Interview with Lets Live Fast: Music, Fashion & Inspiration

1. Tell us about yourselves. How did you start collaborating?

Hey! My name is Nicole “MJ” and I co-founded and blog for Lets Live Fast. I actually started, ran and relaunched this blog with my former college roommate, Chel. We have been best friends and roommates for as long as I can remember, and seeing that we have overlapping tastes in style, music, and lifestyle in general, it seemed only natural for us to enter the blogosphere and share what we like and appreciate with the online world (or at least those who cared to visit our site :)

2. When did you start Lets Live Fast? What is your primary goal for the project?

Lets Live Fast was something Chel and I started in sophomore year of college: it started off as a casual style and inspiration boards depending on what we were currently obsessed with in the fashion world. This, however, evolved into the creation of the LLF Monthly spotlight features, where we got up close and personal with our favorite up-and-coming bloggers, some of whom are actually super successful now (re: Aimee Song & Zanita Whittington, to name a few).

Anyway, soon after, life got in the way so Chel and I took a break from blogging. It wasn’t only until several months ago that we decided to relaunch and rebrand Lets Live Fast as LLF Interview, as we decided to build on the “discovery” and social aspects of “meeting” new and inspiring people throughout the world wide web from the old Lets Live Fast. 

3. What topics do you cover, and what perspective do you bring to the table?

Our main pages are Style and Sound, in other words, we primarily focus on fashion and music. What we try to bring to the table is this: build taste, at least our version of it, by helping people discover new, talented, and inspiring people. We want LLF to be the primary “launching” platform of some sorts for young creative go-getters to be discovered by the LLF audience and eventually, the rest of the world. For example, I curate a Soundcloud (and of course Whyd) profile that I hope to use as an A&R tool to help me find the artists that are worth getting to know. Admittedly, LLF is still very much a work-in-progress, but it is definitely a space to watch! 

4. What can we look forward to from LLF in the near future? 

More music, more style, and more interviews! We love meeting new people, albeit virtually… everyone always has an interesting story to tell. And although we spotlight those delving into fashion and/or music, I think we will eventually extend our focus and feature people who we find inspiring, in general no matter which field. But for now, keep up on our Soundcloud and Whyd pages, it’ll definitely give you a taste of who we are and what LLF strives to be. 

Don’t forget to follow LLF on Twitter and Like their Facebook page too! 

Interview with FROM KID: Two Voices, One Melody

1. You’re the band FROM KID. How long have you been playing music together and what was the initial spark?

We two started playing together about one year ago. For a small charity concert in our hometown we got together to write a few songs. While we were playing for this purpose, we both realized we really like that kind of sound. Our music that was growing back then was really simple. Based on a warm organ sound, two voices and some guitar we played a few concerts in our area. At this time we more and more liked what we were doing. After these concerts we decided to hide from the world to work on new songs. We added more different sounds and tried to refine our music. The result of all that, was the birth of FROM KID

2. How did you find your unique sound?

Our songs develop in a natural way. We let our songs decide how they’re supposed to sound. And that’s changing from one song to another. What all songs may have in common is our love for melodies in two voices. Many things in our music change from song to song. SOme are supposed to be played softly, others can be loud. 

3. Who are your influences and how do their styles show up in your music?

The most important influences for us are people, their way of life and the collision between them. If you ask us for any artist we like, we probably would say, Fink, Sophie Hunger, Björk, Tom Odell, Empire of the Sun, C2C, and about a hundred more. Our best concert so far was a concert of Fink. We were obsessed by this incredibly good live performance. Back to the question; everything is influenced by everything. FROM KID could be a mix of everything. 

4. Tell us about the new single “Sun.” Who should listen to it?

"Sun" is our new single. It’s also our first single. This is supposed to be our "Hello you all, we are FROM KID track." We recommend "Sun" to everyone who is curious. And everyone who is on the run to explore, to dream, to live. 

Sun" also climbed the ranks of the Hot Tracks, briefly resting in the top three of all tracks shared on Whyd. If you needed any more convincing to listen to this amazing track, there you go!

Like their Facebook page, and of course subscribe to them on Whyd

Interview with soundsearch: Sending Emerging Talent Straight To Your Inbox

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1. There are a lot of music sites out there, why was soundsearch created?

Before soundsearch, we set-up a new music discovery blog. As a result, we were constantly looking for new and unsigned music to feature on the site. The process of finding suitable artists can be a long, lonely, and often unrewarding experience, believe us! Last.fm is good for discovery, but it only recommends you bands of equal size to that which you’re listening. For example, if you’re a fan of Adele, it suggests you listen to Duffy, Jessie J, and Amy Winehouse (to name but a few), most of which you’ll probably already be listening to. Soundcloud is also great to use and has fantastic embeddable widgets for blogs, but is mainly based around genre search which doesn’t really narrow anything down. Spotify and other streaming services attempt to recommend new music, but their artists come from major labels and distribution services such as Ditto Music, as as a listener you never truly discover new and unsigned music. The very fact there are a large number of sites out there can be intimidating to users and fragments an artist’s audience, as well as putting off those looking to discover new and unsigned music. 

We founded soundsearch with the aim of facilitating the discovery and creation of new and unsigned music, giving users an effective discovery tool and artists the opportunity to get their sound heard, as well as collaborate with one another. soundsearch allows you to discover new and unsigned music based on your tastes, after all, music is personal.

The prototype offers users the chance to discover new and unsigned artists based on their current music tastes, with tailored recommendations delivered direct to their inbox. Signing up to this unique new service will introduce you to a new and unsigned artists, together with access to the site’s additional editorial content such as the collection of “discovered” artists.

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2. Who is behind the site?

We (Jack and Rich) met at University and immediately found that we shared the same passion for entrepreneurialism and both had an overwhelming desire to create something from scratch. We’ve been trying different business ideas ever since we met, from organizing city-wide student music festivals, through to creating concoctions of wheatgress, milk thistle and crushed up B12 pills in our attempt to try and make a hangover cure!

When we’re not pouring our souls into our laptops working on soundsearch, Rich works as a chartered surveyor at an engineering consultancy and Jack is a Product Manager at Universal Music. We’d say that we both bring different attributes to our partnership which somehow seem to complement each other. If we think about it, we still find it a bit strange that a lad who grew up on a sheep farm and an aspiring south London DJ get along so well. I guess sharing our passion for music and what that brings to people keeps up pretty close.

3. Can you describe the styles of music you feature?

The very nature of our service means we aren’t biased to any particular genre or style of music. Our goal is to have soundsearch become the destination for all types of bands, musicians, singers, producers, and DJs to upload their sounds and let the site drive the discovery process. As it stands, the music we’ve featured is anything and everything that is exciting to us, from summer dance vibes from the incredible Toyboy & Robin, to a French instrumental post-hardcore artist called Man Is Not A Bird, and more recently the delicate acoustic sounds of singer-songwriter Kimberly Anne.  

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4. You have a brand new site that just launched on Friday, what is it all about?

We have huge ambitions for soundsearch and really believe that it can bring something to the market which could change the music industry forever. Our business plan is made up of a number of assumptions, things which we think music listeners want, and the site before was a prototype to test as many of those assumptions as we could with what little money we had. We’ve been working relentlessly to get our idea out there, hitting the streets of London signing people up, chatting with crowds at festivals to see what people think, and the feedback is encouraging, so we progressed with the new version based on what we heard. We have been lucky to find Myles (our developer) who also has an incredible passion for music, which has driven him on to put the hours in coding. The site works as a portal to find new and unsigned music based on the artists you love, and we don’t see that changing any time soon. The new site will also include our “discovered” artist library, and something new which you are going to have to check out for yourself! 

We are constantly looking for music fans and dynamic individuals to join us on our quest for the discovery of new and unsigned artists. Whether you’re a musician, web developer, talented writer, or if music is your life, we want to hear from you!