Waterford musician, George Lyons, trying to make it big in London

George Lyons is a Waterford-born London-based singer, songwriter and performer. His music has been compared to that of Dominic Fike, Five Seconds of Summer and the 1975. Last summer, he opened for Moncrieff in the Haven Hotel. 

On December 5, he released his first EP, ‘Notions’, which is available to stream. His single 'Lola' has been featured on BBC's Radio One and has been described as "a flirty pop-rock jam that falls somewhere between memory-fueled 2000s cool and the indie-pop aesthetic we're all currently obsessed with". The Waterford News & Star caught up with George on his whirlwind career after leaving the Déise.

What are you up to right now?

Right now this second I am locked in the studio. For the past four or five days I’ve been staying here, trying to make stuff for the new EP.

There’s very little of it ready so far. There’s going to be a lot of new collaborators and stuff so I’m trying to flesh out that stuff.

How much of a break did you give yourself between your last EP and your new one?

I think like two weeks, but I’m not even sure I’d call it a break because I played through shows within that time. I’ve been trying to keep it as full-on as possible. Sometimes I feel like if I stop moving, I’ll lose my progress.

I’m very aware that I’m taking a big risk by choosing music as a career. It’s a really tough industry not even to be successful in but just to be comfortable in. 

I think knowing that I’m giving up a lot to really go for it, so I may as well give it 100% all of the time.

I work with an events company and I bartend. It's really difficult to be financially stable off music. I’m working towards slimming down on how much I rely on my other job for money. 

I know I’ll still have to work [other jobs] for another while but I don’t mind.” 

How did you go from being a student in De La Salle to making music in London?

While I was in De La Salle, I was in the choir, which I loved. And I did the musicals in schools. But for most of my time in Waterford I was more preoccupied with school and sports.

There was definitely a level of fortune to it. I was in my third and fourth year in De La Salle during the pandemic. It would have given me the chance to write a lot of music and post stuff online. 

When I was in fourth year and fifth year some of the stuff I was posting on TikTok started getting some attention from record labels. They really had their finger on the [pulse] with online music presence because there was no live music at the time.

They brought me out to London on a few trips to develop me as an artist, so I could experience the session culture and write and develop music. 

That’s when I really thought that it was something that I was good at and something I really wanted to give a go.

When I did my leaving cert, I was really lucky that my older sister lives and works over here. So the plan was to basically spend July and August with her and dip the feet in and do sessions with people I’d met on previous record label trips. 

I guess I wanted to see if I could handle living in London.

At the end of summer, I decided I wanted to give it a proper go. Between November and August the following year I was in five or six sublets for two months at a time. Since August I’ve been on a proper lease, which has been great.

What are the benefits and challenges of posting your music as short-form content on social media?

The benefits are that you can really reach so many people. Posting stuff with fairly low production value can get millions of views and you can get so many eyes on your music. The difficulty is that there’s so many people posting music online nowadays that the algorithms are really saturated with people all trying to do the same thing.

I try not to let it get me down. Everyone’s playing on the same pitch and it's about trying to market yourself in a way that retains people.

How do you find London, being from Waterford?

It's totally different, of course, to Waterford. There’s so many things I love about it and there’s so many things I prefer in Waterford. 

It’s my first time living in a city. I live pretty close to Tramore and it's kind of weird not being near the sea anymore. I felt that when I came over, it was initially a less friendly environment than home. Most people my age were in uni. The industry I was entering had pre-established cliques so it was a bit harder to insert myself into the culture. The people that produced my first record ended up becoming really good friends and they’ve been really good to me.

You’ve done a lot of silly stunts for social media, such as climbing into a washing machine. What's the craziest thing you’ve done for a stunt so far?

Ironically enough, even though I’ve done funny stuff like smashing guitars and throwing ice cream everywhere, in terms of promotional stuff, the craziest thing I can do is sell myself out a bit. I don’t like being too gimmicky with my content, but sometimes explaining my story is the stuff that gets the most views. It's not something that I particularly enjoy doing but sometimes you need to do the click-baity thing that retains audiences.

And finally, how do you want people to feel when they’re listening to your music?

I think, primarily, happy. The main thing I focus on when writing a song is that it makes you feel good and I’m much more concerned with something being sonically pleasing than being lyrically profound. 

I would have really been into the songwriter stuff for a long time but I’ve found that nothing beats when the sound of a song makes you feel good.