Queensland singer / songwriter AYLA has just released her full-length album Dopamine. We caught up with her to chat about the evolution of the album, and the influences and processes that went into the making of it.
It’s taken four years to release the album. I guess COVID must have got in the way early on, or was it just that it took that amount of time to get it how you wanted?
Yeah, well, I guess initially the process of creating the album started in that COVID time, and the idea of it was to have this kind of collection of collaborative tracks. That was to represent in a time that we were all a bit separated, but that we could still collaborate through the arts. That was where it all started, and then it grew into a whole album. There were ups and downs of being able to work with so many different people. One of the challenges was that it did take a little while to refine it all into this one streamlined piece and make sense together.
I was looking at the list of collaborators that you’ve got: Reuben from Peking Duck, Ed Quinn from Telenova, Sam from Ballpark Music, LDRU, there’s a whole list of people. How did you manage to keep the album cohesive yet have all these different influences?
That was what took so long, finding a way to do that. Obviously, the vocals are going to be a through line. But some of them were feeling like they were in quite different worlds. What we ended up doing was taking those co-write kind of beds to another producer to mix and tweak. If one song was maybe a little bit too far in the electronic world, for example, we just dove in there and kind of removed a few of those and added more organic sounds like more live guitar and things like that.
It must have been quite a learning experience working with all these different artists. What was there anything that you particularly got out of that experience?
It’s fantastic to work with talented people and but I don’t think necessarily that you must have a big name or profile to be that talented person, someone who is great to work with. Producers who can work so quickly are amazing, because I don’t have the patience for that side of it. It’s great if they can get in their own little world, making the beat and making the track, and then I’m in my own world, listening to it and things to write about, lyrically and melodically.
It seems clear to me that you had a vision, it’s obviously you in the in the album. Did you develop that as it went along, or did you have a clear idea from the start of what you hoping to achieve?
I always tend towards placing a lot of importance on the lyrics and I think that does bring a lot of cohesion through the album because of the writing style and the way that I like to use imagery. I always had a sense of the kind of sound that I wanted to achieve, which was not too far in this electronic world, though I did push the boundaries of that with some of the different producers, which I did enjoy. I’m happy with the balance that we found, but I think I always knew that I wanted my sound to still retain those organic sounds like the live guitar and the live drums.
The production of the album is very layered and intricate. How do you translate that into the live performance?
We got to do that for the first time recently when we had a live album preview at the local venue here on the Sunshine Coast. And, yeah, that was fun, and everything I could have hoped for to translate it live. We played a lot of the tracks from the album and had a keyboard player so she could play some of the bass synth. The guitarist and drummer were all fantastic and we did have a few of the bed elements on track and played to click. I think that you can get caught up in wanting to translate everything exactly according to live, but I think it is good to leave yourself a bit of room to explore and expand upon what you’ve got in that recording. I think we did that, and it was a lot of fun.
One of the comments I read from KLP is, what would happen if you put Florence, Lorde and Lana Del Rey in a room together. How does it feel getting that sort of recognition from someone like that?
That’s like my dream compliment. It’s yeah, unbelievable, I guess, to have that kind of comment from someone like KLP who is in the industry.
So, what about you? Who do you have as your inspiration?
When I was younger, particularly, I did listen to a lot of Sarah Blasco when I was growing up. She was like an inspiration as someone who could tie in those elements of having electronic production and pushing the boundaries there, but still retaining that live sound. And I’ve always found her a great influence for that. And, but yeah, I guess recently, I’ve been listening to a lot of this band called Hard Life, and a band called Oh Well. And then like, SZA the artist. I really enjoy artists who have interesting phrasing and fit in interesting wordplay, imagery and lyrics. That’s always been my kind of focus.
When do you have tracks, maybe your favorite song, or a song that was a little bit more difficult to write, or are they sort of more like your children? Or do you love them all equally?
I suppose there’s not any that I don’t like. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be released. But there are some that I like more, the ones that have been released as singles. There have been a few singles released along the way. The title track of Dopamine, the sentiment of that song, to me, felt like it summed up the whole album. It was based around the feeling of having that rush of from whatever was going, if I was traveling or having a good experience. Then the crux lyric is “The hardest thing is the dopamine, the hole where it’s been”. So, it’s about feeling the kind of the come down from dopamine or the high kind of leads you on.
So, I guess you’d be on a high dopamine level right now?
Um, yes, but kind of tired. I think that’s how most people kind of go through life. We just keep pushing on. But yeah, the album preview show was a real highlight that was very fun to have people who’ve supported me since I was 12 and younger come out and support the release of this, my debut album. It was very special.
Are you planning on touring with the album?
We don’t have shows booked now; it’s kind of an interesting climate on the live scene at the moment, with festivals closing, and just the affordability side of it, to be honest. It’s about figuring out ways to do it and make it affordable. I think there was Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers who were part of an inquiry into that whole thing about musicians being able to make money from live shows and whatnot. So, yeah, there’s a moving climate with that. I think it’s just about finding ways to make it work.
What’s next for AYLA? Do you take a little bit of a breather and let the album go out, or do you jump straight back into writing songs?
Well, I’ve already got quite few projects going. Yeah, it’ll be exciting to have this album out, and to be able to translate it live, because I do want to find ways to do shows. To be able to do the local show in our area, and push it out to nearby areas, and then work out ways to get further than that. I’ve got a lot of other tracks that I’m excited about and been working on too. So, it’ll be good to be able to put a bit more time into those and to be able to release them in the coming months.
Are you constantly coming out with new ideas, writing them down, sort of getting them ready, or does it come in spurts?
Yeah, I think in spurts. I’m often writing down new ideas. I’ve been enjoying co-writes and collaborations with this album particularly, but I’ve got some more of those, particularly with one producer this time, rather than so many different producers. I enjoy that kind of way of working as well, and it kind of motivates me to get some tracks finished. It feels like it’s part of me, that I’ll always be writing music, whether it’s end up getting released or not, it’s always something I’m going to be doing.
I enjoyed listening to it, lyrically it’s very refreshing, and the music enhances your voice perfectly. So yeah, it’s a very enjoyable album. You should be quite proud of it.
Thank you.
Dopamine is out now. Stream it on Spotify or head to AYLA’s website for more info.
