LEW: Being authentic in the music industry

At a recent Berklee Original Bands Showcase, LEW – short for Lewis Loh, sang his songs, some yet to be released, to a small captivated crowd of mostly Berklee students. Becky (name changed) stood at the foot of the stage shouting endless words of adoration and encouragement while simultaneously videotaping the entire show like a proud mum. You would think that they were close friends and she had come down to support. They were not. In fact, she had just heard LEW the first time that night. That is LEW’s effect on everyone – they fall in love instantly.

LEW had immediately enveloped me in a hug when I approached him – it was just how he greets everyone. With open arms and a wide smile. When asked if it was tiring playing three shows within a week, he replied “Yes, believe me it is,” a little of the tiredness showing through, “But that’s what you got to do right?”

The 22-year-old openly bisexual artist is now studying songwriting at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Though he was born and raised in Hong Kong for the first 18 years of his life, LEW finds home Singapore.

“I think it’s because the years in which I kind of understood who I am was when I was in Singapore for three years. In those three years, I learned so much about myself than the 18 years I spent in Hong Kong.” He refers to the three years he spent in National Service – all Singaporean men are required to serve in the army once they turn 18.

Now, he goes back to Singapore most breaks he gets at Berklee and performs – the most recent was a performance for the Singapore Urban Design Festival during spring break.

At 22, LEW has already got one album and two EPs under his belt, his debut album, “Lullacry”, hitting #1 in the Singapore iTunes chart. Yet Lew struggles to distinguish himself as a musician.

“There'll be periods of time where I kind of think like, what's the point of pursuing this career when there are a million other musicians that are way better than I am?” He says, “And then you just kind of have to remind yourself of what you bring to the table. I like to think of it as a buffet, right? Like everyone, every musician brings their own dish to the table. And when you take away your own dish, even though there's a lot of food, there's going to be that one person who wanted exactly what you brought.”

Sitting in LEW’s room, it was obvious he had put thought in selecting the pieces that makes his room a welcoming space that reflected his personality. Bean bags and a rug sit at a nook, drawings (one is a creature with a pumpkin head, grape body and banana legs) and poems are displayed above his bed and finally, a clothing rack he is very proud of.

“The key to thrift shopping is that you look for something that is ugly on the rack and then you take it out and put it on and then it looks good” he says, brandishing a bright green silk top with floral details embroidered on from his rack. It looks like it could have fell right out of the closet of an Asian grandmother, yet it fit right in LEW’s collection of shirts.

LEW loves asking you questions. He makes you feel like the most interesting person in the world. He asks if I play music. I don’t play music. I never believed I have the talent to. But LEW does not believe in talent. “96% of the population is musical but the determining factor that is genetic is persistence” he says.

He tries to demonstrate by asking me to harmonize, I fail comically – but the point is made, if anyone trained, they could be a singer. “By saying someone else's talented, you're kind of validating your laziness.” He elaborates “When I say “Oh, you're so talented”, I'm basically also diminishing the time that you put into it. Because it sounds like you were just born with it. And you didn't really work hard to do it.”

Like many singers, LEW started music at a young age. At age four, he learned the piano, then subsequently picking up drums for two years and at thirteen started learning the guitar which became his choice instrument.

He jumpstarted his music career in 2015, when he joined Noise Singapore, a music mentorship program. His mentors Sara Wee and Vanessa Fernandez had helped guide him into the music scene in Singapore.

As an independent artist, LEW goes through a music distribution company for his music to be distributed on Apple Music and Spotify. He does his own marketing, plans out the production of his music videos and manages his finances. It’s hectic but a worthy trade-off for him.

“Biggest thing that you get out of that is control because nobody's telling you the things you can and cannot do,” he says, “And ultimately for me, I think my creative freedom is what I prioritize most because I don't want to be singing about something that that I don't care about.”

His songs are just that. They are personal, yet oh so relatable. At his songwriting class, his classmates sing praises of his song, most prominently, for the messages his songs sends out. He sings about love, relationships, mental health and everything in between.

“I have values as a musician and as a person that I want to carry out for the long run. And that is to write music with the intention to heal people,” he says “Like to always make sure that in 10 years’ time, 20 years’ time, the songs that I am writing at the end of the day can help somebody and not just write music to make money. I never want to do that because the moment I started doing that, I'm taking away my purpose with music.”

He recalls a particular rough patch in his life when he was having suicidal thoughts and contemplating his purpose in life. The next morning, he had received ten messages on social media from strangers all over the world thanking him for his music.

The one that stood out to him particularly was a man from Russia who had been suffering from depression for 10 years. The first time he could breathe he said, was when he heard LEW’s songs. From that point, LEW realized how powerful his music can be.

LEW’s philosophy of remaining authentic extends to beyond his songwriting. At 17, he came out publicly on a Facebook post. Four years later, he collaborated with Dear Straight People, an online LGBT publication based in Singapore, to make a LGBT rendition of Singapore’s National Day song “Home”.

Staying closeted may have allowed LEW to be an easily marketable straight handsome Chinese singer in the music industry, yet LEW doesn’t want that.

“I might have less listeners than if there was a straight version of the me but you know who I am and I'm so much happier to be open about my sexuality because I don't have to hide anything,” he says, “And when people come up to me they come for me and not a version of myself that I'm trying to portray on social media. That makes my job easier because I don't have to pretend to be anything else.”

When I meet LEW again, he wears his favourite jacket – a 90s-eque style windbreaker in bold shades of neon pink, yellow and blue. Like in a musical, he waves to at least three groups of people before entering the building.

We are at his songwriting class. LEW volunteers to perform first. He sings about being a musician and the lure of fame over writing meaningful songs that inspire social change. Then comes other performances.

Despite the flu he caught while travelling, LEW is hundred percent in focus. While his classmates sing, you can almost see gears turn in his head, his feet tapping to the tempo and fingers drumming to the beat. He makes suggestions on every song – maybe you can sing it this way he says to one classmate, demonstrating to strum a note for every line of the chorus.

That’s just how LEW is, always ready to reach out and help someone. Does he have any flaws at all? League of Legends he says, sheepishly, is his guilty pleasure, “It's something that I'm like, kind of embarrassed to share, but I'm in the top 1% of League of Legends players.”

At the end of the interview, we do a fun speed round of questions. What’s would LEW’s motto be if he was a brand? “Be yourself and that's so cheesy, but really be yourself.”