At the tender age of 19, the London-hailing singer-songwriter Skylar has effortlessly carved out a space for herself in the British music scene. Think Kate Nash – but for the digital age. Taking TikTok by storm with her addictive Brit Pop hits – the young artist has captured the hearts of oodles of adoring fans.
Skylar’s latest offering, debut EP “I’d Step On Lego For You”, is the sonic embodiment of “talking shit” – in the artist’s own words. The fun and flair that the young artist had while making the project emanates from its sound waves. Tracks like the opening “Hair Tie” feature bright, gleaming production – while the lyrics are empowering and liberating. “To The Girl That Gets Him Next” is the EP’s chosen single – unleashed into the world before the rest. Searingly vulnerable, Skylar chronicles the intimacies of a relationship in the wake of letting it go. Closing out in a blaze, “Afterlife” is defiant, embellished with brass and underpinned by a booming bass.
With a colossal 5.5 million likes on TikTok, and over 396 thousand followers to boot – Skylar is set for the stars. Before the young artist embarks on a whirlwind of a year, we were able to catch her – and pick her brains a little. Enlightening us on how the project came to be, its chosen single, using TikTok as a vehicle for success – and much more – we covered it all.
Head below to read the interview…
Hey Skylar, how are you? Where are we talking to you from?
Hello Wonderland! I’m coming at you from sunny exotic London.
So, your new single “To The Girl That Gets Him Next” is out now, what was the inspiration behind it?
Sh*tty men. I’m being deadly serious [laughs]; and by no means is that anything against sh*tty men, I think they’re great when you want to write songs about them. Nice men are boring to write songs about.Yeah cool, he bought you roses, but did he run your nan over with a Vespa…NOPE! BORING. All in all, I wrote this song for the girl who gets my ex next, so that when he’s done with her too, we can be best friends and braid each others hair whilst taking the p*ss out of our own standards. Quality bonding I call that!
How would you describe the sound of your debut EP “I’d Step On Lego For You” to someone who hasn’t heard it yet?
I’d say my new EP “I’d Step On Lego For You” is primarily an excuse for me to chat sh*t to a melody. The thing I love most about music is that there aren’t many rules, which is perfect for me, because all the things that I feel like I can’t say to people I can just say in my songs. I proudly lack a filter when it comes to expressing my intrusive thoughts through my songwriting.
There seems to be a lot of personal themes on the EP, can you delve a little deeper into that for us?
I mean, I was seventeen when I wrote this EP — so, there actually aren’t many Nobel Peace Prize worthy experiences to note on there. However, seventeen-year-old Skylar, and nineteen-year-old Skylar do have one thing in common; I do seem to find myself ridiculously funny! I’m hoping I was able to weave that aspect of my personality into the songs there. “Hair Tie” is essentially a song about when I met a guy at a party and he stole my hair tie while we danced together. He danced like a divorced dad with a beer belly and for some reason I found that weirdly charming, almost attractive [laughs]. I did manage to get my hair tie back by the end of the night, but the song isn’t as simple as it sounds, I promise. I’ll leave it up to my listeners to decipher its true meaning. “Double Denim” actually hasn’t got anything to do with wearing denim co-ords [laughs]. It’s actually about a guy cheating on you with the girl he told you not to worry about… MEN! I’m sure a lot of women out there can relate to that one. “Naked Poetry” is a very naughty song – that’s all I’ll say on that. Oh, and “Afterlife” is about death. I wrote that one because we all die eventually, but let’s not get too morbid. Give it a listen, I’m sure my fans will understand the bigger meaning behind that song when they do!
We know you’ve had a lot of success on TikTok, how does that platform influence your music and aesthetic?
The best analogy I can come up with for TikTok is that it’s kind of like your nagging mother; you love her, yet she annoys the sh*t out of you. She keeps telling you to do something, and you’re reluctant at first, but then you give in because ‘mum’s are always right’…am I right? So, my fans on TikTok are great because they’re very honest with me about what they want, and don’t want – I appreciate the honesty. Sometimes, I get the occasional ‘usernotfound34526789’ commenting, “You are so terrible please just go and get hit by a bus” which is lovely [laughs]. I think the thing I love most about the people who like my music is that they like it when it’s raw and simple, like when it’s played either on a guitar or a piano, rather than jazzed up with high-end production. In a way that’s comforting, because it means my fans actually like my voice.
Can you walk us through the process of creating “I’d Step On Lego For You” and working with Polydor Records?
“I’d Step On Lego For You” was created all in the space of one summer holiday. I was at school when I was writing this EP, so getting into the studio was only possible when the ‘prison’ let me leave [laughs]. Working with Polydor has been a fun new experience for me since leaving school. I think the best part about being at the label is that I’m still able to have so much creative freedom with what I do, as I’ve been blessed with an incredible team who understand my artistic vision.
With so many artists in the pop genre, how do you see yourself fitting in and standing out?
For me personally, it’s not so much about standing out, but more about being versatile. I tend to get bored with most things very easily, including men, but with songs especially I tend to run away from being predictable. In my mind, if I was to make the perfect EP, it’d be one where every song was a different genre of music, and where the consistency would lie within the songwriting and my lyrics.
Your use of metaphor and satire in your songwriting is really unique, can you tell us a bit more about that approach?
I like to keep my songs as colloquial as possible whilst still trying to retain that element of poetry. I love poetry. I find that the best poets are the ones that write as if they’re having a conversation with you. On the surface level you’ll read something and think, ‘wow sounds nice,’ but the more you read, the darker it gets. I think there’s so much beauty around darkness, it fascinates me. I like to balance out the darkness with a little light-heartedness in my songwriting, and what better way to do that than with metaphors and satire. I always find that comedians do an incredible job at that too. The best comedians are usually the ones going through so much but they laugh the pain away with you. You can somewhat still sense their pain whilst they make you pee yourself with laughter which is art if you ask me. I think when I approach my own songwriting I try to strike the right balance between when to be comical and when to be serious and try to portray that within my music.
As a young artist in the industry, how do you handle the pressure and expectations?
Oh my god! I don’t [laughs].I will genuinely post on TikTok and then turn off all of my notifications. On the real, I feel for me personally it’s all about priorities. Above everything, music must be the priority because it’s what keeps me sane. If I tried to make the music that other people wanted me to make, it wouldn’t be my music anymore, it would be theirs. Music is my outlet, so if I’m feeling the external pressures of life at that moment in time when I’m creating I’ll write about it; usually that’s how I make myself feel better about certain situations. Good music is honest, so as long as the only expectations are for me to be honest in what I write and how I feel, then I’ve surpassed all of what is expected of me.
Your fanbase has grown significantly through social media, can you talk about your journey to building that?
I have lockdown to thank for that. As terrible as lockdown was for so many, it was great for me in terms of building my following on TikTok. People had nothing to do so they couldn’t help but be glued to their screens. During the first lockdown, Boris had decided that we were all going back to school, so I wrote a song about it and posted it on TikTok. I was reluctant at first because I’d never posted my music on the platform before and I was worried that all my friends would see and make fun of me, so I decided to hide my face [laughs]. I think that worked so well because not only did it allow people to genuinely focus on my lyrics, it also prevented me from getting completely violated by my friends at school the next day [laughs]. It’s crazy to see how many people still remember the song to this day and bring it up any chance they get – those listeners are my OG’s for real!
Are there any exciting projects or collaborations in the works that you can share with us?
I like to let my followers on TikTok dictate who I collaborate with from time to time. Sometimes I trust my fans more than I trust myself to make those kinds of ‘grown up’ decisions [laughs]. All jokes aside, I’m always up for collaborations. There’s been a couple cheeky DM’s here and there, and my DM’s are always open so don’t be shy! Confess your love to me and maybe we can make some tunes together [laughs].
Your British background is a big part of your identity as an artist, how does that influence your music?
I think that me making the conscious decision to sing in my British accent is the first way I nod to my heritage in my music. Funnily enough, the reason I decided to use my British accent was because I sound so weird singing in an American one, so I did a favour to everyone’s ears out of courtesy [laughs]. Another reason I adopt my British sensibilities in my songwriting is because of our dry humour. That British sarcasm is something you can’t quite replicate if you’re not from here. I’m an extremely sarcastic person if you couldn’t tell already, so being sarcastic in my songs is just a given.
Being a part of the “internet generation,” how do you see that shaping the music industry?
The internet generation are a weird bunch of people – we definitely have our quirks that’s for sure [laughs]. We see it as socially okay to turn our traumas into something comical as a way of embracing them, rather than seeing that as something negative. I think that it’s a very admirable skill to have that I’ve noticed older generations have shied away from. The power to talk about how you’re feeling. However, on the other side of it, the internet generation has given power to the keyboard warriors; those people that sit behind their screen and just hate on anything and everything. Those people have got to chill.
What do you hope listeners take away from listening to “I’d Step On Lego For You”?
In regards to listeners first and foremost, they really are the most important people in the process. You can definitely tell the substance of an artist by their listeners, and that isn’t referring to the quantity but more the quality. I am so grateful to have such amazing, intelligent and loyal listeners who actually like my music and aren’t afraid to voice their opinions when they don’t like something. Believe me, some of them are brutal, but the success of a song for me is when my listeners come back and have so many different narratives and interpretations of what it could be about.
Can you talk about the evolution of your sound and style over time?
As far as my sound goes, I’m not yet quite sure what I would categorise it as and that’s the best part for me really. I feel that I’d be doing something wrong if I could easily put my sound in a box and say ‘that’s that’. It’s everchanging, as I am too, and that’s a comforting feeling. I feel like I’ve become a different person since I started this journey in music, and I’m sure the people who started listening to seventeen-year-old Skylar’s music back then do too. It’s nice to have listeners supporting me on this journey as we evolve together. I think nostalgia is something that will continue to influence my music as I grow as an artist, I’ve always incorporated elements of nostalgia in my music. I also want to approach fusing sounds together, fusion is something that I’ve always been passionate about, I’ve dabbled a bit, but there’s so much more to explore. I want to experiment; I’ll probably do that for my album at some point in the future.
In a few words, how would you sum up the overall message of the EP?
It’s definitely not my Bohemian Rhapsody [laughs]! It’s simply seventeen-year-old me pouring her sh*tty heart out at the studio, but I’ve made it funny. Every song has a deeper meaning the more you listen, you just have to manoeuvre your way through the surface-level comedic satire before you figure it out. I think to actually answer your question, the two words I’d use to describe “I’d Step On Lego For You.” would have to be ‘comical morbidity’…I hope you can enjoy deciphering that little juxtaposition [chuckles].
Lastly, what’s next for you?
Oh wow! That’s a deeply philosophical one. What’s next for me? Only the universe knows the answer to that one [laughs]. Hopefully, a lot of exciting opportunities. I’m currently working on my second EP, which I can already say will be much better than the debut. In all honesty, I do cringe sometimes when I listen back to what seventeen-year-old me had to say back then. I have so much new music that’s in hiding as we speak. Some secrets I’m holding on to are so eager to reveal themselves. One day [laughs]! So stay tuned, and in the meantime, stream the hell out of “I’d Step On Lego For You”.
To listen to Skylar’s EP “I’d Step On Lego For You”, head below…