FEATURE:
Spotlight
Eyelar
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I am recommending an artist…
PHOTO CREDIT: Eyelar
who had a busy 2022 and, to be fair, has been pretty busy since lockdown started in 2020. Perhaps someone who was hoping to be busier and tour more in 2020 and 2021, Eyelar is an artist making up for lost time now! There are not that many more recent interviews with her, but I wanted to look back at one from 2020, one from 2021, plus a relatively new one from late last year. One reason I am featuring her here is because she has been tipped for greatness this year. The Dutch-born, London-based Eyelar Mirzazadeh is a sensational artist everyone needs to look out for through 2023. I am going to come to a few interviews. The Forty-Five chatted with such a bright, hugely talented and passionate artist in 2020. At a time when lockdown was in force, it must have been frustrating that she was not able to get out and play gigs:
“With her animated demeanor and vivid, candyfloss curls, it’s immediately obvious that Eyelar Mirzazadeh doesn’t do shy and retiring. Apparently, she never has.
Speaking today from her mother’s home in Amsterdam, the 24-year-old enthuses about her childhood, recalling how she would voluntarily entertain the guests at her parent’s weekly parties, performing improvised choreography to the Persian music filling the house. By the age of 16 she was effortlessly belting out Mary J Blige ballads on national television, and subsequently made the semi-finals of ‘The Voice of Holland’. Within a few years she established herself as a much sought-after songwriter in London, regularly working with A-listers like Little Mix, Demi Lovato and Charli XCX. But while all of this would have been impossible without her possessing even the mildest of exhibitionist streaks, the Dutch-Iranian singer-songwriter maintains that her sole motivation has always been forging an honest connection with her audience.
That fact is abundantly clear on her debut EP. Produced by her good friend and long-time collaborator Fred Again (Stormzy, Headie One, Jamie xx), ‘Doin It Again’ finds Eyelar delivering four unflinching snapshots from her life. “I got so tired of loving men, so I fucked a girl just to pretend,” she sings over undulating keys on ‘Man Like Her’, a sweetly apologetic ode to a lost night of experimentation. Eyelar’s hurt is palpable on ‘Care Like You’ as she reels off a list of imagined revenge tactics aimed at an ex-partner over twitchy beats and pillowy soft-synths. Meanwhile the title track tackles the difficulties of resisting damaging romantic attachments while swelling beautifully into soulful, electronic-pop from its foundation of sparse, shimmering guitars.
Hey Eyelar, how has lockdown life been treating you?
“Well, for the first two weeks I was a bit like, ‘Fuck, what am I gonna do?’ Because I love making music with my friends in the studio, and that’s what I do every single day, usually. And if I don’t make music I get in a really weird place. But then I decided to pull myself together, so I bought a microphone, fiddled with Logic and I think after about a month I started really writing and recording, and I would shoot and edit videos. It’s been really productive for me, actually – I’ve grown so much. I also tried to learn to skateboard, but I fell really hard. (Laughs)”
So can you tell me more about your route into songwriting?
So I come from a town where nobody does anything other than school stuff. I didn’t know anyone who was creative, basically, so I decided to enter ‘The Voice of Holland’ because I needed to do something. I didn’t tell my parents, because I wanted to see how far I would go, and then I got to the semi-finals. And that was good for me because then I had a way into the music industry.
So after ‘The Voice’ I started writing songs and toplines for DJs and stuff, because that’s what everyone was doing, and then after a year I got really bored of writing dance songs and was like, right, ‘I need to go to London.’ I didn’t know anyone there but I knew if I wanted to make it I needed to go to London. Then I found out that this producer called Distortion was Dutch but lived in London, so I just tweeted him, like, ‘We should work together,’ and he was like, ‘Sure, send me some stuff.’ I did and he really liked my songs, so I literally got on a plane to London to do a session with him and we wrote two songs together. And his manager was like, ‘Wow, who’s this girl?’ and he ended up becoming my manager.”
How has London shaped you as an artist?
“I grew up on hip hop and R&B, because I had a bigger brother who was into that and I always wanted to impress him, but when I came to London I started listening to a lot of rock music. That was something that was quite new to my ears: The 1975, Nirvana, The Clash… I have a really weird song with Brunswick called ‘Fxck You Cause You Were The One’, that’s literally inspired by ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ by The Stone Roses. Those earlier songs I released were my experimental phase, and that was definitely inspired by English music. I think London as a city suits me and my music. London feels like home for me”.
I will come to a quick question and answer interview from Gig Goer from 2021. The last couple of years have been productive and successful for Eyelar, but lockdown and the pandemic has definitely delayed things. 2022 was a busier one, and I think this year is the one where Eyelar breaks through worldwide and is recognised as one of the most striking and remarkable artists around:
“How would you describe the project to someone at a dinner party that’s never heard of you?
Honest lyrics and (what I strive to be) beautiful melodies.
What advice would you give to your pre-lockdown self?
You’re gonna be okay. In fact, I’m giving myself that advice to post lockdown me as well.
How would you sum up your 2020 in one sentence?
Fucked and beautiful. I’ve connected with myself and with people in ways I’ve never connected before.
Name one thing you can’t imagine your life without.
My mum.
What is the most useless talent you have?
I’m weirdly good at ping pong and for someone who doesn’t drink a lot I have a high tolerance for alcohol. I really don’t know why, but I do.
What are your hopes and dreams for 2021?
To FINALLY perform on a stage with people and dance together!!! I’m dying to go out and dance with my friends again.
And also release more music and write the best songs I’ve ever written. I also hope I can keep my room more tidy.
Which artists excite you the most this year?
I’m sorry to say it’s myself.
And finally, what does your music say about you?
It says that I am emotional, expressive and a little bit crazy”.
A sensational artist who I am predicting big things for this year, 1883 spoke with Eyelar about her then-new single, Till You Hate Me, at the end of last year. It is clear that Eyelar has always been determined to be a musician. She was definitely born to bring her wonderful music to a wide audience. I think that she will achieve huge things this year:
“Growing up in The Netherlands you said you didn’t come from a very musical family but dinner parties were aregular fixture which gave you and your friends the opportunity to come up with shows and perform them for everyone. At what point did you realise creating music was what you wanted to do with your life? What do you think you would be doing now had it not been for music, did you ever have a sort of backup plan?
I grew up in a really, really small town and no one was doing anything creative so my interests were not something I shared with anyone really. My parents knew I loved singing because not only would I perform, dance, and sing but I would also find out the lyrics of songs and memorise them all. I would just always be thinking about music and singing. Then I went to high school and no one was doing anything creative but I just knew I was going to do music at some point in my life, I didn’t know how, when, or with who but I just knew it was going to happen. I even found a little diary in my mom’s house from when I must have been around fourteen-years-old that I wrote a manifestation in and it said “When I’m 25 I’m only going to be speaking English, I’m going to be a huge musician, and I’m only going to be making music”. That was at a time when I didn’t even know anyone who was in music or was doing any sort of music at all but I was always writing songs, short stories, and handwritten poems which I still have at home.
Speaking of the old diary you found, it’s been 10 years since you wrote that manifestation you’ve gotten to a point where it has become reality. Do you manifest often?
I manifest a lot, I have a notebook where I journal often and it’s really nice because once a year I go through my old journals just to see what my list of manifestations were and they always change. Most of the things I have written down though have all come true so I am a huge believer and even when I feel like I don’t believe in myself or when I’m really low in energy, I still do it because I just think it’s super powerful. Words are really powerful, especially when they get out of your thoughts and onto paper. I definitely believe in manifesting and it’s nice because the goals I have written so far in my life have mostly come true. You do kind of get to a goal and then your goal shifts and becomes bigger and more specific. You also grow as a person so maybe your goals change. I manifest every day.
It’s always great to be able to look back and see that you have achieved your goals! I also think the more specific, the better. So I’m quite specific. I have the big goals but I also write down really specific things, years, months or even people. It’s quite specific.
Your music career began in 2012 when you appeared on the Voice Of Holland and made it to the semi-finals. You mentioned the reason you did it was because you had to do something when it came to music and it served as a way into the music industry. After the show, you spent time writing for other people before releasing your first single as an artist. Did you feel any pressure when beginning to release music yourself or did it come naturally to you after spending so long creating behind the scenes?
Wanting to release my own songs happened really organically because in the beginning when I moved to London, I was in the studio every day and that’s what I wanted to do. It’s not like I didn’t want to be an artist, I just really wanted to write songs every single day. Also, when I learned what artists were doing and how to do it I was like “Whoa, I just want to be in a studio” so I did that for a while but after a few years I just wrote some songs I didn’t want to give away. It wasn’t a case of “Okay, I’m going to write and then become an artist” it was more me just writing songs and then some of the ones I was writing I didn’t want to give up. It was actually a really cool moment because I remember having written a song and that was the first time I was like “Oh, maybe I should release this” but I only thought about it, I didn’t do anything. I was in West London in Sarm Studios and that day my manager called me about that song and he was like “Should this not be your song?” And I was like “Oh my god, that’s crazy” and that was the first time this whole process started happening, at a super slow pace.
I think there is definitely a certain pressure that I didn’t feel. There is always pressure when you’re in the industry but I’m also someone who puts pressure on myself, that’s just my personality. My parents moved from Iran basically because there wasn’t a future for me and my brothers so I always felt pressure to do well in whatever I was going to do so when I started releasing my own songs I felt the pressure of comparing myself to other people. I would be looking at the numbers, if you have 100 positive comments and one of them is negative, you tend to fixate on that one which is something that’s very unnatural and weird. It’s like a different kind of pressure you have to navigate your way through.
You take a lot of inspiration lyrically from things that have happened in your life and conversations you have had and said lyrics are the most important part for you. Does your writing process differ at all when writing for other people rather than for yourself? Or do the two tend to converge?
No, it’s definitely different because when I’m writing for someone else, usually I’m in a room with them and it’s more about writing a song that is the artist or collaborator’s story. It’s all about talking and usually, from that hour or two hours that we talk and hang out, there’s already a song concept–well, on a good day anyway! When I’m writing for myself, it’s less of a pop approach. It’s more a case of just letting everything come out and hoping that it’s a good song.
Rather than thinking within a pop formula, just let everything out and see what happens…
Yeah, see what happens and maybe it’s good, maybe it’s not but it’s definitely more a train of thought where I just let it all come out. When I write for other people, whether they’re in the room or not, it’s a different approach.
You mentioned when you came to London that you had quite a bit of inspiration from listening to bands like Nirvana and Hole. Who would you say are some of your biggest inspirations, musically?
That’s a really hard question because I’ve written so many songs in different genres. I’m from an Iranian background and grew up in Holland before moving to London so I grew up on hip hop and R&B and have so much music I love. For me, I think it’s if the storytelling is good. That’s why I really love Kurt Cobain, with his lyrics it feels like you’re inside his mind and I really love that. Equally, I think Taylor Swift does it as well. Those are things I really love but I also love artists who make you feel like you can express freely so for that reason I love Madonna as well, she’s done so much for female pop culture. I think there’s inspiration everywhere, even with Tupac, I love listening to his songs and looking at the lyrics. Sometimes I read the lyrics as the song is playing because Tupac is also a really good storyteller. For me, it’s any artist who is a great storyteller”.
If you have not listened to Eyelar’s amazing music, then go and follow her and make sure she is a permanent part of your listening this year! I discovered her fairly recently, but I have no doubt that she is going to be a huge proposition. A stunningly original and accomplished artist already, there is a wonderful career ahead of her. One hit of her music is enough to…
SEDUCE the senses.
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