Interview with Sophie Delila

I had the pleasure to interview musician Sophie Delila.  She is a multi-talented vocalist, producer, pianist, guitarist and writer who is exploding onto the scene in Europe.  Her brilliant musical talent showcases an edgy pop sound with a jivey blues flavor.

James Johanson: Many of your early musical influences came from jazz, classical and blues music – and much of these influences were channeled through your fathers love for music, whom was a highly acclaimed pianist and even had a friendship with Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye.  How do you think all of these influences shaped who you are as an artist today?

Sophie Delila: They definitely influenced me vocally because it is soul and blues, but more generally, they influenced the way to approach music. And the approach would be, “feel, mean what you sing”. Marvin, Ray Charles, and also Stevie Wonder (among MANY others) are people I look up to because of that. They are true icons. In that way I think they set a precedent of a very high level of quality, whether it’s in the singing, the writing, or the production, that I’m always reaching for. No matter how far I am from it, that’s what keeps me going. But of course, it’s not about replicating. It’s about making music in my own way, in today’s context.

JJ: Elle has described your album Hooked as “a soul album with a rock heart.”  I think this is a fantastic description of its sound.  How do you feel the “rock heart” comes out in this album?

SD: It’s got a rock heart because essentially there’s a bit of a rock star in me… You’ll see it more when you see me play live!

JJ: What do you most want to express through your music?

SD: All kinds of feelings. Anything that goes through my head really, whether it’s my story or someone else’s…I just want to express real feelings. That’s what this album is about, anyway. It’s very grounded and real.

JJ: Can you describe the artistic process you go through while creating music?

SD: Absolutely not! It’s always different, technically, artistically, humanly… It can last 5 seconds or hours or days or months… So really, the only thing I can describe is the joy that it generates. Writing a good song makes you “invincible”.

JJ: How does music influence your lifestyle?

SD: Music is pretty much everywhere I go and I think because I’m now making music all the time, it doesn’t influence my “lifestyle” as much as when I was a kid for example. I listen to all kinds of music all the time, too… I work late in the studio, go to gigs, and meet lots of people….
I guess music doesn’t influence my lifestyle as much as it is my life.

JJ: You recently released a music video for the song Nature of the Crime.  Can you tell us a little about the making of the video and the main concept behind it?

SD: Making the video was absolutely amazing! The director, Earle Sebastian, who worked with the biggest stars like Madonna, Missy Elliott, and who’s now Alicia Keys’ creative director, had this concept of 4 different characters, all played by me, interacting with each other. The song being about being torn between feelings like love, pride, guilt and regret, it was an interesting concept to sort of represent all those feelings in the character. And all of this was shot in one (long) day! It was a fantastic experience.