Spotlight On: Irish singer-songwriter Lyra

I had a week where I was just comparing myself to other people and other artists, and I was almost forgetting that social media isn’t a reality. We all put our best foot forward online, and it is a very glossy version of ourselves. But I forgot that and went into a hole of not feeling good enough.

I then sat myself down and was like, ‘You need to stop. You’re doing this to yourself.’ And I just wanted to write about that experience and how I was feeling. I sat down in my jammies for two hours, wrote down four chords, kept repeating them, and then I wrote ’29 Box’. I just let it all out. It’s very raw, I’m not hiding anything. It’s exactly how I was feeling.

I would hate people to think, looking at my Instagram, that my life is perfect. No matter who you are, what you’re doing, or how confident you can portray yourself, we all have struggle with things.

I want my fans to know that if you think like this, you’re not alone. You can talk to people about it and you can get through it. I want to be a voice and for people to know that they can reach out to me if they ever need to. I go through it as well, even though I’m in the limelight.

How do you protect your mental health from the dark sides of social media? 

I’ve stopped going through comments. I used to be a nightmare for doing that. After I was on The Late Late Show, or after a performance on TV, I’d go through all the comments. I only used to do it, not for validation or anything like that, I used to do it so I could reply to people. I really like being able to reply to people who took the time out to write a comment saying, ‘That was a great performance’ or something. I like to be able to give back to them and thank them.

When that little, tiny percentage of people creep in with nasty comments, I decided I wasn’t going to look at them anymore. I don’t want to go down that dark hole of feeling bad about myself… I just didn’t want to do that anymore.

There was one night in particular where I was so upset and balling my ass off all night long. I was staying in a hotel room and had to get my dad, who was staying in the room next to me, to come into my room because I was just that upset. It was after that I decided right, I can’t do this anymore, and I stopped going through comments.

I feel bad because 99% of the people are so lovely and supportive, and that 1% just annoyed me so much that I’m going to miss the lovely comments as well. But I just can’t do it to myself anymore to be honest. I wish my mind was strong enough to be able to handle it, but at the moment I’m not. I’m still working on me and being able to take criticism. I’m also working on not having to post the picture perfect photo of me on Instagram. I’m working on letting people see the real, raw me.

You are an incredibly stylish person, and previously told us you’d love to launch your own fashion brand. Is there any update on that?

I would definitely love to do it, but I haven’t done anything about it as of yet. I think 2023 is going to be a big year for me. I really want to get a lot of music out, so I’ve just been massively concentrating on that. That’s been my sole focus.

But I think down the line when I’ve like three albums out, I’d like to have my own fashion line. I think I’ll be a lot more fashion forward then, and hopefully I’ll bump into Dolce & Gabbana on the way and they can help me out!

My dream is to go to Paris Fashion Week, even if I’m just standing on the street watching all the fashion go by.

You grew up in quite a small community in Bandon in Co. Cork. Were the locals always supportive of your career? 

They were great. I’ve been singing from a very young age. I started off in the church choir, so the locals always heard me singing whether they wanted to or not!

They’ve always been great, and now that I’ve made a name for myself and been on TV and stuff like that, people will go up to my dad when he’s back in Bandon and say: ‘She’s doing so well and we’re so proud of her.’ They’re extremely supportive of me and very proud.

It makes me feel warm and fuzzy whenever I do go down and visit some of my friends and people are like: ‘Well done, congratulations.’ It’s lovely, it’s not like people on the street corners gossiping and saying: ‘Look at that b***h, she’s getting too big for her boots.’ There’s none of that which is amazing, because you can get that when you’re from a small town. But the people in Bandon are just so, so nice.

You were a judge on the first series of The Big Deal, and there’s been reports that the show might not be coming back. Can you confirm or deny that?

I don’t know. Whatever they tell me I can take in but I always tell people if there’s things I don’t need to know, I won’t know. If they want me back, they can let me know. If they don’t, I’ll move onto something else.

I definitely would like to do it again if it didn’t clash with my plans for my music. It was great fun and I got to meet some amazing people. It was very for me and it pushed me out of my comfort zone. Everyone knows that when I’m on stage and even on The Big Deal, I can be liable to say anything! So it was nice to get that experience on a big show, and I realised it’s not as scary as I thought. More TV work is an avenue I would definitely look into if my music is quieting down a little bit.

It was great too because I think people got to know me a bit more watching the show. That’s what I love the most about live shows as well, that people get to know the real me rather than just see my photos on Instagram. I get to have the craic!

Are there any other TV shows you would like to do? Maybe something like Hell Week or Dancing with the Stars? 

I could never do Dancing with the Stars because I’m so bad at dancing. And I’m nervous, I get even worse! So maybe not DWTS, even though I’d love to do it just for the costumes and makeup alone. I would live for that!

I would like to challenge myself to Hell Week because it’s just so crazy. I feel it could bring out another side to me because I’m quite strong mentally, so maybe it would unlock something in me. I think I’d like to give that a go. I’d have to take the glam and the fake nails off though!

You opened up to us last year about your relationship with an ex rugby star. How is that going? 

It’s still going strong, shock horror! I’m delighted with myself. It’s really nice that for once I get to write happy songs about a guy rather than bloody sad ones. It’s refreshing, I’ve never done that before! So yeah it’s still going really good. He’s so supportive of me and my career which is nice.

It’s so funny because when I was on TV with Tommy Bowe and he was quizzing me like, ‘Who is he?’ And I was like, ‘I’m not telling you! You’ll never know!’

Why have you decided to keep your relationship out of the public eye? 

Just because let’s say something did happen between us, then you have to go through not only the breakup itself but also the social breakup with everyone constantly bringing it up or headlines being like: ‘Lyra and her boyfriend have broken up.’

It’s like you’ve to go through two breakups then. It’s hard enough going through one breakup, but having to go through it on like five magazines and four radio stations and TV shows as well would be too much for me.

I don’t know how to explain it, but I’m not ‘the singer Lyra’ to him. I’m just me and that’s quite nice.

You’ve achieved so much in the past few years. Is there anything else, personally and professionally, that you’d like to tick off your bucket list? 

I really want to get a full body of work out. I feel like I have that much material that is good enough to be in an album. I’m just really excited for the official debut of my first album. That will be an amazing experience for me.

That’s it really! I don’t set myself massive goals. I just want my music to be out. I know some people are like, ‘I want a BRIT Award or a GRAMMY’. If they come, they come but for me it’s just like: ‘Let’s get this bloody music out and see what people think.’

I just want to keep enjoying what I’m doing and build my fan base, and we’ll go from there. It’s the simple things in life for me.