Q: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and how your childhood impacted your musical direction?
A: Hey, I’m Melaku, I’m a singer, songwriter, and producer based in Monterey California. I have been really focused on creating my unique sound for the past while, which blends retro influences with current pop songwriting and production methods. I grew up listening to a lot of 60s and 70s music, Motown and classic soft rock, and those influences still shape a lot of my sound. I started playing music and writing songs really early on in life…picked up guitar around 4 or 5, and then when I was 10 I started wanting to play drums so I would get pots and pans out of the kitchen and bang them with kitchen utensils. My parents got me a drum set pretty soon after that, a black Sonor kit (with pads). Around 13 or so I started recording myself on a cassette recorder, and then taught myself how to record on a PC with Cubase. My dad helped me convert part of the downstairs into a recording studio. And I still can’t live (happily) without having a home studio!
Q: How are you planning on growing your fan base and sharing your music with the world? What message do you have for anyone who is about to discover “Melaku”?
A: I’ve put out quite a bit of music, music videos, and content, so I’m going to keep doing that. I’d love for something to really take off and be able to reach more people. Definitely a major dream is to have an engaged enough fan base to go on tour. To be totally honest, my primary struggle throughout my music journey has been with health, so I haven’t been able to do as much as I would like to. My plans involve releasing music more frequently, just doing more…and I’ve been working really hard at healing in order to do so. The message I would like to put out is that my music comes from a life fully lived, with the full breadth of pain and joy, and kind of has an epic movie like vibe that can change your state if you let it. It’s all produced by myself, and written without AI or anything like that…my music is for the kind of person that’s looking for something human, nostalgic, and spiritually coded.
Q: Who is the most inspiring artist for you right now? And where do you find inspiration for making music?
A: I recently discovered Stephen Wilson Jr., when he was on Theo Von’s podcast, and found him and his music super inspiring. I love how much of an impact he can make with a single mic’d up acoustic guitar and his unique voice. And his songwriting is really clever but also hits the heart. His blend of retro influences, 90s rock influences, and country and americana are kind of like the more country version of what I do. So yeah, definitely my goal to have the kind of impact on people that he is currently having. My inspiration comes mainly from the impetus inside me that has always been kind of obsessed with making music. So that’s the main thing…everything just feels off if I’m not doing something music related, whether that’s singing, or songwriting, or producing, or just banging the drums. My songs sometimes come to me from a life situation, or I’ll hear a melody in my head in the middle of the night or something like that and do a quick voice note that eventually turns into a song. Songs for me come from somewhere “else” whether you want to call that God or the universe or the ether, whatever. The best songs I’ve written come through me, they aren’t done by me.
Q: Can you tell us about the story or message behind the song, “Open Road.”?
A: The story behind the song is kind of a culmination of a bunch of experiences I’ve had while driving long distances. Especially if I’m alone and in the car for multiple hours, I start having semi spiritual experiences, where the land and the sky become new things that it almost seems I’ve never seen before. Problems feel like they’ve been left behind, and a lot of times solutions or new ideas come to me. Specifically, I wrote the song in 2021 after a road trip from California to Texas. I was unsure of whether I wanted to stay in California due to all of the lockdowns and issues. I was also kind of searching for myself. I really connected with my inner self and nature on that trip, and felt more able to deal with those, let’s say, “interesting times.”
Q: How would you describe your sound in one word for potential listeners?
A: Retrofitted
Q: Did you face any challenges while writing or recording “Open Road”?
A: My health is my greatest challenge. In an ideal world I would be as healthy as I was when I was a teenager, and just be able to put out as much music as possible, and do promo, and play a bunch of gigs all the time, etc. So for this song, like all the other one’s I’ve put out, it just takes longer than I want to finish recording, and to gather up all the resources to make a full release happen.
Q: What is the message of your music? And what are your goals as an artist?
A: The message really depends on the song, but overall I would say it is that it is ok to struggle, it’s ok to be an underdog, it’s ok to be spiritually complex, and it’s ok to still maintain your innocence and believe in a better world. My goals as an artist are to make real progress with reaching more people that are looking for the kind of music I make, to tour the world, and create a movement based in integrity, depth, and golden age/golden rule ethos.
Q: Who is your dream artist to collaborate with? (dead or alive)
A: I would probably have to say Prince. He is a huge inspiration in terms of being an artist that produces his own music and plays all the instruments. I just want to know what being in a long studio session with him would be like.
Q: What is your advice for people interested in pursuing music as a career or for those trying to enter the industry?
A: I honestly am still trying to figure this all out for myself. On one hand I could be a downer and talk about how much pay to play there is in the industry, and how much money goes into making a star. On the other hand I could talk about how many resources there are to make music, and how social media has made reaching fans accessible for everyone. It would probably depend on the day, haha.
Q: If you could go back in time and give a younger you some words of wisdom, what would they be?
A: I think I would tell myself to not be so hard on myself, and give myself grace. I would try to explain how it’s ok to slow down sometimes, and take a rest. When I was a teenager I wanted success so bad that I kind of burnt the candle on both ends…I’d want my younger self to know that there isn’t so much or a rush to prove myself. The truth is though, I’m still telling myself that so I probably wouldn’t have listened!
