Loyal Lobos’ Talent is Everlasting: Columbian, L.A.-based singer and songwriter Loyal Lobos has had a rough year. Well, we all have. But on top of dealing with the pandemic and all the Trumpy shit, she stopped working with her management and had to start wearing a lot more hats. Her excellent 2020 album The Everlasting didn’t perform as well as she hoped – unsurprising given the aforementioned pandemic – and it all sent her into a bit of a spin.
“After releasing The Everlasting and then parting with my management company, all the emotional weight that the pandemic brought on everybody – there was so much uncertainty,” she says via a Zoom call. “I was almost like, ‘I don’t want to do music anymore. It makes me so stressed out. It makes me so sad. This used to be my happy place and now this is scarring me. It’s really hurting me.’ I got writer’s block, I couldn’t write anymore, and I didn’t know what was happening.”
That’s a scary and frustrating place to be in for an artist, especially one who pours so much of herself into her music. In hindsight, she can be pragmatic about the public’s response to The Everlasting.
“The feedback I get from most people in the industry is that artists are never happy with the receiving of the album overall especially when you put so much of you in it,” she says. “I think, more than focussing on the response of critics and the public, or numbers, I feel very fulfilled with the process on its own and I feel very fulfilled with the music. Obviously, I think one always wants things to reach further and be bigger. But with the pandemic and stuff, I had to sit with myself and ask why I make music. Putting an album out in a pandemic was difficult and challenging. So yeah, the honest answer is no I’m not satisfied, but I’m ok with it because I think it’s normal. It’s a completely normal symptom. There are so many more positives to it than the fact that you feel like it could have reached more people. It’s ok.”
Her new single is “Hate My Face” – her first new material released since the album. The song, she says, is about being ok with pissing people off.
“What I’ve felt from my friends and close circle is that the pandemic forced us so much to be ok with doing the shit that we don’t want to be doing, that I think it’s a very shared sentiment,” she says. “Every bit of advice I’ve been getting right now makes me think of this song. You’ve got to do you, and be ok with it upsetting other people. That doesn’t mean those people are bad people either. It’s a service of love to be an asshole in somebody’s life if you understand and learn to be ok with it.”
There’s a growth, the artist born Andrea Silva says, between the album and the new single, though it’s still very much her own sound.
“The album didn’t have the response that I hoped for, so for a dark period I was like, ‘Am I completely crazy? Is my music not amazing?’,” she says. “Then I was like, ‘No, my music is cool and I should just grow and go where I want to go.’ But I have stayed pretty true to my sound because it is the most genuine thing I can create. I think ‘Hate My Face’ has very deep roots with Everlasting, and even the Fall which is a very acousticy raw EP I put out before.”
Loyal Lobos moved from Columbia (she was born in Bogotá) to Los Angeles eight years ago, to study music. She naturally started exploring songwriting, and releasing music in 2018. Her sound incorporates both regions – she loves them both – though she says one big difference is how culturally diverse L.A. is.
“There are so many influences of everything here,” she says. “So many migrants, but also so many migrants with a collective interest in art, entertainment and creativity. So I think that my musical growth here was so much quicker than back home. Back home, I do think my roots were very deeply solidified with all of the traditional folk I grew up listening to. But then here, I was a complete virgin with musical knowledge. My mom doesn’t like to listen to music, so we didn’t listen to music at home. I never really explored records – I just had a relationship with music singing it and that was it. Hearing Kanye West here for the first time when I started listening to stuff, I was like ‘holy shit.’ Even Neil Young. I never delved deep into Neil Young or even at all. I didn’t have a notion of all of these artists. Everything became so stimulating and exciting. I think that combined with my roots is what makes my sound.”
With the “Hate My Face” single out, we’re of course thinking about the next album but the artist says that she’s not rushing in.
“I’m starting slow because ‘Hate My Face’ applied very much in my career where I’m at,” she says. “I left my management company, and I haven’t found the manager for me. So I don’t have the resources to create an album. I want to have the resources that my album deserves for all the material that I have. So right now, I’m just putting out singles that I can somehow fund myself and release. It’s just too ambitious right now with my resources to think about an album, but I do have enough material for an album and keep making songs. I’m in the hope that it will all align when it’s supposed to and I’ll be able to put out an album. I’m really excited about all the songs I haven’t put out.”
As for the rest of the year, Loyal Lobos really doesn’t know what’s in store. She’s open to opportunities though.
“It’s pretty cool, because I don’t know and everything that comes is surprising and exciting,” she says. “Besides a new single coming out early October, I don’t have any plans yet. I want to play shows and I know I’m going to make something happen, but I’m also taking my time. I think, releasing music is fucking stressful and I’m so sensitive to everything it’s annoying. I feel like taking it easy and dipping my toes back in the water. But I’m excited and I’m fully committed to my music. Which is the most exciting part of the whole process.”
Loyal Lobos’ Talent is Everlasting: The “Hate My Face” single is out now.
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