Teaching us more about his new single Lost Without You after previously gliding us through space on You Got Me so High, Malta’s Dylan De Bono kindly let us into his mind inside this mesmerizing interview. We find out more about a powerful open mic connection, a massive world tour and a medical career.
We appreciate you joining us. Hello from A&R Factory. Please let our readers know where you’re from/based and what the last song you played was.
My pleasure! Great to be a part of this. So, I’m from Malta! Let’s see … the last song I played was … John Mayer, ‘You’re gonna live forever in me’.
Please tell us more about Lost Without You.
Sure. So, ‘Lost Without You’ is the first collaborative song with Kristijan Volchev, who also produced the song. I was in the process of making arrangements to leave my home country of Malta to go on a long world tour to promote my new album Loose Wire. Although exciting, this period was very heartbreaking for me, having to say goodbye to my girlfriend at the time. Not only did I find this very difficult for me personally but I also felt the heavy burden of hurting my sweet girl by leaving her behind. So, I’m trying to reassure her in the song, that she will always be loved and missed no matter what. That’s life, man. Sometimes you just have to make tough decisions to arrive where you want to be. The song is essentially a pop song by genre, although it is spiced with juicy guitar licks and 70’s esque guitar solos. So, maybe you can call it an ‘alternative pop’ song. We kept the song very minimalistic, driven by a soulful vocal melody and an RnB inspired electric guitar line.
How did you first connect with and what is the collaboration with Macedonian musician guitarist Kristijan Volchev like?
So, I met Kristijan at an open Mic event over a year ago and we hit it off. He needed a singer for one of his gigs and we really hit it off. Since then we’ve been playing gigs together several times per week, so as you can imagine we became very good friends and we know each other’s abilities quite well. Kristijan started to support me in my own concerts promoting my album and even joined me on some of my European tour dates. Eventually, the musical partnership we had naturally developed into exploring songwriting together. Again, we found that we make a very complimentary partnership. It’s based on trust and mutual respect. Writing together has been smooth, fun and inspiring. So, since ‘Lost Without You’ we continued to write other songs, which we are very excited to share in the near future.
Is there a particular song you hear and wish you’d written?
Good question! Definitely ‘Everybody wants to rule the world’ by Tears for Fears. Such a good guitar riff and terrific melody. But it’s tied with David Bowie’s ‘Life on Mars’ – simply genius. I’m attracted to interesting pop music, that’s what inspires me.
Your current world tour. How has it been, where have you gone, any highlights or things to rather do next time?
So far I’ve toured Eastern Europe, including Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. We’re off to ‘Macedonia’ in May, then back to London. I will go to the US this summer, then Asia, including Japan and South Korea in September.
So far, it’s been the biggest adventure of my life. Nothing helps new people to discover your music like touring does. There is just something so unique and special about the relationship an artist can create with his audience, which surpasses anything in the online or virtual world, especially in the small, intimate venues that I am playing. Of course the performances are always such an adrenaline rush, but honestly, the highlight is the new friendships I am making along the way, and this is really fueling the success of the experience.
Do you miss being a doctor or will you return to this job when you return?
That’s a hard question to answer. I dedicated a huge chunk of my life to my medical career and I’ve tried to balance being a doctor and creating music my whole life. I was a happy doctor. I liked my job. I loved my colleagues and supervisors. In fact, I miss them the most. But at the moment, I’m so motivated and dedicated to my musical career, that I don’t dwell on it very much. I feel I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing at the moment. In the future, who knows?
Lastly, what can you tell us about Loose wire?
Loose Wire! This is my first solo album, which I released last November. I’m so proud of it! It was always a life dream or you can say an obsession to release a full album and get it on Vinyl. I feel Loose Wire really represents me as an artist and as a person. It is very autobiographical. I wrote the songs, alongside producer David Vella, over a 3-4 year period. At the time I was going through the learning process of building myself up again fresh from a breakup which emotionally disturbed me quite deeply. The album is about heartbreak, self-exploration and living a bit on the wild side to forget about the heartbreak, as you do after a relationship ends. So a lot of people can relate. There are alot of wild stories in the songs. So one can say it’s an electro-pop concept album. We tried to make it a bit edgy, dark and sexy yet we tried to balance this with quirkiness and a good sense of humour, which really fits my personality. The best examples of this are the tracks ‘Feeling Shit Right Now’ and ‘I Can’t Say no (When You Go Down)’. The album is out on all platforms of course, and if anyone wishes to purchase an LP, they can just drop me a line on Instagram and I will send it out!
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Interview by Llewelyn Screen