Q: This song is so relatable! What is the story behind it?
Lilla: Thank you! I’ve had lots of great feedback like this, and it’s truly the most important to me. I think the song comes across relatable because it’s about honesty and things that you wouldn’t normally admit easily to yourself or others. But I’ve spent so much time trying to look perfect to peoples’ eyes and to my own idea of myself that I got to the point where I needed to write an ‘admission of guilt’ kinda song.
Q: I love all the colors and imagery used in the video! What was it like to shoot the music video for ‘Shymode’?
Lilla: It was genuinely so much fun. The girl who shot the video is an old friend of mine, and we’ve worked together for a long time now so this makes the creative process very easy. Every time I come up with a concept she gets exactly what I have in mind within seconds. I also trust her intuitions so we let our creative visions intertwine and always end up with some great visuals together. Because it’s a very personal song, I wanted the video to look like an interrogation - but a glamorous one - in order to create a contrast between the concept of being shy but also wanting to be seen as beautiful and shiny all the time. I think we nailed it.
Q: What was the songwriting process like for this song?
Lilla: It was genuinely one of the quickest songs I’ve ever written. I always naturally start writing jamming melodies, until I find one that I love and then put lyrics to it. For this one it almost happened that music and words came together at the same time - it’s like they were within me and couldn’t wait any longer to be out in the world. It actually took me longer to produce, because the sound I ended up creating wasn’t quite the one I had in mind when I wrote the song. In my head it was supposed to be a bit slower and more melancholic but then I produced this upbeat track, and I think the juxtaposition with the lyrics actually works very well.
Q: Who is one artist you would love to collaborate with?
Lilla: My dream would be to work with Amy Allen. Her songwriting is stunning and I’d love to just sit in a room with her and learn. I can’t even imagine how inspiring it would be to see her in action.
Q: What inspires you most to continue to create music?
Lilla: I would say there are two factors. The first one is that I don’t really know anything else - I’ve been writing music for a long time and it’s what makes me the happiest. I’ve tried to take different directions, I’ve studied fashion, but I would always get back to music, so eventually decided that’s where I had to invest all my energy and time. The second factor is that it’s a hard path to undertake and sometimes (actually most of the time) it feels very hard to make a living out of it or to be successful, and every time I feel like giving up I think that I HAVE to keep going, because I owe it to myself. I owe it to the kid- me who’s been wanting to do this since always, to the kind of lifestyle I decided to take and so I have to honour my decisions if that makes sense. When it comes to inspiration, for now I want to talk about how I see things and my own experiences - I feel like this is the time where I expose things I’ve never talked about.
Q: Where do you see your music journey going next?
Lilla: My plan for now is to consistently release music and build my fanbase. I want to gig everywhere, starting from the UK and then across Europe. My biggest dream would be to sell out in Rome, my hometown. Singing in front of people has always been my favourite thing since I started with cover gigs in pubs - sharing my own stories is 1000 times better and really reminds me every time why I do this.
Interviewed By Kendall Koval
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