Lonely And Lola are a musical duo made up of Sean Gilles and Lauren Reilly. Coming at your ear canals with melodic folk pop steeped in a deep sense of musical history, with influences such as Fleetwood Mac, Beach Boys and other '60's stalwarts. I was lucky enough to be joined by them on Pulse Community Radio recently, and extending their acts of generousity they have answered some questions. Have a gander.
Hello, how are you?
Sean. I'm very well thank you, just busy in studio trying to get our album finished
Lauren. Good, thank you :) Yeah, we're trying to get it completed as soon as possible so we can get it out there and hopefully spark some interest in the band.
Tell us a little bit about your music and your influences.
S. I'm majourly influenced mostly with 60's music. My biggest influence has got to be The Beatles. If it wasn't for hearing Sgt Pepper when I was 7 I would have never got into music. I also love Buddy Holly, The Doors, The Beach Boys, right up to Ryan Adams who I think is an incredible Singer/Songwriter.
L. I have quite a range of musical influences. When it comes to singing style, I adore some of the more old school artists like Judy Garland, Peggy Lee, Julie London; I just love that rich sound they make, so simple yet so effective, and it was The Andrews sisters that introduced me to harmonies and what an incredible sound they can produce. Of the artists still around today though, I have to mention people like Regina Spektor, Joni Mitchell, She & Him... I could go on forever though, right to my downright guilty pleasures; Taylor Swift, Michael Bublé. .. I can't help myself!
How did the partnership of Lonely And Lola come about?
S. It came about when I wrote a song that was a duet with a female voice. Lauren had done stuff with The Lonely boy before so I asked her to come along and see if the song would work....and it did. It worked so well in fact I thought I have to make a band with just the two of us. So I wrote more songs with two vocals in it and now here we are.
L. Sean just wanted to find a ploy to spend time alone with me... Haha I'm joking, no, he sent me a text one day to see if I'd be interested and it started off just as a small project we played around with for a few months. It was after our first gig at the Edinburgh Festival; we did a 15 minute kind of teaser set to test the water, and everyone responded so well to us, that we realised we could be onto something and decided to give it a real try.
What's your song writing process like?
S. Usually I will write the song and then take it to Lauren then the two of us will sit down and work out some arrangement for it and then Lauren will work out her vocals and harmonies. Lauren's really good at coming up with harmonies.
L. Yeah, we've settled into that kind of process now where Sean comes to me with a song and I'll throw out my ideas, let him sing it to me and I'll work out where I fit in and my own melody to complement his or sometimes we'll decide that a particular song is more suited to one of us in particular and the other just supports with back up vocals or guitar, and in my case a tambourine!
What would you say has been your greatest achievement so far?
L. I'd have to say our gig at the Troubadour Club down in London. We only had a couple of gigs under our belt as a duo at this point, Sean obviously has a lot of experience solo and with his band but I was still a newbie to the scene and it was quite daunting, I have to say; playing on the same stage that folk like Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin once performed. It ended up being an amazing gig though, there was a great atmosphere held throughout the night, the audience were really on our side and it's the gig where I think we really started to come into ourselves; relax into our own style and enjoy the performance, it was a great achievement for us so early on.
If you could battle one other musical duo who would it be?
S.The two of us have thought hard about this and I think we are gonna go for Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks....Lauren will explain why...
L. Although we realise that Stevie could have me for breakfast haha, we figure that all we'd need to do is light a spark and leave those two to battle each other to the death! You know... "So guys, what was Go Your Own Way about..?" Easy.
What have you got planned for 2012?
S. Gonna try get more gigs, hopefully get on some tours and get our album done and dusted.
L. Yeah, just get as much experience behind us as possible, gain more support and get our album to as many people as possible and hope that someone sees something in us and likes us enough to take us further.
Any live dates coming up for those who want to see you live?
L. We're performing with lots of other bands as part of a charity gig at Maggie May's on December 7th, and there will also be a Christmas themed gig hopefully, although the date and location of which is still to be arranged so keep an eye on our website lonelyandlola.com or 'like' us on Facebook where we keep everyone posted.
What other Scottish artists would you recommend to the Scottish Fiction readers?
S. We have played with a lot of really good scottish acts. I'm loving a band called "She's hit" also a band called "suspire" Everyone should go check them out.
L. I'm brand new to the scene so I'm still discovering them as I go along, the ones who have most impressed me so far, other than who Sean's already mentioned, are Lou Hickey and Tragic O'Hara, both really talented and unique acts that deserve some credit.
Thanks for speaking with us, would you care to share a joke with us?
S.Thank you...its been a pleasure. I will let Lauren tell a joke cause mines are either not funny or rude.
L. Thank you for having us! Jeeeez, a joke that's neither rude or offensive....
How many ears has Captain Kirk got? Three: the left ear, the right ear and the final front ear....
Check out more from Lonely And Lola on their website and Facebook.
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