An amalgamation of 15 years’ worth of experience as a musician, Brisbane based rnb/dark pop artist RYELLE has just released her second single, ‘Every Way.’ The track is fun, bold, and refreshing. Wanting to break down the stigma of women in music talking about desire, sensuality and passion. RYELLE joined FIISHBLOG to chat about the track, inspirations and plans for the coming year.

What has your music journey been like as RYELLE up to this point?

I’ve been doing this (music) my whole life, I’ve been performing as a live cover artist for 15 years and I really wanted to put this distinction between my cover reputation and starting a music project and RYELLE happened organically about a year ago.

 I moved back up to Brisbane post COVID and started a music project by living in a big share house with JUNO and a bunch of other musos in the scene. I think that really helps a lot with building a sense of good support which has really helped catapult my music journey as RYELLE. And just being around the right people at the right time. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, meeting people that are now on my team. Since all that’s happened, I’ve done a few shows, supporting Nanas Pie, did my own headline show which almost sold out, it was really surreal. I dropped my debut single ‘Circles’ back in June and since then I’ve shared the stage with Boo Seeka and did the stage door sessions at the Princess Theatre, and I’m yet to drop another song!

What is your new track ‘Every Way’ about?

The meaning of the song is quite a primal empowering type of song, especially for women. I think it’s refreshing to break down the stigma of talking about sensuality and desire from a female perspective and it being considered quite a healthy thing. I wrote it with Kahlia and Sam from JUNO and they are just amazing to write with. The song just took its own natural turn without me really going in with an idea of what the song was going to be about. I think because the song’s chord progressions are quite…in my sense, quite a primal sound. For me, stepping into this new limelight of being this dark pop artist, it just felt very fitting and empowering as someone growing into themselves as a woman.  So, the song itself is about wanting someone in every way and the desire of it and it being kind of playful and fun. 

How do you approach songwriting and the creative process?

When I’m on my own writing it’s very much the same sort of process, always catching me at the worst times where I’m inspired in the late hours. I hit record on my phone and just jam out until something comes up and I feel like that flow state is really key. I use that flow state even with collaboration, and that’s where things have changed as of lately where I have been collaborating more with other people with writing and that really helps take a song to the next level. I found that collaborating with other people, especially if you’re hitting roadblocks or if you’ve been working on the song for a number of hours, having someone else there is really great to open those creative doors. That has been my favourite thing, writing with other people that get your creative vision, that can give you input and take your song to the next level that you didn’t know it could go to.

I always come up with ideas even with using Splice, it’s an app. Literally AI is so great, you can create splice loops in the comfort of your own bed and see what comes up. I’m always finding new innovative ways to come up with ideas that I can present to people that I’m going to write with. 

You explore smokey RNB and dark pop, is this genre something you’ve always resonated with?

Yeah, I would say the darkness, or the moodiness has always been the baseline of what I love with music. My favourite band of all time is Radiohead, I wouldn’t call them necessarily dark pop, but they have this moodiness and cinematic feel to their music.  I’ve always loved songs that evoke emotion, that really take your imagination to the next level and make you feel things. I like this new artist that I’ve discovered called ELIZA, and I would say that dark pop energy has stemmed from listening to artists like her over the last few years, where there’s this rnb sense to it and the primal stuff that I was talking about before. I’m very drawn to it, it’s very alluring and I feel very fulfilled exploring that as an artist as well.

Who are some women or non-men in the industry that you look up to or take inspiration?

ELIZA being one of them, and people in the local music scene, I am just blown away by my girl friends in the music scene like Kahlia from JUNO and Grace from STAHR and one of my best friends Chloe Jett. I’m surrounded by such goal driven women, and I think that really rubs off. I like Doja Cat and Dua Lipa too if we were to go down the pop route, they have something that’s a little bit different. I’m surrounded by a lot of great women. It’s really cool. 

What are your favourite venues in Brisbane? 

I do like the smaller venues. I find that attending as a punter, I don’t do very well in the large crowds like the Fortitude Music Hall, I’d like to perform there instead. There’s something about The Bearded Lady that I really like in west end. And the Black Bear Lodge, I think there’s a lot of gigs at the moment that happen there and right now in this climate there’s not many original music venues that can hold capacities to that extent and I like those little intimate shows, and I love supporting my friends that play there, and I love performing there as well. 

What are your plans as we head into 2025?

I dont have anything set in stone yet… keeping my options open with any sort of support slots that may come up. The goal is for next year to get into touring. I do a lot of the solo looping sets as well that I feel like is my arsenal as an artist that breaks away from a typical artist, especially as a female artist, I really want to explore that as just going on this solo nomad trip down the east coast and do tours on my own first, obviously I’d love to do the band stuff too but I guess in this climate too they’re the ones that would be waiting for the bigger opportunities but I’m excited regardless to just go on tour. The goal is to release three songs next year, do the touring, get some grants to support building up a rig and build up my pallet of being a touring artist.  See what happens! 

Stream ‘Every Way’ here