Meet Lyell Evans Roeder | Artist, Producer, Composer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lyell Evans Roeder and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lyell, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
I really resonate with this question – particularly coming out of the past year of Covid lockdown. In the arts, in my experience at least, ‘work’ and ‘life’ are entangled to this just extraordinary extent. Often when we feel like we are living at our best, it is when we are ‘working’ – which can make it hard to even want to find a work life balance, or what I have come to think of as time when we are creatively ‘on’ vs. ‘off.’

A silver lining of the past eighteen months for me has been seeing some of the value of taking moments in the week to intentionally unplug from my musical and artistic pursuits. The years leading up to the pandemic had been incredibly fast paced, and it was not only necessary to be in a state of constant movement to grow projects, it was fun too! The forced downtime of 2020 showed that by taking a little more ‘off’ time and a little time to mentally recharge and turn inward, there was a whole other world of creative abundance to explore.

I have an ongoing conversation about finding balance with my scoring partner and close collaborator Ankit Suri. Since 2017 we’ve done this wide array of projects, often working together remotely (we were well practiced when lockdown hit). Throughout this time he has mostly been based in London, and my home base has been L.A., which has meant an eight hour time difference and the temptation to constantly be ‘on’, whatever the hour or day of the week. We found this past year that finding a little more off time for ourselves – even just in the form of taking weekends for friends or personal projects – has been a wonderful way to find a better balance. The best part is that in allowing just a bit more time to be ‘off’, our ‘on’ hours are all the much better for it, and our work feels like it’s some of our best to date.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I think more than anything else I’m excited by the people I work with. I’ve always found success through collaboration, in its myriad forms. It’s important to develop a strong sense of your own voice, and that to a large extent is a personal journey, but the essence of music is collaborative – it’s dancing, it’s shows, it’s play. The best recorded songs, even if they don’t feel ‘live’, always capture that. Professionally, the projects that have had the most success for me have always reflected that mindset, usually both in the work being done and the vibe of the team working on it. The projects that haven’t worked out are generally the ones that stopped being fun, or the ones that were somewhat forced to begin with.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
It’d really depend on which friend was visiting. If they were keen on exploring some of the fresher sides of the music world here we might go to one of the nights at ETA Highland Park (they have a great happy hour too, especially for fans of oysters), or maybe a show at the Zebulon. I dig the jams at Black Rabbit Rose too.

I used to live up the road from Pace in Laurel, and it’s always fun going back there for a slightly fancier dinner. I’ve also had a couple of the best meals I’ve had in LA recently at the Bowery Bungalow in Silver Lake, can’t recommend them highly enough (and it’s a couple blocks away from a post-dinner drink at 4100 or Black Cat or El Condor). I know it will be closed a while longer still, but one of my absolute favorite places to bring a friend during the day is the Getty – even just spending a couple hours walking around the grounds is magical.

But honestly most of the best times are had making tunes, or catching a show or a party with friends, or something totally unplanned for. L.A. is a city for crazy, unexpected nights like no other.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
When I was growing up, my mom would host dinner parties for friends or family, and my grandparents (who lived in the same town) would often be there. I would get bored of dinner eventually and pretty much always end up at the piano in the other room. Part of me wanted to escape from the adults in the other room and part of me wanted them to hear me play. I remember my grandmother, who we called Yaya, would almost always end up sitting on the couch by the piano, just smiling, listening (and occasionally falling asleep eventually). Up until she died she would always get such joy just sitting and listening to me or other family members play, and I in turn loved playing when she was there and grew to really appreciate the very pure joy she got from hearing her loved ones play music. I have a big love for the intimacy that can come in musical moments, and I think an important part of that comes from her.

Website: www.altfi.fm

Instagram: @lye.ll

Image Credits
Emma Rosenblatt of A Rose in Bloom | www.aroseinbloom.com David A Solorzano | www.davesolophoto.com