ON THE RISE
Ollie Byrd, a musician blending 1980’s new wave sounds with Hard Rock, shows how his musical output mirrors the different stages of his life through genres that mix, match, and mold with one another. His latest single, “the sun will bring the day again,” serves as a time capsule as one of his first written works, finally making its way to release.
From Ollie’s earliest memories of hearing music on the radio or the spin of his mom’s records, he recalls the dopamine rush that music gave him, a feeling he still experiences to this day. He shares that watching his heroes perform was profoundly inspiring, and with such resonance, he eventually felt compelled to do it for himself.
He recalls first riffing alongside recorded works, jamming with a friend who had a drumset in the 9th grade, to forming high school and college bands inspired by the 90’s grunge era. His first recordings were through cassette tape decks from stereos with a dinky microphone, that captured that raw and unpolished experimental stage. After reading an iconic Guitar Magazine article in which Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page shared insights into his creative techniques, innovative recording methods, and unique riffs, Ollie became further inspired to produce, write, and hone all the skills needed to make music on his own.
With the introduction of the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to mainstream users, Ollie recalls this laid the framework to make his first record. Influenced by Missing Persons, Blondie, and U2 (especially The Joshua Tree era), as well as Pink Floyd and The Police, Ollie’s music fuses the boldness of macho hard rock, bands like Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard, and the new wave, hypnotic sounds of The Cure and Joy Division for a unique and unusual sonic combination.
As his music has morphed over the years, Ollie gained an underground following with his album “Barrel of Fun.” He shared how much he enjoyed building out each track with hard rock guitars and simplistic new wave baselines that allowed him to be precise and intentional in shaping the overall tone, which has often been referred to as lo-fi emo.
When asked about the tone of his upcoming single, “the sun will bring the day again,” Ollie mentions that not only was it the first song he ever wrote, but he wanted to preserve its simplicity and bring that timeless style full circle. The track, a bittersweet reflection on love lost, tells the story of a girl he was once in love with and the devastation when the years they spent together ended. In the lyrics, “I know that you won’t be back this way again,” the song served as a pathway to coming to terms with the loss and being able to move on. To put it simply, Ollie jokes, “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy cries.” He shared that it took a while for him to actually record the track, as he didn’t have much of a vision beyond wanting to stay true to its rawness. He detuned the electric guitar for an extra-low sound to preserve the authentic feel of where and how it was originally created. (In his bedroom, alone).
As he’s evolved through his music styles, creative outputs, and mental states over the years, he wanted to revisit the mellow, minimalistic feeling. Ollie also sees this music as a potential bridge beyond an angsty, grungy musical past and corresponding fan base, into a new lighter time of life, music, and listeners. Ollie reflects on a unique element from the original version of the song: a high-up fingerpicking technique, inspired by Van Halen’s “Little Guitars.” This staccato right-hand plucking style was unusual for his artistry at the time but gave the song a distinct character.
When asked if there were any recent revisions, he explained that one of his favorite parts of resurfacing the track was recording new guitars inspired by Brian Eno’s Here Come the Warm Jets. He describes overdriving the board, burning up the gain, and creating a distortion-heavy hum that added extra texture to the acoustic song, much like Eno’s experimental and ambient elements over traditional rock instrumentation. Lastly, Ollie added powerful drums to the track, noting, "You don’t usually hear that—acoustic, hard electric, and drums all together."
Parallel to how Ollie bridges contrasting musical elements from different genres and ends of the spectrum, he shares a parting sentiment with fans and readers: "Seek to overcome division. Despite the polarizing narratives that are all around us, seek to find connections over division. Keep looking for the patience to meet your fellow humans, and love your neighbors.”
Listen to “the sun will bring the day again” here.
Follow Ollie Byrd on social media for updates on new music coming out this year!
ON THE RISE
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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
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