According to his publicists, new Melbourne performer Blyolk has a knack of purposefully mis-spelling things.
Take his performance name, for example. It’s spelled ‘Blyolk’ but is pronounced ‘Bloke’. Take his debut single, for example. It’s spelled ‘Don Wowry’ but is pronounced ‘Don’t Worry’.
We think you’re reyully going to lieyhk him.
1. Name : Blyolk (aka Sebastian Chesney).
2. Where are you based? Melbourne, Australia.
3. How did you get your start in music? I started learning piano at the age of four, guitar at the age of ten, I’ve been playing in bands for the last four to five years.
4. Give us five words to best describe you as an artist. Weird-ish, poppy, psychedelic, theatrical, sleepy.
5. Tell us a little bit about your sound and how it developed. I’ve always enjoyed demoing tracks I’ve written with the full arrangement in mind. I found it refreshing to not have to write for a specific band set up. Blyolk started off as a lot of experimentation with melodies, sounds, puns and hair dying.
6. Who have been your musical influences? Hmmm to give you a little list – St Vincent, Tiny Little Houses, My Bloody Valentine, The Smiths, Mac DeMarco, Nirvana, Queen, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Habits, Courtney Barnett, The Beatles, Youth Lagoon, Joy Division, Jarrow, Queens Of The Stone Age, Silverchair, AC/DC, Radiohead.
7. What are your favourite songs of all time? Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s ‘Ffunny Ffrends’, The Smiths’ ‘What Difference Does it Make?’, Big Scary’s ‘Invest’, Seasloth’s ‘Marshmellon’, AC/DC’s ‘Shoot To Thrill’, Queens Of The Stone Age’s ‘A Song For The Dead’, Cloud Nothings’ ‘Wasted Days’, Tiny Little Houses’ ‘Easy’, My Bloody Valentine’s ‘Only Shallow’ and New Order’s ‘Ceremony’.
8. What was the first album you bought? AC/DC’s ‘Back In Black’.
9. Give us a little fun fact about yourself that people might not know. I like to get up and cook fried rice at really inappropriate times of the night.
10. What would your chosen career be if music wasn’t an option? I really enjoy design stuff, I tend to do my own art for my projects, label, etc. I also love cooking, so I’m not sure- maybe I’d be an experimental chef in the vein of Heston Blumenthal (the Fat Duck) or Ben Shrewry (Attica).
11. What’s the best advice you’ve been given in your career? Declan Melia (from British India) in an interview somewhere said that the only certain thing with music was to keep writing songs. You honestly never know when you’re going to write your favourite song ever, so if I could be writing all the time, I would be.
12. Tell us about your latest release. ‘Don Wowry’ is just one of the songs I’ve been working on over the past year. I demoed the chorus idea in November (I think?) on my iPhone and some of those guitar recordings appear of the finished track. I’d been experimenting with electronic drum beats and different production techniques. The spoken word verses seemed to be a good way for me to tell the quirky story of the song.
13. What do your future plans involve? Putting out new music this year, playing shows around Melbourne and Australia (hopefully!), working on a music video, some documentary stuff and dying my hair again.
14. Where can our audience catch you live? I’m playing my single launch at the Grace Darling Basement on Friday 10th June with good buddies Uncle Bobby, Wedding Ring Bells (Ferg Miller from Bored Nothing) and Tali Mahoney (from Biddlewood).
WEBSITE : http://blyolk.com
FACEBOOK : http://facebook.com/blyolk
TWITTER : http://twitter.com/blyolk
INSTAGRAM : http://instagram.com/blyolk
SOUNDCLOUD : http://soundcloud.com/blyolk
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