Rapid-Fire Questions
1. What have you been listening to lately?
Older by Gracie Abrams
2. Have you ever seen a ghost or had any paranormal experience?
I don’t think so.
3. My friend Tanner has an unhealthy, crippling obsession with the movie Wall-E. Do you have any advice for him?
Get help, that movie was mid.
4. I’ve been obsessed with Cher for the past couple of years. Any chance that you’d do a cover of her song “Believe”?
Maybe!
5. On a scale of 1-10 how cute is Shrek after he drinks that potion in Shrek 2?
11/10 dangerously cute
6. What did you listen to growing up?
Every Xfactor audition
7. Webtoon recommendations?
First Night With the Duke
Happily Ever Afterwards
My Deepest Secret
When Jays Whistles
My Gently Raised Beast
Edith
Your Throne
Like Wind on a Dry Branch
Unholy Blood
Space Boy
Freaking Romance
In the Bleak Midwinter
The Kiss Bet
8. Which Disney Princess do you think you could beat in a rap battle?
Snow White
9. If you had to start a band with 3 fictional characters, who would you choose?
I don’t think I can think of any fictional character that can play an instrument well enough.
;lk
10. On a scale from 1-10 how much do you regret agreeing to do this interview?
These questions are at least not boring, so 2/10.
Isaac Gutierrez for Born Loser Mag: To start things off, can you introduce yourself, and tell us what first sparked your interest in music, and what has that journey looked like so far?
Lyn Lapid: My name is Lyn Lapid. I am a 19 year old Filipina American singer-songwriter. I’ve been involved with music my whole life, but it wasn’t through songwriting or singing. I was thrown into music (against my will) by being classically trained on the piano for about 6 years. I occasionally sang karaoke at Filipino house parties, but I was never too involved with singing until a lot later. I also picked up the violin in elementary school because it was a requirement. It wasn’t until after I quit piano lessons that I learned to love playing piano. When everyone in my class dreaded orchestra performances, I always thought concert performances with my violin were exhilarating. I taught myself how to play the ukulele at the beginning of highschool and started to write songs when I was a junior in highschool.
Is getting signed to a label something that you had as a goal when you first started making videos on tiktok?
Originally, no. I never saw it as a possibility at first because I was just singing/songwriting on TikTok for fun. You could imagine my reaction when I started getting emails from a bunch of labels. I thought they were spam hahaha
I think it’s funny how writing a song to call out someone in the music industry is what got you into the music industry. How important is it to stay true to yourself, and what does that look like?
I grew up being used to everyone telling what to do, how to act, and who to be. I never wanted to have that happen with my music, ever. I told myself I would never act a certain way or make music just for clicks, for fame, or for money. I know what I want in terms of the image of myself that I want to put out into the world, and at the end of the day, what I say goes.
Speaking of songwriting, according to your interview with MYX Global you started writing your own songs in 2020 before signing with Republic Records a few months later. Did you expect to break into the music industry so quickly?
Absolutely not. I’m supposed to be in my first year of college on the pre-med course. I’m glad that didn’t happen though because I would’ve been miserable.
Talk to us a bit about your latest release, The Outsider?
I wrote The Outsider about becoming distant with my closest friends from highschool. Watching them make new memories with their new friends at their fancy new schools was super bittersweet, because although I was happy for them, I couldn’t help but feel lonely and left out of it all. Part of it was because I chose to not go to college and pursue music full time, so I knew becoming distant with the people who used to be in my life everyday was inevitable.
You tend to write about personal experiences. Does writing a song about something in your life change the way you look at it? Whether it’s a fear, a worry, a heartbreak, etc.
Not really. Sometimes I used songwriting as a way to heal, so i’m not sure if that counts as changing the way I look at an experience. It’s more so using it as a way to vent or channel an emotion caused by the experiences I write about, to better process it or gain a better understanding of it.
One of my favorite things about your music is how diverse each of your releases is. You can't really put your music in one box or a specific genre. Do you feel like you’ve figured out your own unique “sound”? Or is that still something that you are working on?
Every release I get a better understanding of what my “sound” is. I still can’t really put a word to it though. Floaty? I like to make songs that make you feel like you’re floating. That’s the best way to describe my music.
What do you think has helped you grow the most as a songwriter?
Being mutuals with other songwriters, for sure. I take inspiration from a bunch of the people I am so lucky to call my mutuals.
A while back you tweeted :
You wrapped up your tour with Eric Nam not too long ago, what was that experience like? What is it like to look back and know that you’ve been able to accomplish something you dreamed of doing a few years ago?
It was such a new experience, but definitely fun. I found myself acting a lot more boldly after my part of the tour ended. I became a lot more confident. I still can’t believe that just a year ago, I only had one song out and I was still in the middle of failing statistics in my senior year of high school.
Speaking of shows, I read that your first concert was actually your own! What was your first show like?
Terrible. If you were to ask around how it went, people would probably tell you my first show wasn’t terrible. But I thought it was terrible. I was incredibly nervous, I blanked and forgot the lyrics to one of the songs I was singing. I couldn’t hear myself on stage, so I was probably super off key. My voice and my knees couldn’t stop shaking. As soon as I got on stage, all I wanted was to get off of it. It was one of the two worst memories I’ve had of performing, but definitely a wonderful learning experience.
You also tweeted about reading a webtoon to calm down before your first performance. Is that something you still do? Do you have any pre-show rituals?
I don’t think I read webtoon before shows anymore. I tried to make a music playlist to listen to so I can calm myself down, but I’d always forget to listen to it before shows. I mostly just like to reread the lyrics of the songs on my setlist over and over again so I never blank and forget them on stage.
What have you learned about performing, and what has helped you become more comfortable on stage?
I’ve learned a lot by watching the artists I open for. All I know is that I feel more awkward being stiff on stage rather than moving around and doing whatever I want, so I try to move around as much as I can. I’m trying to build my stamina so I can jump around more without huffing and puffing after the first song.
What can we expect to see from Lyn Lapid in the near future?
Sick live performances with a bigger band, and definitely more music with the sound I’m going for. I hope to have my own headliner tour one day.
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