INSPIRE: Meet Lisa Murray - the Kind of Girl the world's been waiting for

Producer, songwriter and multi-disciplinary artist Lisa Murray recently launched her electric, self-produced debut single, "The Kind of Girl" – the first in what is sure to be a promising string of cutting edge, indie pop songs that perfectly encompass a nostalgic summer soundtrack.

This self-produced debut single details the emotional journey of navigating through young adult life from the female perspective, taking inspiration from the manic pixie dream girl narrative device. The track was created by an all-female production team with mastering by Piper Payne.

In her songwriting process Lisa documents her own experiences as a woman navigating through early adult life but her love for music began much earlier in her childhood as she explains:

“I have been involved with music since I was a child. I picked up the piano when I was about seven and I just fell in love with music, went on and taught myself guitar, ukulele, and a few other instruments and I have always loved to sing.

“I come from quite a musical family, all of my auntie and uncles play live music and are in choirs, it was always a huge part of my life.

“Then I went on to join a few different musical societies to perform on stage in more of a theatrical sense. I went on after secondary school to study music in Trinity College and that’s where I fell in love with the whole creation and production process and creating my own music from scratch.

“The Kind of Girl” was written during Lisa’s time studying at the world-renowned Berklee College of Music in Valencia, from which she holds a Masters degree in Music Production, Technology and Innovation.

“When it comes to songwriting, I often wake up in the morning with a fully fleshed out song idea in my head. This was one of those songs that appeared in my psyche one day, and once I started to sing through and perform it, the rest of the song wrote itself,” says Lisa. “You can’t force that creative process; you have to let it find you.”

“I think songwriting is best when it comes from personal experience and I find the more personal your music is the more universal it is.

“I think that is how my music tends to connect with people is when I’m really honest in the song writing process and talk about things that actually happened in my life. As it is a creative medium I take the concept and the idea and the honesty and then you flesh it out to a wider story that will reach more people.

“This song is a raw expression of emotion that details maybe more of a self-reflection as to how you actually might feel when you are out on the scene and how there is a kind of a loneliness and loss of control that can come sometimes with having to fit the mould of a modern woman and how you have to be a thousand things at once that all contradict themselves.

“You need to be gorgeous, but you need not to put effort in, you need to out there but also be reserved, there are so many contradictions that come with it and I guess it is a little looking glass into how it feels to be that person.”

Female empowerment is one of the most important things on her life agenda and devotes a great deal of her time towards closing the gender gap in the music industry according to the Gibbstown artist.

“I work with different organisations within music to empower women.

“In my song writing and production process and the fact that I am a DIY artist and I do it all myself my main aim is for the next generation of woman or my peers or women older than me to be like 'wow, if she was able to do this and say this and create this song and put it out there maybe I could do the same'.

“I am really proud of having the whole process done by women and with women because there is such an under representation in the music industry as a whole of female creators.”

In the middle of completing her masters in Spain, Lisa has to move home and finish her studies from her bedroom in Gibbstown but it wasn’t all bad news as she explains:

“It actually set me up nicely because we had to finish studying remotely and because we were studying all of these musical topics it led to a lot of remote collaboration and now I do a lot of remote work and do a lot of production sessions over zoom calls and I help different artists record their vocals at home and coach them through the process because a lot of them can’t get to studios at the minute.

“I've been able to collaborate with people from all over the world that I would normally not be able to do.”

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- Article first appeared in the Inspire pullout in the Meath Chronicle dated 12/06/21

Have you an inspirational story to tell? Contact Sally.Harding @ meathchronicle.ie