What Music Means To Me: Sami

What I like about music:

I’ve loved music since I was really young - I think Britney Spears was the first album I got and I remember listening to it obsessively. I’ve always loved singing along to my favorite songs on the radio, making up crazy dances, pretending I was on American Idol, but not once in my childhood did I think I would want to make that my future. It was always too far out of reach. 

So, I chose to play the violin. 

I picked up the instrument in 4th grade just because everyone else was playing something, but I think that instrument is what planted my passion for music. I didn’t know it at the time, but playing the violin, especially in an ensemble, opened my eyes to the physical effect music can have on people. I would sit there during a rehearsal or concert and play a certain section of a song we had prepared and would actually get chills up and down my body. I thought it was a normal thing that everyone experienced until I was talking to a friend about it and they said “I’ve never had that happen to me…”. I thought it was super weird, but I’ve come to realize that I was emotionally connected to those songs and they were just instrumentals! No words, no rapping, no singing, just strings and occasionally some percussion. Anytime I would see another ensemble play, I would find myself close to tears when listening to some songs because of how beautiful it sounded to me (super cheesy, I know), but I just thought it was something that happened with everyone!

THEN, during college, I started experiencing a lot of mental health issues. My anxiety was through the roof. I later realized I had been dealing with it my whole life, but had never addressed it as I got older, so it culminated into a lot of unease and unhappiness in what was supposed to be one of the biggest adventures of my young adult life. I was at college, away from home for the first time, meeting new people, making new friends, but I still had that anxiety, like everything was too much for me to handle. I’d have panic attacks and breakdowns, wondering why I was feeling this way, which only led to depression. It was all getting a little overwhelming for me until I was watching TV one day and happened upon a recorded concert on the music TV network, Palladia: Twenty One Pilots. They were playing their song Car Radio and.. Man, I thought it was really weird at first just because it was so different. I had SOLELY been listening to pop music for most of my early life - I had never really had much interest in the kind of music they were playing so I honestly wasn’t into it at first, but after listening to the song again.. and again… and again, I began to pick out a deeper meaning behind the song. I connected to the lyrics of the song in such a deep way that it became the only song I would listen to for weeks. It summed up basically everything that I had been feeling for the past couple of years. 

ONE SONG changed my life. 

I began to realize that I wasn’t the only one dealing with those kinds of thoughts. At that point, I knew at least 2 other people (the band) who had experienced the same confusion and pain and exhaustion. I listened to the whole Vessel album obsessively after that. Then my life changed again after seeing them play live. I was in a room full of people who related to the same band in the same  way I had. We screamed at the top of our lungs about how “our brains are sick, but it’s okay!” and I felt more normal than I had in a while. In that moment, I realized just how transformative music can be, how it can heal and how it can numb and how it can brighten your mood, how it can make you want to move your body, how it can make you want to cry, how it can make you want to scream at the top of your lungs. There have been so many other musical artists since then who have helped shape the person I’ve become - just through their music. I think it’s something so special and has the ability to reach so many people, transcending language and ethnicity. It’s become one of the most powerful things in our world and that’s why I fell in love with it. 

What motivated me to create L!LAC and what do I hope people get from listening to our music?

Since I’ve had such a transformative journey through music, I wanted to create L!LAC for that same reason. I want to provide the opportunity for hope and the community for others who may be suffering with their mental health or social situation or whatever else may be going on from which they need to escape. I want our lyrics and music to help someone through something or give them comfort or give them confidence. I want people to feel like themselves when they listen to our music, to feel safe and to not feel alone. I don’t just want our music to make people happy - I want them to connect to our stories like I have for many of my favorite artists. I don’t just want to make music for the fun of it, I want to make a positive change in someone else’s life through something that I am super passionate about.