Lesha's a rare gem. Whether she's behind the booth working her magic or doing wonders on the live stage, the Filipino multihyphenate is the kind of artist that only comes by once in a blue moon. 

Like most musicians, the 'Eleven:Eleven' act found her passion for music at a young age but beyond just picking up an instrument and trying her hand at singing, she explored all avenues of music, from songwriting to production to directing her own music videos. 

Most recently, Lesha got taken aboard CARELESS Music, marking a new beginning for her music career. For the last year, the singer-producer has slowly been bringing into her mythical world that's soundtracked by dark pop and dance music. But this August, she's ready to unleash everything she's got with her first-ever album. 

Something is about to drop, you never saw this coming.

Lesha’s first album with Careless drops on Aug 31. Save the date. 👁‍🗨 pic.twitter.com/LLLuNkIQhb

— CARELESS MUSIC (@CARELESS_PH) August 24, 2022

Ahead of the release of her first album, Bandwagon caught up with Lesha to talk about her musical beginnings, astrology, and collaborating with artists from all over the world for her upcoming record. 

Hey Lesha! Let's go back to the beginning real quick, what first drew you to music? How did you eventually know this was something you wanted to pursue as a career?

I started at a really young age actually because my parents saw that I love to perform in front of my relatives. I was very extroverted when I was a kid. And when they realised that I could sing, they tried putting me into voice classes, and I went to guitar classes also. From there, I just started covering a lot of songs when I was younger. In high school, I joined Battle of the Bands so I was exposed to performing a lot for different schools.

Then there was this one time, an event promoter was at one of my gigs with my band and told us he wanted us to perform for this branded event. I was like 'okay, so I could actually turn this into a professional career' because people could actually book me—I never thought about that side of music project because it was just very part-time for me being an artist before. I never thought that could be an actual job for me in the future.

I just continued gigging a lot and I was also releasing my originals and song covers on SoundCloud and YouTube. At that time, it was the peak of EDM and I was really mixing these songs and turning them into EDM versions. From there, I just enjoyed doing music so much and I started writing more songs, releasing more songs on streaming platforms independently.

You recently got signed with CARELESS Music. How was it going from an independent artist to now working with a whole team and label?

Honestly, it wasn't that big of an adjustment because I've been doing everything on my own previously. I knew everything from the back end to the front, from the marketing of my songs to the promotions, from editing to directing my videos. I was doing everything so when I got signed to CARELESS, it was just passing all of that to them.

It's been fun, I have more support from super creative people here. It's fun to work with people who just get your vibe as an artist, and who know how to turn your ideas into something better or make better stuff with them.

 

 

 

 

 

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How would you describe the music that you make?

I don't like to box myself into any genre but the majority of the music I make is pop music, but mainly leaning towards electro-pop and dark pop.

I'm also my own producer so I tend to have so many different inspirations when it comes to different genres of music so I tend to just bring them all together. It depends on what vibe I'm going for in a song, sometimes I don't even think about it. When I start working on a song, I don't tell myself I'm gonna make a pop song. I just make something and things happen, it's whatever fits the vibe. 

You recently released your single 'Demons', walk us through what the song is about.

'Demons' has a long history. It's one of the first songs I've ever written, I think it's like the third song I ever wrote. That was around six years ago, I was 17. I was severely bullied from high school through college so I wanted to write a song about that my experiences.

The entire gist of the tract is how giving into your inner demons, whether it be fear and negativity or insecurities can really change who you are as a person. It can only give people a false reflection of who you truly are.

The chorus now was not in the original song, I literally just wrote that chorus last year because the original version was called 'False Reflections'. I felt like it lacked something every year, I would always have a different version of it. I really wanted to release it because I know it's such a good song and I thought that it needed to be the perfect song to put in my upcoming album. I just knew I had to have this song so I worked on it last year and found these ritual beats, added some new things, and was finally satisfied with how it ended up sounding. I'm really glad it's out in the world. 

A lot of the music you've put out takes on a lot of astrological themes, like 'Eleven:Eleven' and 'Twin Flames'. Where do a lot of these inspirations come from?

I've always been a believer in like the law of attraction because it really helped me get through my challenges. I wanted that element to show through in my album because it's a big part of who I am as a person.

I love wishing on angel numbers, it's always so fun to just make a wish and manifest it. I think it's one part of me that keeps me grounded as a person, as an artist. It helps me turn my negative thinking into something positive. 

You've been teasing the album over the last year since the release of 'Karma, what vision do you have for your album?

The entire album's concept is that it's a global collaboration. All of the artists I worked with on the tracks are my friends from way back from all around the world that I met on SoundCloud. They were one of my first collaborators but some are actually new friends like my collaborators on 'Twin Flames', Lewis Maxwell and Ghauri who I met on TikTok and Instagram.

It's just so cool that I'm working with people from the past. I think that the entire concept of the album was to bring them all together and make something cool. The messaging is the same as how I described it; I wanted the album to reflect me and my personal life, my struggles throughout everything, my love life against the themes of the law of attraction and astrology cause it's something I really believe in. 

In five years, where do you hope to see yourself?

Oh, I want to tour a lot more; it's something that I really missed out on during the pandemic. Before the pandemic, I'd been performing and then suddenly everything just closed down so I'm glad we can get back out there again.

Career-wise, I would love to continue doing this and hopefully, you know, bring the OPM scene internationally. There are so many talented artists from the Philippines that needs to be heard worldwide. We deserve that stage and we deserve to be heard everywhere, hopefully, I could be one of those artists who helped make that happen. 

Beyond the album, what can we expect from you?

We have a CARELESS mixtape coming out soon, like towards the end of the year. We're really excited—oh, and a tour! We can't wait!

Lesha's first album will drop this 31 August via CARELESS Music. 

Listen to Lesha's 'Demons' here.