to express my feelings, so my music is just sharing what I'm feeling. It's almost as if we're just in a living room together and I'm just telling you what kind of day I've had, and those kind of conversations that you have, sometimes with even strangers, leads to connection because everybody's going through something, so that's kind of what the music is all about. It's very raw and real.

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Neon Hitch

Catch up with Neon Hitch to see what she had to say about her new music video for "Sparks" and Eleutheromaniac and join the #WeRNeon movement now.

How did you get started in music?

Neon Hitch: That is a very big question [laughs]. Well, I come from the circus, for those who don't know me, and I've always been a performer and then, I actually honestly had never sang a note before the age of sixteen. When I was sixteen I was singing in the back of a car and my boyfriend was like 'I've never heard your sing before, you should do this' and it just kind of happened, you know, I met the right people and, honestly, I never was like 'oh, I'm going to be a singer when I grow up,' it kind of naturally happened, but I have always been a performer of some kind.

How do these track you're working on and releasing now compare to your previous releases?

I mean, I think it's all still me, I just think, as a whole, over the past year I've done a lot of growing, as a human and as an artist, and I think that really translates in my new work.

Have you had more creative freedom to work on the music you want since leaving Warner Bros.?

I have, yeah. I guess, you know, it comes with being a pop artist, you can't help but think, well, is this radio friendly or is this too raw or is this pop enough? I've kind of just reached this place recently where I just don't give a fuck and I think that's where the best music comes from [laughs]. I'm having fun with it and I'm just being myself and me, personally, when I like an artist, that's what I like seeing, so that's sort of what I hope to do myself.

What was your idea behind the music video for "Sparks"?

The video just came out; I'm so excited about it. The inspiration for this was, it's a love song and what I really wanted to do was I wanted to do something similar to the ink blot test where it's not like a straightforward storyline where it's like, 'oh, this is what it is,' I kind of wanted to get people guessing and questioning and they want to watch it again because they're like, 'wait, who's that guy?'. I kind of want people to make up their own concept for themselves because it could mean many different things depending on the way that it speaks to you, so that was kind of my goal and also just to be my purest form of myself. 

What was it like working with these directors, Ryan Gregory Phillips and Josh Guillaume, from The Paradise Collective?

The video was a three day shoot, which is the longest video shoot I've ever done - the longest one before this was I think one day - but I think it was great. We got to capture so many different scenes and so many different sides of me and we have a lot of fun with it. 

"Sparks" is dramatic and has an anthem sort of feel to it, what was the inspiration for the song itself?

The song came from my love that I have, you know, when you meet someone, whether it's love or not, there's always this spark and it's like, you know, some people call it butterflies or whatever but, for me, I'm a fiery woman, so there's this spark that ignites this fire between two people and I'd just gone into the studio and I was working with this group, Dsign, who I've made like the whole album with and I was just telling them about this feeling that I had and I just start singing this idea and they just start playing these chords around it and they just fit perfect.

Is "Sparks" representative of the style we can expect to hear on the forthcoming album?

Yes, from Eleutheromaniac, yes it all has a similar kind of sound. I mean, there are so many different sides to me but the ones that I've done with Dsign, it does have that similar sound. It's kind of got like a little Kate Bush vibe - which I love - felt kind of like this world feel that's empowering so, yes, a similar vibe but I have so much music coming out this year that is many different styles also.

Any artists, aside from Kate Bush, you've been inspired by?

I really listen to a lot of older music and just recently I've been in New Orleans a lot, so my favorite shit recently has just been like the people on the streets that are performing. I like it to be raw and authentic and just real talent, so I'm loving jazz right now and the old people, I love Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Otis Redding, but I love so many different kinds of music. 

Could you sum up Eleutheromaniac in one sentence?

Magical. 

It's an expression of myself and I think it's really going to be a time when people really get to understand me, if they have not already.

Clearly you've worked hard to get to where you are now, what's the best advice you have?

I think that if it was easy everyone would be doing it and for what I'm going for, I know it's not going to be an easy path. I'm on a heroes journey and, you know, I'm not a puppet, I'm a real artist, and I think you've got to go through some shit to make that who you are, so I would say, don't get beaten down by the hard times, just embrace them and learn from it and grow.

What do you want to say about your music?

I just want to say to my fans thank you for your patience and just watch this phase, I'm going to make everyone very proud of me!

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