Formula Indie Sessions _ Interview with DEEZEL
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
Probably my mom singing some kind of lullaby to me. But if you’d ask me about the first time music really caught my attention, it was probably when I randomly downloaded the first Linkin Park album as a kid and was completely mind-blown.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
Just by playing around with a free version of Music Maker when I was 14, making parodies of famous rap songs to tease some friends. That eventually led me to writing my own serious songs — and I just never stopped.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
I’m just finishing the extended version of my debut album “Nirwana”.
The album is about my desperate search for inner peace and how I lose my way along that path, which eventually leads to several life-changing events.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
I think my music is always evolving. With the current album, a phase is ending that I would describe as trappic, dark, atmospheric, a bit trippy, and sprinkled with light rock influences. The constant element is my artistic ambition when it comes to writing — especially rhyme schemes, flows, and the attempt to achieve a certain depth.
After this album, the indie rock and electronic influences will become much more prominent.
What is one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
Realizing early on how I can use rhymes as a tool to spark my creativity and make the songs feel more cohesive and aesthetically pleasing definitely had a huge impact on me.
Besides that, it’s been a slow process of becoming better at feeling the music and developing an instinct for when something is truly good or emotionally stirring.
Above all, it was life experience that changed the way I perceive and create music.
What tools, instruments, or software are essential in your creative process?
Since I mainly focus on vocals and lyrics, aside from a few arrangements here and there, the essentials are mostly recording equipment — a mic, a PC, Cubase as my DAW, and so on.
Which indie artist or song are you loving right now?
I just fell in love with Friedberg, especially the song 100 Times. They have this perfect danceable happy-sadness.
How have your personal experiences influenced your music and artistic vision?
My songs are basically my preserved feelings and experiences, so they directly represent my personal life.
What emotions or messages do you hope listeners take from your work?
I mainly use my music to dig deeper into myself. So I hope that others sometimes feel “caught” by my songs, start questioning themselves, and gain new perspectives.
But it also depends heavily on the individual track. I usually think less about how something might affect others and more about triggering something meaningful within myself through the song.
What’s the most important lesson music has taught you so far?
That you can transfer emotions directly onto people through music — and music is basically converted emotion. But that also makes it dangerous, because you have to be careful how many foreign emotions you let crash into you.
For example, during a time when I smoked a lot of weed, constantly listening to depressive music affected me negatively in hindsight.
What is a dream venue or festival you would love to perform at?
The Hurricane Festival in Germany would be pretty nice.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
I have to go with Casper (German artist), because he was a huge influence on me in the early days, he still makes great music, and I think our styles and artistic priorities would work really well together. I wouldn’t want to collaborate with a “legend” just for the ego boost if it doesn’t make musical sense — and that unfortunately applies to most of the big names from the past that come to mind.
Where can our listeners follow and support your music? (Website,Spotify, IG, links)
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dullboydeezel/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/intl-de/artist/1fcVfu9kRJftWRU6blDjUv
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/de/artist/deezel/971825474
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dullboydeezel
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dullboydeezel
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
The next milestone would definitely be being able to live off my music so I don’t have to rely on a dozen side hustles and can fully focus on it.
Artistically, my long-term goal is to gradually shape a unique sound from all the different musical influences that have shaped me.
With my next project — for which I teamed up with a producer from Bielefeld and which reaches deep into the world of electronic music — I’m already taking a big step in that direction.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
That I hold myself and my music to a pretty high standard, try not to repeat myself, and often go the extra mile lyrically.
So it might be worth taking a deep dive and accompanying me on my journey for a while.
