Paya Lehane Exclusive Interview

 

1) First and foremost thank you for taking the time out for this interview. Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your first steps into creating music?

The pleasure is all mine Martin!:)

My name is Paya Lehane and I am a music composer, multi-instrumentalist and a music producer based in North London, UK. I also spend some time working on abstract art when I need to give my ears a little break. :)

I come from the Czech republic where I studied music since childhood. It was a pretty long journey as I started playing recorder when I was four. I have played the piano since I was six and then I moved to playing oboe as well. I was lucky because when it comes to music education in my home country you can find a lot of music schools for all ages. So I started with elementary school which is basically a music primary school where you can learn a very basic music theory, also singing and a music instrument of your own choosing. When I was 15 I got accepted to a music conservatoire in my hometown Pardubice where I studied classical music and an oboe playing and after six years I went to Janacek’s Academy of Performing Arts in Brno where I got quite a lot of practise in orchestral playing and chamber music.

While I was studying at the Academy I was already pretty much sure about my dream job. I didn’t want to be an oboe player in a symphonic orchestra or a teacher. I had a massive urge to create music so I decided to start writing my own music. While I studied the conservatoire in Pardubice I met a lot of great musicians and same creative beings like myself who wanted to establish a band focused on Celtic music.

So in 2008 me and my friend Stepan Honc (guitarist) along with two other friends (a violinist and a percussionist) from the conservatoire founded a band called Perkelt. We started off with our own arrangements of old medieval tunes from the 13th century and then we slowly moved onto making our own tunes with a Celtic folk vibe. For a while we used to call our style a Celtic-medieval speed folk as we were pretty wild young students who loved super energising upbeat music so it was pretty normal for us to play a two hour set full of insanely fast songs without taking a single break. :)

In 2010 we sadly came across a massive barrier.

We discovered that we can’t make full living out of making music and playing gigs in the Czech Republic. You see in the Czech Republic when it comes to public events as gigging opportunities for young folk bands, musicians are just constantly taken for granted and they never seem to get any respect or recognition for their work. To many people in the Czech Republic “being a musician” doesn’t even mean to have an actual job. They just never get paid and if they do it is a pittance which barely covers their travel costs. It’s outrageous.. I am not gonna dig deep into this problem as it’s not the main subject of this interview but it is a clear explanation why in 2011 me and my bandmate Stepan decided to leave our home country and move to London.

It was a fresh start and just living, creating, playing music and meeting other musicians gave us a big dose of hope for a better future and also a great energy to keep doing what we always loved doing.

It wasn’t an easy journey but it was worth it!

In the last nine years I have played (not kidding) hundreds of great gigs and I met lots of great musicians and exciting people. With some of them I had a great pleasure to cooperate on some music and theatrical projects and I am really happy here. About 2years ago I started my own solo project focused on world music and fusions of different music styles and I totally love it!

And that is where I am pretty much now :)

2) You’re a woman of many talents: a singer, a multi-instrumentalist, producer, media artist and painter. Do you have a favourite artistic pursuit or do you find joy and frustrations in equal measures?

First of all thank you so much for saying so! I am blushing a bit right now. :)

Uhm….I have always considered myself being more a music person and because of all my studies and experience in music I feel more competent and confident as a musician. Visual arts is something I just appreciate very much and to be honest since the first time I set my foot in the Tate Modern I feel like at home. :) Before the Covid crisis started I used to go there very often. That place just gives me so much creative energy and inspiration that sometimes I just simply have to get a canvas, grab a paint brush and paint something.

3) Your productions cover a number of genres for example folk, celtic and even drum and bass, which utilises both organic and synthetic instruments. Who or what are the main influences to your composition style?

There is a huge number of artists who inspired me. Some of them are very famous, some of them are less famous and some of them are just people in my life.

From the famous group I should definitely mention people like Bjork, Lisa Gerrard, Enya or Loreena McKennit. They all have one thing in common and that’s very unique compositional and singing style, beautiful voice off course and experience with film music score writing. These ladies are my huge idols.

When it comes to mixing up different music genres the biggest influence comes from a quite big circle of my musical friends. Not only friends from England but also some friends from Australia, Netherlands, Norway, Italy and Germany and many many others. I have met inspiring people who do Classical music, Gothic music, Traditional Bulgarian music, Country music & Americana, Folk music, Early music, Rock music, D&B, some people who focus on Epic Nordic music or Viking ritual music, Pagan Dance music, there is really so many music genres in the world that I could go on and on for hundreds of pages. All these people have inspired me and meeting them and listening to their great stuff was what probably transformed into my own music style. That’s why among all my music you get the D&B :)

4) You recently released Hollow Skies on Suriya Records which was produced by Youth. What did you feel his years of experience brought to the production of the album?

Oh yes!! Youth really knows his stuff!! :) His years of experience definitely made this album Great! Unique and Super Memorable!!

I have to say he taught me some new pretty cool ways of making music which I didn’t really have the guts to try until I came into his studio in Clapham. You see when it comes to recording myself I am pretty old fashioned. I am pretty stuck with my own routines. Firstly I write my music on a piece of paper, usually scores first then the lyrics. Then I make a list of instruments which I would like to record, then I write the structure of the piece, solos for instrumental parts and lastly I work on the intro and outro of the song. And after all these preparations I go to switch on the computer, set up the mics and press record.

With Youth this all was just not happening and at first it was making me rather nervous :). Youth asked me to be more spontaneous so we would usually sit down together and listen to the basic backing track that he had prepared for the session earlier in the day. It was supposed to help me to get into the vibe. I have to say the first few sessions were quite stressful as I was just super nervous which was making my voice to shake so the performance wasn’t very good. But later on I just got somehow comfortable with being spontaneous. I did a lot of improvising on the basic vocal lines which I improved later by adding some harmonies. So at the end I had some stuff actually written. Especially when it came to writing lyrics in a fictional language. :) Youth helped me to find my own musical language and taught me to trust my voice. Also he taught me that during improvisation if you really calm down:) lots of magic can happen…And it did. I think the album we made is truly magical. :)

5) While everyone is awaiting the return to normality, where we can attend live concerts many artists are reaching their fans by video streaming. Is this something you have in the pipeline?

Even though I have done some live streamed gigs with Perkelt when this cover pandemic started actually I have spent quite an insane amount of time in the studio which means that for the next year when the vaccine is rolled out and life gigs become more safe I will have a plenty of material to show. So I am really looking forward to that!!

6) What is your favourite performance of your career so far and where would be your dream stage to play?

My most favourite performance was in the Netherlands at a festival called Castlefest (Summer edition) in 2018 which is actually my most favourite festival ever and I can’t wait to be there again at some point!! The whole Castlefest is just a huge super-spectacular thing, amazing people around you, beautiful scenery, gorgeous costumes ( as it is a fantasy & music festival) and four days of a total paradise!! I have to strongly recommend it to everyone! It is a festival for all age groups by the way so no-one is excluded there which is what I love about it most. Everyone is welcome there and I promise you if you go there from the first day on you will feel like at home!!

7) What advice do you have for young artists and producers hoping to launch their career?

Believe yourself, be patient with yourself and others, have respect and self-discipline, learn and never give up!!!!

Links

https://payalehane.com/