Artist Spotlight: The Evolution of Sol

BY: JAEQWON SUAREZ / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

(Photo Credits: WillowGreenPhoto)

Lyel, now known as his new artist name Sol, has gone through a journey not only in his art and music, but also a shift in mindset as to what it means to be a musician and the kind of messages he wants to share with the world.

Sol has dropped an EP earlier this year, With All My Heart and Sol: Dawn, as well as an album in collaboration with many of his friends that appear in his fantasy-filled world that is Moonlight Under the Purge.

Seawanhaka got to talk with Sol from production, the beginning of perfecting his art, and any differences he has felt with the change of name.

Sol describes that since releasing music back in 2022, he has grown, and as such, so has his art with him, describing this as a “soft-restart” to start all over and find out who he is. This new identity, Sol, is what was born from this soft restart, which he seems to be comfortable with now as the year ends.

“The name ‘Sol’, funny enough, came from a D&D [Dungeons & Dragons] campaign that happened half a year before I changed the name,” Sol explains. “My character was like this warlock of the sun, and so his name was Sol, but I thought it would be a cool name to use.”

But it goes deeper than that, as it also relates to the big turning point that happened this year for him. The warmth and happiness that the sun gives are what Sol wants his audience to feel as they listen to his music and enter his world.

Though he jokes about being the center of the world, the symbolism of the sun and its relation to people allowed him to understand himself more as he made his first project with the name, With All My Heart and Sol: Dawn.

“I consider them [Lyel and Sol] as two separate personas. Lyel, as the artist, was definitely me, but Sol was someone that I could separate myself from, who I am, and be someone else,” Sol continued.

This separate persona definitely shone through when he released his album Moonlight Under the Purge, which is completely different in style from his EP. Not only is this a project where collaboration played a huge part, but it was also based on a game that Sol met most of these people through, Minecraft Civilization.

As he got to experience the event firsthand, he explained the role of his character, which was “to make songs every day.” These songs, as he spoke, have different themes and meanings, but most importantly, tell a story during that day.

“I’m really happy with it because it represents the event in a really cohesive, visual way,” he expressed. 

The seven tracks dip the listener straight into Sol’s journey with a runtime of 22 minutes, detailing the event with cinematic sounds and vocals that listeners have never heard before. Some of the songs that saved include “Starving”, which is very punk rock, and “love til the end”, which has a great chorus that gets your head thrashing and a groovy beat, and overall is just very playful with its lyrics.

A single released prior to his first EP as Sol, With All My Heart And Sol: Dawn

“The difference between Moonlight Under the Purge, With All My Heart and Sol: Dawn, and LoverBoy is collaboration,” Sol emphasizes. “Definitely after LoverBoy, that was when I told myself I would love to work with other people, because working on songs by myself is one hard and time-consuming, and two, it’s very creatively draining,” he told Seawanhaka.

He expresses the efforts of coming up with ideas alone and banging out ideas that are just made by you, he feels, are often unoriginal. His collab with Jonah Gabriel on “emergency” sparked a new sense and joy in working with someone and the desire to not only include more artists’ perspectives, but producers as well, with future tracks and projects.

He still states that mostly everything is produced by him, as this jack-of-all-trades spent weeks and months on songs and projects. However, being so diverse in his talents and skills came at the cost of honing all of them together at once, and feeling stagnant when it came to working on newer songs.

Though he expresses remorse for himself, there’s also a sense of pride as he speaks of his progress and where he’s at today with singing, producing, and his other technical skills. Songwriting is one of the things noted as he describes his process to the interviewer with the song “you and me”.

“Lyrics and melody came first,” he starts off. “I had the words; I just had to add the production behind it. So what I’d do first in that scenario is try to find chords on guitar and see what fits, and then once I get the guitar, I try to get everything else sorted out.” 

This includes keys and harmonies that are sometimes fast processes and clicks, while other times, it tends to take a little extra effort to see what really fits for the song.

“I don’t want to force myself to make something that I physically can’t,” he reiterates. “But there are times I do have ideas in my head, and I like to keep them there or try to record them in a voice memo so when I go to the studio, I can immediately pull them up.”

Having studied music for the majority of his life, and it practically being engraved in his culture as a Filipino, Sol has proven to be versatile in any genre and often combines elements of many genres into his songs, which is explored through his old and new discography many times.

Sol expresses more comfort with not only his production and songwriting, but also explains that this is in part due to one of his muses being a huge help and aid through this shift. 

“I like the music I create now, and I like this direction that I am heading towards with this era of my production and songwriting,” Sol explains while reminiscing about how Loverboy was only released a year before, and just how much change for himself has happened to him in the past year.

“It’s crazy to think that Loverboy was just last year, like writing, singing, production, it's crazy just to see the amount of growth that happened, and I think it’s exhilarating for me to feel like I’m actually improving,” Sol states. “What motivates me a lot is thinking of what I’d sound like when I’m 25 because last year to now was such a flip, that I’d be curious to know what else develops.”