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Felly is no stranger to the music industry. He’s been releasing music since 2011, when he uploaded his recordings to Soundcloud. Now, with his new album, Ambroxyde, Felly is getting personal and earnest. The album features a new sound for Felly, inspired by the indie and alternative music that he grew up listening to. Felly took the time to chat with us from his studio, The Lagoon, in LA.

OnestoWatch: Who is Felly? What’s the must know for new fans?

Felly: I am Felly, he’s a kid from Connecticut who is constantly exploring different territories in music. Just fully tripping and completely passionate about music. I still amaze myself with my natural instinct of music and my natural involvement with it. Usually things can get old to you or you can lose your attraction but I feel like music is something that has just continued to grow and become something richer for me and constantly given back to me. I’m an artist from the East Coast living in Los Angeles, who writes records and tours independently and has been doing so for almost a decade now and finally coming into a sound that feels honed in and like myself. I’m on a constant quest to get closer to myself and to the sounds I want to make. Something for fans to know; I’m focused on longevity. I’ve seen the game change so many times and move around. Times are weird right now but I just focus on the long game. It’s been working out so far and I’ll be here for the long run.

Is there anything in particular you do to stay in the long game, to keep yourself from burning out?

It’s realizing what’s important and what’s not. As culture changes, what they tell you and what they convince you is important is something that’s noteworthy but it’s not make or break because it’s constantly changing. I think just having a firm idea of self and a firm idea of what is important to me, which is to me it’s the song first. Even in this day and age where you have to promote yourself and you have to push your art and go viral and all this stuff that comes along with being an artist and gaining attention. The people who’ve raised me, mentors, people I’ve worked on records with, Elton John and Bruno Mars, they’ve schooled me on this old school way of thinking where music is where it’s at, focus on your songs, focus on your writing,

You’ve already talked a little bit about being committed to yourself and who you are as a person and I think that’s really present in this most recent album. You’ve described it as the album you’ve always wanted to make, so why now? What pushed you to create this dream album at this moment.

When I was first starting I didn’t really know how to play instruments, I only had a microphone and some beats that people would send me or that I would find. I think spending time becoming a better musician has allowed me to create things myself and take the power into my own hands.

Now, my network and my community of people that I work with, I have people around me that are just incredible. It’s no longer amateur hour. Being as resourceful as I am, I’m looking around and seeing what I have to work with, it’s kind of like if you’re a painter, you’re just using these colors and these shitty paints early on, and you’re making it work, but then you have new colors and its like “woah.” I think this album just comes from having more experience, having access to proper studios, having a budget, being in the position financially, emotionally, and community wise to put together something that’s a little bit higher scale.

You’ve also mentioned that this new sound is inspired by artists you grew up listening to. Are there any specific artists that inspired the sound that we hear on this new project?

Radiohead, Bon Iver, some Fontaines D.C., Mac DeMarco, Paul Simon, he was definitely a big one, Rage Against the Machine, a lot of indie alternative types of music. It also comes from, this is how a lot of those bands and musicians would make their records, people in a studio in a live room, creating. It’s not just me on my computer anymore, which it has been for years.

One of the other things I find really interesting about this album is the process behind it. It took place all over the globe, Iceland, a remote Greek island, Texas, how does location impact your songwriting and your creative process?

The song that you make in Iceland is going to be very different from the song you make in Los Angeles. Going to these places and experiencing the people, the moods, the weather, the culture, the architecture, the smells, all of that gets infused inside of you naturally. As a result of that, whatever comes out of you is going to be somewhat indicative of that. We were aware of that and thought let’s make our influences really awesome. Let’s study some of the music that is going on in Iceland, these scenes that we find really cool and different from what we’re used to. If you go and learn some of the things about what people are doing in Iceland, or what people are doing on this Greek Island, different artists who have come and gone through these studios, you just naturally pick up on that influence and it changes you, which is awesome.

Are the songs that are created in one location together in one section on the tracklist, or are they more spread out?

They’re kind of spread out and we did our best to make it have one cohesive sound. We could’ve dropped something that was just Iceland, a lot of the singles were this Iceland vibe because that’s where it started so we wanted to showcase that first. In Texas, we ran through everything, put the band on it, and added this cohesive glue in between all the songs so it doesn’t feel like sporadic different worlds, it feels like one land. That land is our land, our sound. You might be able to see and hear different influences

Do you have any dream locations for a songwriting trip?

I’ve always thought Canada is really cool, I don’t know why. I think I tweeted once "I want my music to sound like Canada’ and maybe that’s an idea of what I think Canada is like, this remote cold but communal. They have a very warming sense of community from what I’ve gathered. I’m going to Jamaica for a week. I've been to Jamaica probably seven or eight times. That's my favorite type of music out of all of them. Reggae music and the roots stuff that comes from Jamaica, that is something that I’ve always wanted to influence my sound. Luckily it’s a big beautiful world and inspiration is endless and you can constantly be pulling things.

The album’s title refers to a synthetic molecule found in perfume, are there any scents you associate with this album, or want fans to associate with this album?

I’m into cedar and woody smells, fir and pine. There’s a frasier fir scent that I keep in my studio. I’ve always been a little obsessed with winter in ways that I don’t know. I used to hate winter and the snow. I come from the East Coast and that’s kind of why I moved to LA originally. People always pinned me as this sunny LA guy but this album feels like a winter album to me. I wanted to go into that darkness and explore that a little bit more. So maybe my next album will be sunny but this one is definitely coded in winter colors and smells, and firepits, and trees, and maple, and sap. All the things that are associated with winter and decay.

I can see where the Canada draw comes in, that answer feels very Canada coded.

Yeah, exactly!

You’ve had some really cool collaborations throughout your career, including Jack Harlow and Carlos Santana, who are some dream collaborations?

I’ve always wanted to work with Pharrell. I’ve always wanted to work with Justin Vernon. There’s so many producers, Emile Haynie, who did Cudi’s stuff, I’m really inspired by that. I’m also inspired by this new wave of music, 2hollis, a lot of the new wave stuff. I just went to Coachella and I picked up on a lot of the newer sounds that feel technologically forward. I think that’s really cool. I think this album is super traditional songwriting stuff and we went back in time for this album. On the next project I’d like to pull influences from that older school of thought but also include the newer technologies.

You posted on Instagram that “The new era is upon us.” What can we expect from this new era?

You can expect a live sound. You can expect a lot of shows. We’re working on making our live show be as upper echelon as we can. I’ve been touring and playing shows for so long that now I’m honing in on the sound of my band. I’ve always been in the hip-hop, rap pocket but now our band is evolved and I see Felly as a band, as a touring act. That’s something that I’ve always wanted to instill in my fans. This isn’t just me rapping on beats anymore, there’s a whole engine and team behind it. Sort of how Bon Iver is Justin Vernon who is doing the heavy lifting but really it’s made possible by a squad of 8 to 30 people. The new era will include a lot of live sound, a lot of shows, and better music.

I just had a conversation about what makes someone a solo act versus a band so it’s really interesting to hear you mention how important it is to highlight the people who help bring Felly to life.

Definitely. You get lucky if people are into you as a solo entity and if you’re connecting with them, but I think all of us musicians crave community and want to be doing this with a team. I would give up everything of Felly to be in the right band. To do this with a tribe of people is the biggest privilege and luckily I’ve been able to build that and do that within myself and only see myself leaning more into that because I think it’s awesome.

Who are your OnesToWatch?

I really love what Fontaines D.C. is doing, I think they’re amazing. I love Kneecap. I love Kurt Vile. I’m rocking with Lexa Gates, I’m rocking with Mallrat. I also love Noah Guy, he’s a friend, he’s awesome. I love Judee Sill, she’s an older act, she’s deceased. I listen to a lot of old people who are dead.