Artist Profile: Elyut Herbert

Elyut Herbert, the enigmatic indie pop artist from San Francisco, California, has never been one to conform to the rules that have been placed upon him, and, now, with the release of his new album SHOW & TELL, he has delved even deeper into his enigmatic and zany creative landscape, etching out another eleven tracks that have burst forth from his eclectic creative process.

The child of two renowned classical musicians (his father is the timpanist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, his mother freelances with multiple orchestras in the Bay Area, and his brother is traveling cellist), Elyut kept close company with music from an early age. As the younger sibling, Elyut was not encouraged into music in the same way that his older brother was.

However, the first time he heard the psychedelic riffs of The Beatles, he knew that guitar, rather than piano, was the instrument for him. His mother agreed on the condition that he learned classical guitar, a rigorous process that he credits with enabling him to experiment further and further as he got older.

Yet, as a distinct non-conformist, Elyut still couldn’t help but feel that music, in the classical sense, was not his calling.

“I love classical music, and it's given us a life here in San Francisco. But, with classical music, you're playing somebody else's composition, and there are a lot of rules… I don't like rules, and that reflects in my whole life. I was a big troublemaker in high school; I never did well. So I [never liked] playing classical music, because I want to create.”

As a teenager, Elyut discovered Mac Demarco’s catalogue on a family trip to Canada, and, through the indie pioneer’s distinct sense of style and experimentation, he knew that he had discovered the niche that he could call his own.

His first album, Sunshine Girl, only came out last year, but it represents the best of what the first several years of Elyut’s sonic ventures have to offer. As he delved deeper into guitar, he shied away from theory, instead relying on his innate, classically-trained ear to tell him what sounded good and what didn’t.

It was through this period that Elyut’s inherent songwriting abilities first shone through. Across the album’s eight tracks, song like “Type of Boy” and “Elyut Smith” display an extensive range of conveyed emotions, with his words simultaneously layering themselves aptly over upbeat drum breaks and rambling through the soft waves of acoustic ballads.

In fact, in looking back on Sunshine Girl, Elyut claims that it is his songwriting that he feels most proud of: his willingness to embrace a loose and yet productive creative process in the earliest days of his artistry.

“I'm so proud of the songwriting [on Sunshine Girl]... Sometimes you sit down, you listen to something after recording it and you're like, ‘Holy sh*t, that came from my head.’ (laughs) Specifically ‘Elyut Smith’, the last track on Sunshine Girls, is and will always be, no matter what, the best song I have ever written. I could do this for 30 more years if I'm still alive by then, and I will not be able to write a song as deep and meaningful [as that].”

Now, however, the over a year of creative effort that he has put in since he finished Sunshine Girl has come to fruition with the release of SHOW & TELL: a project that at once pushes forward the sound he laid out on his first project while taking on an entirely new set of sonic ventures.

On tracks like “GOLDIE” and “SMOKERS COUGH” a distinct hip-hop influence rears its head, while on tracks like “MATO” tread the depths of the indie, bedroom-pop inspired sounds that serve as Elyut’s roots.

Yet, through its various influences and manifestations, SHOW & TELL serves, more than anything, as an insightful and exciting next step in Elyut’s creative journey: eleven tracks that continue to tell his unique story.

“I feel like other artists around me, and especially around my scene in San Diego, are so manicured, trying to be a certain way. Basically, I'm a nutcase. I'm completely out of my mind, but it works for me and I come up with good stuff. This new album is so focused, but the whole process of it, I was completely out of my f*cking mind, not taking my meds and drinking my a** off. It was a good time.”