Alyse Zavala fronts a genre-breaking band, fusing hard rock, hip-hop, electronica, and alternative into a fluid, focused, and fiery hybrid of styles as unpredictable as it is undeniable. This is LYLVC [pronounced “Lilac”].
The Raleigh, NC six-piece band—Alyse Zavala [clean vocals], Oscar Romero [rap vocals], Cam Gillette [keyboard, synth], Kenny Kaval [bass], Seth Morgan [guitar], and Ryan Powell [drums]—deliver a fiery and futuristic sonic synthesis.
LYLVC bloomed in the midst of an emotionally turbulent 2020, when Alyse was undergoing a huge personal life challenge, the pandemic was on lockdown, and LYLVC emerged from the fusing of those two moments fueled by a sense of purpose and began the climb with the passion of people on a mission.
INFLUENCES
Bring Me the Horizon: “Sleepwalking”
Oli Sykes has always been one of my biggest lyricist inspirations since high school. Bring Me the Horizon and Linkin Park always seemed to know how to write words that made you feel their pain, and I related to them a lot when I was growing up. I chose this song in particular because the lyrics are beautiful and have this eloquent way of romanticizing thoughts of death and depression. I could tell he was going through a lot with his Ketamine addiction, but lyrically, he even wrote about the hallucinations in such a beautiful way—“Mirrors start to whisper, shadows start to sing’.” I love when lyricists are raw and vulnerable with their life struggles. I’ve been a fan since the “Black & Blue” days, but the whole Sempiternal album was straight gold.” – Alyse Zavala (clean vocals)
Linkin Park: “A Place for My Head”
Linkin Park’s entire Hybrid Theory album is amazing, but this song was my personal favorite growing up. Their lyrics exposed me to learning how to use lyrics to create vivid imagery for a listener. It paints a picture in your head, and it’s so relatable. In life, we constantly have to deal with fake people who are nice to our face only when they want something from us—people who have ulterior motives and only try to use you. I felt like this a lot when I first moved out on my own and had to quickly learn how to distinguish genuine hearted people from the parasitic greedy people out there.” – Alyse Zavala (clean vocals)
Eminem: “Lose Yourself”
Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” is a profound source of inspiration for me as a musician. The song’s message about the relentless pursuit of one’s dreams, the burning passion, and the unyielding determination needed in the music world has been a guiding star throughout my musical career. It’s a thunderous reminder to seize the moment, to hold onto self-belief, and to pour every ounce of my being into my craft. As a rapper in a band, this track ignites a fire within me, pushing me to never stop chasing my musical aspirations with an unquenchable hunger. “Lose Yourself” propels me to break boundaries, embrace challenges, and reach for the stars in the music industry with a fervor that cannot be extinguished. – Oscar Romero Lemus (rap vocals)
Nine Inch Nails: “Closer”
I remember one of the first times i heard the song “Closer.” I genuinely did not enjoy it. It was this impossible combination of offensive and humble, vile yet without celebrating its darkness. It was musically wrong as well, noisy and gritty, distorted with this crazy combination of inorganic and human sounds. It was patient, never boring, spiraling into a wild extended instrumental section in the last half of the song. It broke the rules of song structure. It broke the rules of morality. It broke the rules of celebrating one’s empowerment It broke the rules of rock, pop, and most everything I’d heard up until the point and still managed to be a song played in night clubs right beside Madonna and charted across the world. That’s the music I knew I wanted to be able to make one day—music that understood the hurt, pride, perversion, and regret both musically, lyrically, and most every form of expression. On top of that, knowing one man made almost every part of it himself, I learned that if you were skilled, careful, intentional, and never gave up, there was a chance you could make art that showed others a world outside of any musical experience they’d ever knew existed. – Cameron Gillette (keyboard, synth, rhythm guitar)
Soundgarden: “Black Hole Sun”
“No one sings like you anymore…” This lyric couldn’t be more true. Chris Cornell is a freaking vocal legend. He was one of my favorite singers growing up, and I was so sad when he passed, since it was a life dream of mine to duet with him one day. He’s so good at expressing his pain and showing off all of his vocal dynamics. Loud to soft, chest voice to head voice, so much control and so smooth with his transitions, and so much raw emotion expressed in every note. I strive to one day be half the singer he was, and this song is a no brainer influence choice for me. – Alyse Zavala (clean vocals)
ESSENTIALS
“Crawl Space”
Unfortunately, some people in this world are treated as if their death wouldn’t matter as much compared to other people. Some people are bullied or abused, kicked when they are down, and have had an extremely rough experience with life and opportunities in general. I had times in my life, especially during my childhood, when I went through hell. As I went from a bad situation to another bad situation, I struggled with wondering if my death would even matter to anyone. How can I survive in a world that doesn’t care if I’m alive? I was able to overcome my personal traumas, but I still struggle sometimes with feeling paralyzed, if my life really matters to anyone or if I’m still the lost little girl locked in a crawl space. We wrote this song with Tyler Connolly of the band Theory of a Deadman (now known as Theory). It was amazing working with him and Mike Plotnikoff and feeling like they were open-minded to me writing my story without judgment. We wanted this song to be extremely vivid and gut-wrenching, without feeling censored, and Mike and Tyler empowered us to use words with powerful imagery without making us edit the language down. It’s powerful, catchy, and extremely real. We didn’t hold back with this one. – Alyse Zavala (clean vocals)
“Perfect Drug”
Our song, “Perfect Drug,” delves into the cold and heartless manifestations of love. Alyse and I wrote our lyrics from two varying perspectives of how you can end up cold after being burned in a relationship. Alyse just ended her engagement and wasn’t healed or ready to start dating again. She struggled with needing to feel wanted and beautiful to someone, but was fearful she wouldn’t be able to love anyone back if she ever tried dating again. Whereas I wrote my lyrics to serve as a warning, making it clear that we may not be the caring individuals we seem to be. We won’t hesitate to exploit others for our own selfish and indulgent desires. If you choose to fall in love or place your trust in us, it’s your own responsibility, and you should anticipate the pain that may result from not listening to our warnings. The song serves as a cautionary tale, highlighting how love and longing can sometimes ensnare you in a self-made trap. When we arrived to record our first EP with Mike Plotnikoff, this song stood out as an unfinished challenge that plagued us daily. Despite working on other tracks, we continuously returned to it, attempting to perfect its rhythm, ideas, and lyrics, but nothing seemed to click. On the studio’s final day, as recording time approached, we still hadn’t completed our chorus parts. Unexpectedly, the internet at the studio went down, forcing us to utilize the limited time available to finalize the chorus. In just 30 minutes, with the assistance of the band, I managed to create the chorus we needed. Fortunately, everything was restored, and we were ready to record. This song was completed just five minutes before we hit the record button, and it turned out to be exactly what we had hoped for. – Oscar Romero Lemus (rap vocals)
“Into Nothing”
You know that feeling when you were a kid and you first heard metal or heavy music? It felt powerful and wrong, and forbidden but exciting. I think about that emotion a lot, but I’m sure whatever songs those were back then don’t evoke the same emotion in us now. So, that left me with the question: how can I write the songs that will create those same emotions back then, but do it today? That premise is the idea behind a lot of the writing and sound choice I do. I tend to not use too many rock and metal elements the way they’re supposed to be used except when absolutely necessary, because those elements maybe at one time were raw and scary, are safe in a way now, a road already created. For “Into Nothing,” I created a lot of sounds and synths with the goal of creating something forbidden, scary, enticing, but not really in a good way. Particularly, in the climax of the song towards the end, I created these complex sounds where I slammed the synths into compressors and heavy distortion while layering in my distorted screams hidden in the sounds to create this strained, excessive sound, where the speakers aren’t supposed to be able to handle it. And on the note of trying to break rules, for parts of the verse, I recorded a guitar, but instead of using that, I synthesized it and pitched it around to intentionally make it not have the typical comfort of a normal guitar. I’m a big believer that artists have a responsibility to push culture, to question questions, to doubt doubts, to be one of the checks that can say, “I don’t care that we’ve done it this way for decades, I’m doing it differently. – Cameron Gillette (keyboard, synth, rhythm guitar)
“When Oscar and I listened to this instrumental to write the lyrics, it made us feel like, have you ever felt so numb that you had to do something dangerous or thrilling to feel something, to feel anything? The problem is that this particular thrill never scratches the itch the same the second time, so some people will turn to more and more dangerous thrills until how do you know when you’ve gone too far? Fr the music video, we thought, what if there’s an underground circus that lets you sign up for dangerous games of life or death? – Alyse Zavala (clean vocals)
“Undertow”
We wrote “Undertow” about when a person is overwhelmed with stress and they feel like they’re drowning, but no one around even bothers to help. Other people will monitor the situation to see if you sink or swim, but they won’t help you. I really wanted a water tank in our music video to help users visualize our lyrics, and luckily I found Lady Houdini who let us use her Water Torture Cell Tank that she uses for all of her water escape acts. She actually has more than tripled Houdini’s world record for his water escape act, and those chains in our video are her actual real heavy chains that she uses when she performs the stunt. When the water was filling up and it was going up my nose and making me choke and spit it out, that was real. It was a crazy experience, but it was so worth it to really capture the emotion of what our song’s about. – Alyse Zavala (clean vocals)
“Heirloom”
The people that we love and trust the most sometimes can be the worst monsters behind closed doors, so as kids, we build up these imaginary walls to protect ourselves. But when we grow up, we find that our walls are so high that we aren’t even afraid of humans anymore. What messes us up the most now is the voices in our heads, the personal demons and insecurities we have to fight everyday. I had a rough childhood and music helped me stay alive. I hope “Heirloom” can help someone else with personal childhood trauma not feel so alone too. – Alyse Zavala (clean vocals)
