ON THE RISE
ORLANDO, Fla. — Artists can find inspiration anywhere — sometimes art inspires art.
In the case of Florida songwriter Adam DeGraide, electronic art, in the form of video games, has inspired him to gather more than two dozen independent singers and musicians to create great music based on characters in those video games.
DeGraide is the organizer behind the A.D.A.M. Music Project. A.D.A.M. stands for Artists Developing Astonishing Music.
“We’ve used over 25 different independent artists who have appeared on these first 20 songs that will be released by May 5,” DeGraide said. “Right now there’s 15 songs out. It’s been amazing, from all walks of life, all different genres they come from. I have a passion for hard rock, I always have. I’m also a gamer, I play tons of games. I play everything from Horizon Zero Dawn to Mario Brothers. So I really wanted to do a project writing songs about video game characters and I decided on the game Apex Legends because I play it a ton.”
The latest album, released in February, is called “Apex Rising - Part 2,” a seven-track album featuring five different artists and sounds based on 90s hard rock with a modern twist.
“We have a ton of variety and musical experience and musical preferences and it’s a really cool project to be a part of because we’re just trying to make the best music,” DeGraide said. “So we want to make songs in the classic sense of metal, like the way I knew it, the early 1990s but with a modern twist. If you listened to ‘Motherlode,’ we produced that track the way that Mutt Lange would. We approached it as if it was Motley Crue met Def Leppard and then with a modern twist on top of it.”
The first song on the album, a track called ‘I Bring Death,’ has a sound based on some of the heavy metal sound of groups like Avenged Sevenfold and Shinedown from the late 1990s and early 2000s.
“I Bring Death” was written by DeGraide and his friend, Dameon Aranda, from Oklahoma City, and was inspired by the character “Revenant” from the game Apex Legends.
“‘I Bring Death’ in particular is a cool song because I've always loved the Vincent Price, old scary kind of sound,” DeGraide said. “And then I love what Prince did, he said ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to celebrate this life.’ So it just made sense to have a play on that in the beginning with ‘I Bring Death.’ And the character we wrote about, he’s very much like the devil, so when we were doing the song, I told Dameon when you’re singing this awesome, cool, seductive melody, I'm going to mirror you in a whispered demon sounding voice as if it’s in these two demons on your shoulder whispering the lyrics to you. And I feel like we nailed it, I feel like we nailed the feel, nailed the approach. It’s just catchy enough to be liked by people who don’t like heavy metal and it’s heavy enough to be appreciated by those who like the classic sound.”
Damon Aranda’s brother, Gabe Aranda, also contributed to the album as did singers such as Hartleigh Buwick, an actress who is currently working with Sylvester Stallone in the Paramount Plus show “Tulsa King.”
Buwick sings the track “Wrecking Ball” on “Apex Rising - Part 2.”
This EP also features Chris Jackson and Tyler Anderson from a “Lion Named Roar,” Neil DeGraide from “Dirt Poor Robins,” Lacy Saunders from Tulsa, Okla., David LaChance Jr, James Conner and many others who made this music possible.
DeGraide called the A.D.A.M Music Project the “ultimate fan art project,” and said the most important thing for people to know is that they're not stopping with just the Apex video game.
“I’m already recording a new album and I've got songs about Bowser, Yoshi from Mario Brothers, Resident Evil, the Last of Us, Donkey Kong and others,” he said. “The A.D.A.M Music Project is committed to making a massive amount of music about the things we all love to do for fun, which is gaming. The most important thing for people to know is these are serious songs with serious melodies and serious musicians and the music has to stand on its own regardless of the subject matter.”
Follow the A.D.A.M. Music Project on these social media and streaming sites:
Websites:
A.D.A.M. Music Project
Spotify
Youtube
Apple Music
ON THE RISE
.png)
NETHERLANDS — August 26, 2026 — Brook Lynn is stepping into a new chapter with “Love Your Enemy,” an atmospheric alternative pop song that turns an intensely personal battle with anxiety into a message of self-acceptance. Written after her America’s Got Talent auditions, the song captures the internal conflict of facing the person who can be hardest to silence: yourself.
Built around cinematic production and emotionally restrained vocals, “Love Your Enemy” explores the disconnect between appearing fine in public and confronting difficult thoughts in private. The song’s central message is reflected in its chorus, where Brook Lynn sings about being “my own worst company” before arriving at its most hopeful realization: “They say, ‘Love your enemy,’ / So I’m learning how to love me.”
For Brook Lynn, that “enemy” is anxiety. Rather than presenting it as something that simply disappears, the song examines what it means to live with those thoughts while refusing to let them dictate what comes next.
“I always want to give a hopeful message in every song,” Brook Lynn explains. “I always first want to explain what is happening in your head and what you feel, and then, at the end, give a message that you can get out of this, and that anxiety doesn’t have to hold you back from all the things you want to achieve in your life.”
That message became especially significant when Brook Lynn made the decision to perform “Love Your Enemy” on America’s Got Talent. Known by many viewers for her stripped-back cover performances, she recognized that performing an original song on one of television’s biggest stages carried a different kind of risk. But she also knew she could not continue forward without showing audiences the artist behind the covers.
“I just thought it was really important to also show the world that I’m not just a cover singer,” she says. “I do want people to know that I write songs and I want to be an artist and put that out there.”
Brook Lynn performed “Love Your Enemy” during the America’s Got Talent quarterfinals, bringing the song’s story of anxiety and self-doubt directly to a massive live audience. Her journey on the show ended there, but the response made one thing clear: listeners wanted to hear more. Fans connected not only with her voice, but with the honesty behind the performance and the willingness to speak openly about emotions many people struggle to acknowledge themselves.
“I do want to be that person with my music as well for other people,” Brook Lynn says, describing her desire to write about real experiences and feelings. “I always want to be really real with everyone, like talk about deeper stuff, not surface level.”
“Love Your Enemy” arrives as Brook Lynn looks ahead to Tales From The Woods, an upcoming EP intended to introduce listeners to a broader picture of who she is as an artist. With only two original songs currently released, she says she is excited to share more music and continue developing the sound and emotional world introduced through “Love Your Enemy.”
The song is not a conclusion to Brook Lynn’s story. It is the beginning of a more open one—one where anxiety can be acknowledged without being allowed to take control, and where the feelings people are often afraid to say out loud can finally have a voice.
Listen to “Love Your Enemy,” which received promotional support from Starlight PR.
Brook Lynn creates music that feels intimate yet powerful, cinematic yet emotionally exposed. Blending atmospheric alternative pop with minimalist visual storytelling, her work explores vulnerability, isolation, emotional tension and human connection through a distinctly modern lens.
Raised in Wilp, a small town in the Netherlands, Brook Lynn grew up surrounded by silence, nature and isolation. Music became a private emotional outlet and a way to process feelings that were difficult to explain out loud. What began through stripped-back online performances evolved into a growing global audience drawn to her honesty and emotional depth.
For Brook Lynn, music is never just about being heard. It is about being understood.
thisisbrooklynn.com
Linktree
Instagram
TikTok
Facebook
YouTube
Spotify
