Who is Lysz?
Lysz is a very strong person who uses her power to help animals not only with being vegan! She is the singer of Divamee, a band close to her heart. On the other hand she is a little girl, always (too?) honest and curious.
What inspired you to become a singer?
I´m a very rational person! Before I had a long relationship with a singer I was never thinking about singing by myself. But during his concerts I realized that I was singing all the time and I had fun with it!!! I took some singing lessons and started my career in 2000: Soraya.vc of welle: erdball was born ;)
Today I´m totally happy to have got such a nice contact to my not-rational but more creative side!
Before you started Divamee you used to sing in Welle: Erdball. What can you tell us about those days?
In this time I learned a lot about the music scene. But mainly it was a possibility for me to be together with my boy-friend at the weekends, nothing else. And of course it was a time with a lot of fun and friends in various cities/countries! But although I brought the animal welfare-theme into the band nobody of them was interested in it – this was a very disappointing point for me and one of the reasons to leave both my boy-friend and welle: erdball.
How do you usually deal with disappointing points, did it change over the last few years?
It changed in the way that I quarrelled with every disappointing thing in my life in the past – today I´m trying to find the (good) reason in everything what happened to me. All disappointing and bad things are a chance to learn, they are always the beginning of something new and good. It´s a hard way but I believe in it.
After leaving welle: erdball and its singer I founded Divamee – a music-project that gives me the possibility to tell people what I´m really feeling – and most important I fell in love with a wonderful person! And that is only one proof for my belief…
In the welle: erdball-times I was allowed to offer the audience some petitions about animal welfare. After I left the band in the end of 2004 I asked Frl. Venus to go on with this tradition but that was not enough for me. Thus I immediately jumped at the chance to start my own project!!! But of course it took a lot of time to do all organization and this stuff. In the beginning of 2006 Divamee started its work to give animals a voice and to tell the audience about more topics that really touch me!
What are the simularities and differences between the Divamee and Welle Erdball sound?
The only similarity is that both sounds were done with a computer – everything else is absolutely different ;)
Who are the other members of Divamee?
Divamee consists of three members. Abigail is the second one and a committed singer with a unique voice and a wonderful accent. The third and last member is Kim Strange. He is doing all technical work and is our male singer. Both of them wanted to do music even before they met me - today we are friends and a great team!
And because I don´t really want to forget my basic idea to found a girls-music-project we asked Ruth to do some additional vocals for both the CD and live concerts.
Welle Erdball is known for great shows, what can we expect from a Divamee concert? Is it your goal to make a big show as well or rather keep a small intimate performance?
Of course Divamee wants to give the audience a good show – but the most important things are not the visual ones! We want the audience to listen to the lyrics, to feel them during a concert – even with the help of getting in contact with them!
We don´t sing about balloons – so why should we throw them into the venue? Of course it´s fun even if you stand on stage and play with the audience! But that´s not our way: we are not a fun-project. We are singing about love – and we are offering (lollipop-) hearts. We are singing about the sexual abuse of children – and we are holding a soft toy in our arms acting the song. We are singing about yearning – and we are looking into a crystal ball. We are performing more in this way - although it surely looks a little bit like welle: erdball. The alternative would be that we are doing our thing on stage without any contact to the audience…
And not to forget you will get great music, a lot of fun, sex and some stuff to think about if you will see a concert of Divamee!
I guess it changed nearly everything in my mind. I´m a completely “new” person in a lot of areas: to concentrate it on one point I would say now I`m prepared for myself! There was one really hard weekend I was not able to communicate with others. I was speaking only with myself in my mind and I discovered at this time that I really want to live and that I will fight for my life. This was a reversal point in my life. But today I have to take attention not to fall back into my stressful life ;)
How do you prevent to fall back in a stressfull life?
The first and most important point for me is not to worry too much! Like I told you above I´m on a good way ;) The next step is to allow myself to take some time only for relaxing things like reading a book, dreaming on my sofa, thinking about the world and myself. But of course I have too much to do with my work and with Divamee – I always have to remind me to do good things for myself.
You are now recording the Divamee cd, the title is experiment? Can we see this first cd as an experiment? What can we expect from it?
Yes, our first CD entitled “Experiment” is an experiment for every single member of Divamee! We all have to do former unknown jobs like writing lyrics, doing all the technical stuff, performing a concert, singing in such a big range… I guess we are experimenting with ourselves - and with our limits in order to break through it.
From the CD “Experiment” you can expect a lot of various sounds: there will be slowly songs with tender voices but also noise industrial ones, in between everything was allowed ;)
What music you listen to the most yourself and does it surface in Divamee?
I love listening to female singers like Björk, Kate Bush, Evanescence, Portishead, Emilie Autumn and so on. These are wonderful singers!!! But I don´t think that they influence me – I guess every singer has to find her/his own potency and own way to make them unique!
Lets get to the lyrics. Animal welfare and the abuse of the planet are important issues in some of the lyrics. Can you tell us abit more about the lyrics and how are you personal involved in these topics?
Most of the lyrics are written by me and in my opinion they are about very important themes. I´m vegetarian since I´m 14 years old – later on I changed to a mainly vegan living person. Animal welfare is the topic of my life! I do not accept how we are treating animals. The next step to raise my voice against the abuse of our planet was no big one…
Furthermore I´m personally involved in topics like the sexual abuse of children. I guess all the fields of my interests are basing on not accepting these kinds of injustice! I have got a voice and I´m using it – with the help of Divamee and its members who are standing behind me and my lyrics.
Full of love for everyone: human being, animal and plant.
You wrote a song called Tsunami Task Force? What do you want to say with this, is it some kind of “nature revenge” song?
With the more sarcastic song “Tsunami Task Force” I want to remind that we are not the strongest factor of this planet. We are destroying our environment like forests and tropical rainforests, we are torturing animals, we are eliminating aborigines with all their knowledge etc. We are doing all these awful things because of our believing in being the pride of creation.
But the planet shows us that we are not the strongest ones. The planet wants to awake us with nature disasters but the only thing we are doing is being surprised of what happened. We are healing our wounds but do not change anything in our behaviour! Everybody is only speaking about it – that´s it. And that makes me crazy!
Can you tell us abit more about “No way out” Did you write the lyrics based on your own experiences or not?
The lyrics of “No way out” are NOT the story of my life but of course it is influenced by my private experiences. The goal I gave myself was to write a mainly common song about what every day is occuring all around the world without going into details. Sexual abuse of children is one of the biggest crimes – it is destroying the whole live of these victims… It is unbelievable that this is happening for example in families where children should find love and protection.
If you had to choose one quote that fits your life, what would it be?
Constant dripping wears away the stone. I´m living the intent in both directions but I started to stop living it in the negative way.
Who wrote the music for all tracks, on your website I see names like Die Perlen and Monosex? Is it your goal to work with many other people and why?
When I got the Divamee-idea one of the questions I had to resolve was who would compose the songs for my project. I´m not good enough in composing to do it by myself! So I asked some musicians for one or two songs and all of them were enthusiastic about my idea of a “multi-artist-project”.
Just in this moment now Kim Strange is working on his first own song which will be released on the “Experiment” CD. I love to work with other artists so we will go on with this teamwork – but there will be a few changes for our second CD ;)
Answering your question why I´m working that way with other people is very easy: I´m always interested in learning new stuff and listening to various opinions! It is an exciting world I was jumping in…
Any last words for the readers?
Try to stay young and don´t stop challenging yourself! Have fun in your live without mistreating others!
I have to thank you for this lovely interview and mainly for your friendship: thank you so much!!!