Crédit photo : Magdalena Halas
Formed in 2022, Polish band Lyrre composed of Piotr, Tomasz & Miłosz and Michalina presented their debut album "Not All Who Dream Are Asleep" last March. Michalina is known for being the former played the hurdy-gurdy player in Eluveitie, today she unleashes her full potential and especially her voice for the first time. Through this interview, she talks in detail about the foundations of Lyree, their first album of composition to artistic imagery and the projects to come:
To begin with, can you introduce the band, how the adventure started? And what does Lyrre mean? Michalina : Hi, of course! We are a band from Poland, Kraków, we play metal and a big part of our songwriting focuses on the hurdy-gurdy. My husband Piotr, who is the guitar player and songwriter in LYRRE, and I had the idea to start the band together for a long time already. I was still playing in Eluveitie at that time. Then, when the pandemic came, we had the time to sit down together and work on our songs. That’s how LYRRE started. Miłosz (bass guitar) and Tomasz (drums) joined in 2021 and we started rehearsing immediately.
“Lyrre” is a modification of the word “lyre”, an instrument associated with artists and poetry since the ancient times. In Polish, our main instrument - the hurdy-gurdy - and the lyre share the same name: “lira”. (The full name of the hurdy-gurdy in Polish is “lira korbowa”.) And since the gurdy is the main instrument in our music, we thought it made sense to highlight it in the name of the band, too.
Your first album "Not All Who Dream Are Asleep" was released a little while ago now, what reactions did you receive The reactions were overwhelmingly positive. We have received many comments and messages form people who enjoy our debut album. We can also tell by the metrics from streaming services, that quite a lot of people are listening to our music and for me personally - that’s the most important thing. :)
Michalina, we know that you used to play with Eluveitie before starting Lyrre. Can you tell us more about the journey of Piotr, Tomasz & Miłosz? Piotr led another band called Netherfell in the past, where he was the main songwriter and guitar player. Miłosz was helping us before with my YouTube channel, recording bass and making arrangements to our “5 Riffs” series, among others. When we started LYRRE, we asked Miłosz if he knew any drummers that would be willing to join , and he recommended Tomasz. That’s how our line-up was formed.
Michalina, I guess it's the first time you sing in a band. I imagine it was a kind of challenge to put your voice on songs? How did you apprehend this? That’s true, I have never sang in a band before! It was definitely a challenge and a long journey from thinking that I do not have the talent to sing well enough , and I’m not suitable for a singer to the level where I am at now, which I would probably describe as decent, but still with a lot to learn. It was tough at times, especially mentally, I ran into a lot of obstacles when we were recording our debut album (technique, stamina, singing with proper English pronunciation), there were tears and the desire to quit at times. In such situations, I gave myself some time to rest and do something else, which always fixes my mindset, and I was ready to try again.
How was the writing process of the album between the four of you? The album was written mainly by Piotr and me. Miłosz and Tomasz were helping with their parts and some arrangements for additional instruments as well. Some songs were either written primarily by me or Piotr, but the ones I like the most are a result of a collaboration, where Piotr composed the riffs and I added lead melodies and lyrics, like in Chariot of Sun or Peaceful Chaos.
Let's talk more in detail about "Not All Who Dream Are Asleep" you describe this as neomedieval metal album can you tell me more about it? The “neomedieval metal” tag was something we made up to describe our music for the Kicksterter campaign. We only had a couple of songs recorded at that time and as we were tracking the remaining songs, I think they all went in different directions. The people who listen to our music put it in different genres, from dark folk metal to even power metal. I personally would not use neomedieval metal to describe LYRRE’s music anymore, I would probably just call it metal with the hurdy-gurdy. 😂
I think that every song on NAWDAA pulls from different inspirations. The title track is a dreamy instrumental, Divide and Conquer has some power metal influences, North Star has a more modern vibe, Peaceful Chaos is doomy and darker, Chariot Of Sun starts with more like black metal riff. And we jokingly call Forgive and Forget our country song with a vintage lo-fi intro. We just let these songs go where they wanted to go, without forcing them to have one uniform sound. However, I believe they all still sound like us.
With this nice mix of sounds, I imagine you come from different musical horizons. What are your main inspirations? Our musical inspirations are very broad and span from black metal to electronic music. Piotr has a real talent for writing black and post metal inspired riffs, he also enjoys bands like Alcest, Behemoth, Rotting Christ, Harakiri for the Sky, etc. I really like classical music and electronic music (like Apashe or Sullivan King), and recently I’ve been getting into pop music production, which I absolutely love doing and plan to include even more on our future records.
Noah Sebastian from Bad Omens co-produced this album, how did you meet him , and how was the collaboration? Did he help you define your own sound? I am extremely glad and thankful we got to work with Noah, he is one of my favorite songwriters and producers. We were lucky enough to contact him before Bad Omens absolutely blew up with their recent album, The Death of Peace of Mind. He produced 4 songs for us (Call in the Wind, Crown, D&C, North Star) and I really love his work on these tracks. I learned a lot about production and songwriting from this experience, he definitely helped us channel the sound that we were imagining for NAWDAA album.
You are an independent group. I guess it has its advantages but also disadvantages? How do you approach Lyrre's next goals? First of all, we are very grateful that we were able to release our debut album independently thanks to our Kickstarter supporters. It’s a great gift that we will cherish forever! Our next goals are playing shows to promote Not All Who Dream Are Asleep and also working on new music.
You have a solid artistic universe. Can you tell me more about your collaboration with Adam Strzelczyk? Did he help you to define this one? I always knew I want to work with a tattoo artist on the visuals for NAWDAA. I took to Instagram to do some research and look for an artist who would be interested in working with us. That’s how I found Adam - he was the perfect fit, we adore the illustrations he made for our album and single covers, and our collaboration went super smooth.
Also, for the realization of your videoclips which are very huge, you collaborated with Jan Gajewski. Can you tell me more about it ? Are there any other clips planned in the future? Janek was a friend of ours before LYRRE and we were very excited to work together with him on our music videos. From caves to snowy mountain tops - we were through a lot for the NAWDAA music videos. ;) He understood our vision perfectly and agreed for us to edit the videos together with him. We don’t have any clips planned at the moment, but we will definitely want to continue working with him in the future. He is a part of the LYRRE Cinematic Universe now!
Can you tell me more about the lyrics of the album? It seems to me that you talk about myths and medieval imagery. Do you have any books, movies or other that inspired you ? The lyrics for Not All Who Dream Are Asleep are based mainly on my inner experiences, but mythology inspired metaphors are the medium that delivers them. There is a lot of focus on dealing with change and not giving up, even when we really want to. The lyrics are melancholic and sad sometimes, but never nihilistic, there’s always a silver lining in them. I am mainly inspired by Greek myths, I love Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I also enjoy the works of Joseph Campbell, especially The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth. Arthurian legends are another favorite of mine. This might be an unpopular opinion , but I really love Guy Ritchie’s movie adaptation of them in “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword”. And of course the literature inspired by mythology and Arthurian legends, such as The Lord of the Ring and The Witcher. I am a massive fan of The Witcher books.
Can you consider Not All Who Dream Are Asleep as a concept album? The title of the album “Not All Who Dream Are Asleep" is related to any concept? In my opinion, NAWDAA is not a concept album. The lyrical topics across the songs are similar and the sound of them is quite consisted, but there is no common thread that would be present throughout this entire record. The title “Not All Who Dream Are Asleep” comes from the lyrics in one of our songs, North Star. When I was writing them, this idea of having the map for your life inside you, in your blood came to me, kind of instinct, that will lead you to the right places at the right time. I started the chorus with a slightly modified Tolkien quote, “Not all who wander are lost”, and I wanted to write something like a sister line to it. I went with “Not all who dream are asleep” and we liked it so much, that it became the album title.
You have already done two concerts, how did it go? Do you plan to do more in the future? Our album release show in Kraków was great, we enjoyed it a lot! It was extremely stressful for me, as I was singing live for the very first time in my life, but the audience was really welcoming and encouraging toward us. During our second show in the Netherlands we experienced some technical difficulties, however, it was still a good experience overall. We already have a few more shows confirmed for this year - you can check them out on our social media - and working on booking more. This year is going to be busy for us!
To conclude, I leave you the last words : Thank you so much for the interview and for asking us such thoughtful questions! We are very excited that our music is being received so enthusiastically by our fans and that we already have the opportunity to play at shows and festivals not only in Poland, but also abroad. A thousand thanks, as always, to our fans for supporting us and listening to our music! We can not wait to bring more of it to you :)