For this fourth-year student of RV College of Architecture in Bengaluru, success as a singer-songwriter was something she stumbled upon by accident.
“Growing up, my sister and I were encouraged to learn music,” says 21-year-old Frizzell D’Souza, over phone from Mangaluru. “She had piano lessons, while I learnt the violin for eight years. However, I took to the guitar and ukelele a few years ago, on my own.
“I started doing music about two-and-a-half years ago, with covers of some of my favourite artistes such as Ed Sheeran, Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson and Eric Clapton. When Prateek Kuhad himself shared my rendition of his ‘Cold/Mess,’ it boosted my confidence and my viewership.”
It was only in the thick of the lockdown, that she began meeting independent artistes online who had started going live. “Established musicians such as Ehsaan sir (of Shankar Ehsaan Loy fame) and others kept encouraging musicians to use the time to work on their own music.” That was when she began working on creating an original number.
“I did not have any real experience writing before; I’m not even much of a reader,” she admits candidly. “When I saw others trying their hand at composing lyrics, I realised I couldn’t go on singing covers forever. Writing my songs was the next step up.”
Frizzell began by writing a few lines every day and would keep honing it till she was satisfied. “When I finished ‘New,’ a few of my friends encouraged me to put it out there.”
Frizzell says that over the course of the lockdown, she not only came up with the music and lyrics for ‘New,’ but also got down to producing it. “It was pretty challenging to produce it on your own especially when you are restricted to working from home. The Urban Weaver, an artist collective, helped me with it, and they released ‘New’ in August.”
Apart from online classes for her semester, Frizzell says she has been working on her music and is set to release another single. “When I’m not drawing or drafting for class or working on my music, I do a lot of painting.”
Her next track ‘Drown Away’ is about her childhood memories of Goa and will be released shortly.
