Q&A: Toby Sebastian Brings a Fresh, Nostalgic Sound on New Album ‘Eyes Light Up’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY SAMANTHA SORIA ☆
LISTENING TO TOBY SEBASTIAN’S NEW ALBUM EYES LIGHT UP — one can’t help but think of a warm sunset and the beach. Then again, the cover, featuring Toby standing on the beach, the mesmerizing water behind him as he looks up at the sky, might be a dead giveaway. Beyond that, though, his new album experiments with familiar sounds and gives a lovely nod to the music he grew up listening to.
Drawing inspiration from the vibrant rock and soul music of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Eyes Light Up vividly represents the sounds that captivated Toby while remaining fresh and current. Across its eleven tracks, the visuals he has painted reflect the enchanting magic he has been honing and perfecting.
In conversation with The Luna Collective, Toby chats about his new album, his experience starting out on a flamenco guitar, and one of my favorite points of our discussion: the 7,000 voice memos he has of him singing his ideas. Read below to learn more.
LUNA: So, I did some deep dive research on you, and I found this interview from 2009 that you did when you were 16. In that interview, you talked about musical influences and at the time, you shared that Damien Rice, The Strokes, and Marvin Gaye were some influences for you. Fast forward to today, with the release of Eyes Light Up, Damien Rice and Marvin Gaye are still noted as inspirations. Can you talk to me about these artists and what it is about them that you admire so much?
TOBY: So, those particular artists—I would say, certainly in 2009—I was very influenced by them. I still am today, but there are obviously lots of other people that I listen to. But in that particular moment, the love of those artists has continued. I would say Damien Rice for his moments of lyrical genius; I think at his best he can be a wonderful poet. He has an ability to really hit you. His phrasing, his melodies…I’ve always found his music very special. Marvin Gaye is, you know, one of the kings of soul. I grew up listening to a lot of soul because my mother loves it, and would play it to all of us.
The Strokes were probably the first contemporary band that I found on my own as a teenager, and I just thought they were the coolest thing I’d ever heard. I grew up listening to a lot of soul and a lot of rock from my dad’s side: David Bowie, Rolling Stones, all sorts of other people. The Strokes and Damien Rice, those two artists I had found myself. They weren't artists that I had inherited from my parents, they were artists that I was learning to love independently.
LUNA: I feel like every teenager goes through that phase. They find The Strokes and it’s like the coolest band they’ve ever found.
TOBY: They are cool! I mean, so unique. Their sound as well. Some wonderful guitar riffs, some epic choruses. I’m a huge fan. I don’t listen to them at the moment as much as I should, but every single time I talk about them, I need to get that sound back in my life.
LUNA: I also learned this; I’m so interested to learn more about it. You have a flamenco guitar that you’ve been playing for over 20 years. Am I correct?
TOBY: That’s correct! I lived in Spain when I was seven for three years with my family and the only guitar lessons I could get at the time were with a flamenco guitar teacher. That’s what I started learning but it wasn’t just flamenco I was learning. You know, The Beatles and things that I was listening to at home, but I have continued to use flamenco guitars. I play steel acoustics as well, but I still have a flamenco guitar today that I have been playing since I was nine years old and it’s still my main guitar.
LUNA: And how gigantic? I’d imagine at nine years old…the proportions…
TOBY: It’s a full-size guitar.
LUNA: That’s so amazing.
TOBY: I never had a small guitar. I think that’s quite normal. You can buy three-quarter-length guitars, but I think that starting on a full-size guitar doesn’t hurt because you don’t have to move up. Do you play the guitar?
LUNA: I wish! I mean, the closest I can get to is being a beginner, on a ukulele.
TOBY: So what I would say is, what a lot of beginners find when learning guitar, which you might find with the ukulele too, is the hand position on your left—or if you’re right handed, your left hand is doing the chords—those positions can be quite tough. For me, starting on a full-size guitar was going to be tough anyway, even if I had started on a three-quarter, and so it was building up that strength in my palm.
LUNA: Yeah, I find that with the ukulele. The thing that I struggled with…
TOBY: Yeah! It’s bending your hand in weird positions.
LUNA: For me, I started with piano, and then I stopped.
TOBY: And the piano is the total opposite. It’s such a lovely instrument where you don’t have to be very good and you can make good sounds.
LUNA: Yeah, but for me it was like the finger cramping and building my calluses.
TOBY: Yes! The ends of your fingers as well. Yeah, you’re right. I get it all the time when I haven't played for a while and I go into rehearsal for a tour or a show. Not only do I get sore fingers on my left hand, the chord hand, but I also get cramps in my palm. So, if I do a gig and I haven't rehearsed enough or haven’t warmed up properly, I’ll sometimes get a cramp in the palm of my hand.
LUNA: How did starting on that specific guitar impact your playing style? What appreciation has it taught you in terms of growth, creativity, and artistry?
TOBY: Good question! Starting on a Spanish guitar allowed my finger picking to develop. You don't normally play with a plectrum on a Spanish guitar. Only until recently, I've never really used one. I've always really finger-picked and so that's one thing, stylistically [that comes from starting on the Spanish guitar].
I'd say the elements of percussion within my rhythm playing on my acoustic guitar [also come from that Spanish influence]. If I'm not using a plectrum, there's all sorts of sounds you can make with [the acoustic guitar] that you would never know to make with it, until you're forced. With a steel string guitar, you normally always play with a plectrum, you know, a pick. So a lot of people never actually ever get to experiment, and they're never forced to experience what it's like to finger pick and to make those sounds and to look at every single individual string, every single note. So that's another thing that I've got from [the Spanish guitar]. It's forced me to learn to finger-pick and tap the guitar occasionally.
The growth, creativity…I've taken the guitar all over the world with me. I feel like I have an understanding, the guitar understands me. I feel like it's very easy to create on that guitar. That guitar has seen me through lots and lots of chapters in my life, not just musically, but, you know, through all sorts of things. I suppose I have a certain freedom on that guitar that I don't have on others.
LUNA: In an interview that you did with a publication called BoysbyGirls, you touched a little bit on feeling nostalgic for places far away from home. There was something that you said about music that I found interesting. You said, “For music, in particular, when you’ve written songs at a certain time and end up playing them a few years later, it can transport you back to those feelings—it is quite extraordinary.” So, my question for you is, how does revisiting these songs from the past influence your creative process? But also, do you find that they shape your new music like with Eyes Light Up, or is it more about revisiting those old emotions and memories to inspire something completely new and fresh?
TOBY: I would say all that you just said can be the case. I’d say three or four of the songs and ideas on this album I’ve had for years and I never finished them because it didn’t feel like the right time. I felt like I was forcing them. Some songs come really quickly, fast and hard, and others take time to develop. I would say that sometimes I listen to music that I wrote years ago, and I do find it quite inspiring, but other times, I think, Oh wow! I can hear what I was going through or what I was listening to.
For me, there’s no rule, and I also don’t mind releasing stuff and reworking something that is unfinished from years ago. I don’t really have a problem with it. The biggest problem that I do have, though, is if I’ve recorded something and I was set out to have a release of that song and it’s finished, and I listened to it 100 times because I love it so much and then it doesn't come out for years. That sometimes can make me move on because I’ve kind of lived all the euphoria and all the happiness that I had in that moment, when I made that creation. It was meant to come out at a certain time. I envisioned when it’s going to come out, how people are going to react, and sometimes, if I leave it too long and I don’t do anything with the song, that can sometimes make me move on and be less emotionally connected to it.
LUNA: Okay, so I want to talk about Eyes Light Up. First, I just wanted to say…okay, vibrato! Falsetto! Grit! Round of applause for you. I don’t have this gigantic musical vocabulary, but clearly when you hear something good, you just know it. But, if you could sum up this album in only three words, what would they be?
TOBY: Hmm…three words, okay. I would say emotive, soulful, classic.
LUNA: Some of my favorite tracks are “No One Loves Like You,” “Heaven Is the Backseat of a Rental Car”—what a fun song—and “Light Years.” I don’t know what it is, again, my brain, but something about “Light Years” gave me Once vibes. Do you know that movie?
TOBY: Yes! So I haven't seen the movie Once, but I remember a long time ago hearing some of the music. Tell me—so it reminds you a little bit of Once?
LUNA: So I'm the same. I’ve never seen Once. I know about it; I know it’s like this beloved film, but there was just something about it. There’s that little bit of folk but also that storytelling.
TOBY: I can’t remember the music from Once, but you said storytelling, and on that song, in particular, it is quite spoken.
LUNA: Yes! So I’m curious to know if you have any favorites as well, and also if some songs on this album took a while to form. Were there ones that came together seamlessly?
TOBY: I’m happy to say that for the first time, with this album, I love every single song. Not necessarily equally, but I’m very proud of every one. They fought each other very hard to get on the album. My favorite songs at the moment are “Let’s Pretend;” it’s a relatively new song. I love “Oona.” I’ve had “Oona” for a while, and I’ve imagined the production since the day I came up with it, and it’s gone exactly how I imagined it, which is lovely.
I really enjoy “Eyes Light Up.” I find it very happy. It’s definitely—unintentionally, sound-wise—inspired by John Martyn. I wasn’t thinking about John Martyn or his music. I don’t know if you know who he is; he’s a very, very important acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter. He was brilliant at fingerpicking. He had a very warm, low voice, and I didn’t intentionally make a song that was inspired by him, but I can hear it when listening back that that’s where it comes from. I listened to him as a kid growing up a little bit, and I can very much hear that inspiration in that song.
“Daddy Daddy” is a song that I care about a lot. It’s a song that’s not about my father, it’s not really about anyone in particular, it’s more meant to be a cry for help. It’s meant to be a song that is from the perspective of someone who’s far from home, and it’s up in the air what that person is going through, but they’re longing for some comfort. That was the idea behind it.
Then, I’d say lastly, I love “Why Did You Leave” because I can hear all the soul inspirations and influences that I grew up listening to on my mother’s side. That’s an idea that I’ve had for six or seven years, so finishing it, putting it together, and hearing it produced that way that it is, makes me very happy.
LUNA: That must feel nice. You have this idea for almost a decade, right? Six to seven years and when you finally get all those pieces together, that must feel amazing.
TOBY: Yeah, it does. It’s a wonderful feeling. “Oona,” I came up with that in 2017. I only finished it, I think, a year ago. So, that song is almost eight years old.
LUNA: That’s just so insane to me. You know, we have access to all these songs, as listeners, and they’re like, Oh, three minutes and fifteen seconds, right? But what you don’t know, behind the scenes, is that this little baby was sitting for almost ten years!
TOBY: For sure! When I released “Midnight” in 2021, I had had that idea since 2019. I’d had the fingerpicking bit, the slightly, kind of bassy notes at the beginning. I had the melody, the midnight lyric. I didn’t have the verse, but I knew the melody, and it was only until after the second lockdown in 2021 that I actually decided, when I had nothing to do, to go down to my local studio and spend an hour on it. Four or five visits to the studio, an hour session each, and I came out and the song was finished. It was two years, and people thought that at that moment, I'd just written and released it right then.
I always have a collection of songs that I haven’t let go of because I’m a daydreamer and sometimes things get finished, and sometimes things don't. There are some songs that feel right to write in the moment, and there are other songs that are just happy being doodles until the right time comes.
LUNA: They’re just little lines in your notes app?
TOBY: Yeah, exactly! Not even notes but my voice memos. I’ve got like 7,000 voice memos, and annoyingly, this is just so typical of me, I’ve bothered to record them, but none of them are labeled. I had to start going through them the other day because it takes up so much data. I’ve got so many. I literally had over 7,000 but that’s because I’ll find myself in the supermarket and I’ll be singing a horn section and I’ll be hiding behind the cereal aisle, trying not to look like a crazy person.
LUNA: But that’s sometimes when the best ideas come to you, I would imagine, right?
TOBY: Exactly! No, it’s true. It is absolutely true and then other times you go back and listen to that idea that you were singing into your phone, and you think, What is that?
LUNA: Circling back to that interview you did with BoysbyGirls, you mentioned that when writing songs, “the things that make [you] tick are the things that feel like movie moments in life.” Can you talk to me about the visuals that came to mind when crafting this album?
TOBY: I would say most of the album is kind of warm in feelings. I think about sunsets or early sunrises, the beach, and warmth. It’s certainly, in my eyes, not a cold album. The best memories and moments of the year are normally when I’m laughing or with family and friends, or when I’m on a bit of an adventure to somewhere I’ve never seen before, preferably somewhere warm. When I’m by the sea, or I’m exploring a new city, or getting lost somewhere with someone, or with the people I love. I’d say that those are the images that spring to mind when I listen to this album. For me, this album feels a bit like a road trip album.
LUNA: I was going to say that! The singles that you put out, the covers have those beachy, sunset vibes and when listening, it feels like those long drives, sunset, windows are down, hair is flying everywhere.
TOBY: Yeah, that is absolutely one of the images in my mind when I first came up with the idea for “Oona.” I remember thinking about someone who’s been trapped and then finding freedom and unleashing into a nice, free future. I always imagined a boat and a woman sitting on the edge, at the front. The sun is coming down, and hair is blowing in the wind. The boat is slowly gliding through the water with the reflection on the sea.
LUNA: You mentioned “Midnight.” You collaborated with Florence, and it’s a great song. Is there another artist that you would love to collaborate with? Is there a dream artist that you have always wished to work with?
TOBY: Yeah, I mean, there’s several. Can I give a few?
LUNA: You can give as many as you want!
TOBY: I would love to collaborate with Andrew Bird; he’s a wonderful folk artist. I would love to work with Angus Stone. He releases music with Julia Stone; they’re a beautiful folk duo. His solo project is called Dope Lemon. One of the songs is called “Kids Falling in Love,” which I think is incredible. I would love to work with him. I will certainly be pushing for that one day in the near future, and Bon Iver.
LUNA: The dream.
TOBY: The dream, right?
LUNA: Lyrical genius. Stabs you in the gut, twists the knife.
TOBY: Every day of the week.
LUNA: Finally, to celebrate the release of Eyes Light Up, you're doing two headline shows. One is a hometown show in Oxford and the other is in London. How are you feeling about these upcoming shows? Do you hope to do more this year? And after, what are your plans in terms of music?
TOBY: I’m thrilled to do two shows that celebrate the release of the album. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve played in Oxford, it’s always my favorite show to play. We always have a very fun crowd and a good party afterwards. So, Oxford will be really lovely and then London will be fantastic and good energy, I’m sure too.
I love playing live. I haven't played this album live before. I played like three or four of the songs, but I haven't played the album before so that’s a really cool step up. For me, I always feel like every few months or after a collection of gigs, there’s always a song that I’m not tired of playing but I want to just take it off the list and add a different new one just to keep the energy there and spice things up, to stay inspired and energized. That’s the most exciting thing about these two shows and the shows going forward over the next year, because I’ll be playing this set of ten songs that I’m hugely proud of.
After this, there’ll be some festivals in the summer and an autumn tour—details to be confirmed—and then, I’ll play it by ear and see what makes sense next or what I’m feeling.
LUNA: Probably still humming into your phone? New melodies?
TOBY: Oh, for sure! I’ll probably have to go and sift through the 7,000 voice memos, and realize that only ten of them are worthwhile [laughs].
