I don’t know about you, but with the new year I’ve been craving new music performed by new artists. So, I set out on a mission to find new voices. Before last year came to a close, I visited The Grand, a local coffee shop located in the heart of downtown Phoenix, on a Thursday night to get a sneak peek of the weekly jam sessions I’d heard so much about.
I had decided I needed a break from my busy schedule to enjoy the present and listen to some local tunes. To me, local music always has a magical way of getting you to take a break, enjoy life and meeting new people, and bask in the glory and relatability of a never-before heard song. It’s odd because local music and local artists are so underrated.
There are so many amazing voices just waiting to be heard, exploring your local coffee shops and restaurants are a great way to start learning more about the voices that color your community, like 21-year-old Phoenix singer, Isaiah Tílson.
Isaiah Tílson is the biggest sweetheart you’ll ever meet. He’s a great person and an underrated artist, and I was able to watch him perform and have a sit-down interview with him. He has a shy demeanor and an edgy style, but don’t let that fool you. He puts on a lively performance and always has a way of making the audience feel the music with him. He sings originals but doesn’t always reveal the names of his songs before performing because he wants the audience to live in the moment with him.
When talking about life in the moment he said “It’s very important to be aware of the past, be aware of the future, but not live in those. You have to live in the present. You have to be here to give it your all, give it your best too, your family, your friends, acquaintances, in your work, in your passions because it truly shows if you are off somewhere else. The past can give you memories of joy but also memories of pain. You just can’t let those things eat at you. They make you who you are but they are not who you are currently in this moment. So live life in the moment and ‘You are who you choose to be’ that’s a shout out to the Iron giant, I love that movie.”
Here’s a short video to introduce you to Tílson that I produced for my JMC 345 class at The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB_jM9j7lwo&feature=youtu.be
Currently, Tílson has filled six songwriting notebooks chalk-full of moments of random significance. Once he started writing lyrics he never stopped since the beginning when he said he “used to write at least 3-5 songs a day.” The only thing that has changed is his precision and drive to instill purpose to every piece. This past year, he released his album “Classed Up” and is currently working on his next one in which he hopes to continue to expand into the jazzy crooner style. Listen to his album “Classed Up” here.
In the short time he’s been alive, he’s experienced great pain; he’s tackled family issues, getting in with the wrong crowd of friends, and the loss of his uncle, who served as a father figure to him. He needed an outlet and said, “I wanted to get away and to find something more.” So after listening to an instrumental song on his ride back to Phoenix, he decided to begin a music career. The first song he ever wrote was called “Peace,” a symbol of what he wanted in his life at the time. At first, he didn’t know any music other than what he’d heard on the radio and artists he’d grown up listening to, like Frank Sinatra and Freddie Mercury and Logic (three of his largest inspirations). Listen closely and you’ll hear Sinatra, Logic, and Mercury-inspired songs in his performances.
Before he jumped into the making music process, he admitted, “I didn’t know how to wrap sing or anything at first.” This did not discourage him from crafting lyrics of his own.
As he delved deeper into his songwriting through research, Tílson came across Solid Rock–Alice Cooper’s The Rock Teen Center. The Rock is a non-profit foundation that offers free classes in the visual and performing arts for adolescents, ages 12-20. They offer classes in art, photography, film, dance, music, songwriting, and more. Additionally, they have a free recording studio for anyone to record music of their own, as long as they’ve taken a class on how to use the equipment.
Before he knew it, after taking many classes at The Rock, Tílson was in the studio “for about two years I want to say I was there everyday, just creating and yeah that was a lot of fun. I had a lot of people that would be there like ‘oh you’re here by yourself what you’re doing’ and I’m like ‘yo I gotta work, I gotta work work work.’ And it was great. I met a lot of people through there.” The Rock became his family, and for that, he said, “I am just so grateful for the opportunities that they had and the people that I surrounded myself with, that pushed me along the way.” He gives back by volunteering at the center and teaching some classes of his own.
If you want to learn more about The Rock check out this video:
In the middle of his junior year, Tílson dropped his first mixtape on SoundCloud, titled “Life: In The Moment,” as a rapper under the stage name Izonist. Here’s a link if you’d like to take a listen: https://soundcloud.com/izonist/sets/life-in-the-moment-mixtape.
It wasn’t until early 2019 that the style of his music evolved. If you listen to his 2018 single, “So Bad (Feat. Amelia and Conrad Varela),” from his SoundCloud album, “Life: A Young Adult Confession,” you’ll hear a little bit of his current style and start to see him branch out from rapping. To listen to “Life: A Young Adult Confession” follow this link: https://soundcloud.com/izonist/sets/life-a-young-adult-confession.
He told me in our interview that he started changing styles after other artists close to him suggested he experiment with the jazz “crooning” style of music. This style of music consists of predominantly male singers who sing sentimental songs in a soft but low voice. It was first popularized around the 1940’s by artists like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, and Bing Crosby. Early songs that contain the essence of the jazz crooner style are “Fly Me To The Moon ” by Frank Sinatra and “I Love You For Sentimental Reasons” by Nat King Cole. Since then it’s become a staple of Jazz music today and used as a style of singing by many artists such as Isaiah Tílson, John legend, Sam Smith, Michael Bublé, and more male singers in the music industry.
Tílson’s first album as a modernized jazz crooner, titled “Classed Up,” was released on August 31, 2019. This past year in 2019 Tílson was in a group titled “The Collective” with his colleagues Zaris Adonis (Vocals), Conrad Varela (Bass), Eleeza (Vocals), and Mario Garcia (Guitar).
Every Thursday night at The Grand (from around 9 pm until midnight) they hosted jam sessions at which they each performed original songs as independent artists and original and cover songs as “The Collective.” They used to also perform regularly on First Fridays. When asked about what performing in a group is like Tílson said that, “getting people together, and creating something that will last, is very magical.” Although the group didn’t last the music did. They still occasionally perform together informally as friends at The Grand sometimes although they no longer are formerly a group.
Here’s a video that journalism student and fellow Her Campus ASU writer Diana Arellano Barajas made for JMC 345 about “The Collective” featuring one of their performances.
To Tílson, music is his passion and an outlet. During our interview, he stressed the importance of having an outlet and that he hopes everyone finds their own because without one he doesn’t know where he’d be today. Because at the time he first got into music his life was on track to a darker path. Music saved him from when he was in a dark place and it helped him find himself and his passion in life. It gave him a purpose as he told me.
Toward the end of our interview, Tílson let me peek into his songwriting book and mentioned he was working on songs for his next album and said that “there’s lots of stuff coming for sure” in regards to his next projects. He didn’t say when it would be released, but he is excited to share his new music once it’s ready. He’s been teasing his album early to those lucky enough to attend Thursday night jam sessions at The Grand where he performs his unnamed songs.
Tílson also performs locally on a weekly basis at El Charro Hipster, local art galleries, First Friday’s, and at local music competitions such as “Alice Cooper’s Proof is in the Pudding.”
Here’s a short video on the event made by me for JMC 345 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIKB9dEUkCA&feature=youtu.be
Tílson says dreams of growing his brand and audience and that “my goal is to be able to travel around the world spreading a message and making sure that I can hit as many souls as possible.” Ultimately, his goal isn’t to perform for mass audiences but rather to reach individuals through his music. Despite his live-in-the-moment mentality, Tílson has big dreams to follow in the footsteps of his idols and secure a place in the history books. He is excited and optimistic for what the future holds and as one of his tattoed lines says he’s, “Never going to give up never going to surrender for border of my goals better be a true defender.”
If you’d like to stream Isaiah Tílson’s music, here’s a link to his Spotify artist page.
Or, if you live in the Phoenix area and would like to hear about his upcoming live performances, follow him on Instagram @isaiah_tilson_official.