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Junryl, a former full-time hair stylist from San Francisco, said he released his new song "Somebody" as a means to connect with the LGBTQ+ community.
"I actually wrote this song in one day after meeting and dating my current boyfriend for a couple of weeks. I had been single for eight years and had casually dated during that time, but had no luck tying down a relationship. When I met my boyfriend, I had such a good feeling about him and so I wrote about how this time seemed different," he said.
Junryl Villegas Molina, 25, said he was born in the Philippines, but moved to San Fransisco Bay Area at six years old.
"I was raised by my mother along with my younger half-brother. My father passed away when I was barely young enough to remember. I grew up with a stepdad most of my childhood, until he eventually left and my mom later remarried," he said.
Despite having worked in hair styling for four years in San Fransisco, in July 2019, Junryl decided to move to Los Angeles to pursue music.
I was lucky enough to speak with Junryl about his decision.
What triggered your desire to pursue music later on in your career?
I grew up in a musically-inclined household so naturally music has always been a part of me, especially singing. I’ve participated in choirs, glee club, and theatre growing up and have been writing songs since I was 16.
However, I was convinced at a young age that music was just a hobby and that I needed to think real hard about something sustainable that I could do as a career. Part of it was listening to negative advice about pursuing this career, which I admit is very difficult, and a whole other part was me just not believing in myself enough. Since I’ve always been the creative type, I found myself doing hair as a distraction. I loved it and was good at it, but something always felt missing.
Then, I got really depressed for a while, sometime between 2016 and early 2019. I was focusing so much of my attention on boys that I was almost boy crazy and slowly losing my sense of self-worth. After an enlightening conversation with my best friend, I decided enough was enough and shifted my energy towards songwriting. Within a week, I went and invested in a bunch of equipment and created my own home studio. A few months later, I decided to leave behind everything I worked so hard for in my salon in San Francisco and made the leap down here in LA.
How do you manage to balance working on your music and making a living?
Because of the whole Covid-19 situation, I’ve had a lot of time to work on my music because there hasn’t been work for me. Before all this happened, I had the flexibility of still being able to fly to my salon in San Francisco, Patrick Evan Salon, once a month for a weekend to make enough money to pay for my rent and bills. I spend the rest of the month working on music or working at the restaurant here in L.A part time. After this, who knows what the situation will be, but I’m hopeful that I can still continue to work on my music with as much effort as I do now.
Can you tell me more about how you think your music can help people from the LGBTQ+ community?
I think it’s important to have more representation in the community and my goal is just that. While I do sing a lot about love and heartbreak, hearing it from the perspective of a gay man gives it a more relatable experience to those in the LGBTQ+ community. I also want to open up the conversation about our struggles with self-image, trust issues, self-worth, and mental health. My plan with my album in the next year is to do just that. In the meantime I want to celebrate queer love with this upcoming EP.
You worked with The Online Recording Studio. How did you find producing a song "online" as oppose to going to a studio?
I had the wonderful opportunity to meet such a talented producer, Lewis, through TORS. He was very attentive and listened to me and was always very good about communicating and getting things done. I’ve never actually produced a song in a studio. I've only recorded vocals to a cover once, so I don’t have much to compare. But I do have to say that being able to work on my vocals at home by myself has been really helpful because I’m very particular about the sound of my song and I feel like I’d be so annoying in the studio if I kept doing so many takes in front of my producer haha!
Stream "Somebody" below:
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