We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sande Lollis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sande below.

Sande, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
Two things have been especially meaningful to me in the last two years and both have come from circumstances of the pandemic. I lead an all-original Americana trio called Enter the Blue Sky. My violist Karen Childress-Evans has been with me for seven years and we’ve been through a lot: the loss of a band member to leukemia, and inevitable other changes in personnel. The addition of our backing vocalist Tina Dee two years ago really put the icing on the whole thing. Now we’ve got lovely three-part harmony on most of the songs and it sounds so full and rich. It keeps getting better. Sometimes I hear it coming back to me and I almost forget to sing, I’m so taken with listening to the beauty. The shut downs and gig cancellations during the pandemic made it impossible to get together to practice anything. We would sometimes meet for coffee and each sit in our own cars in a parking lot separated from each other, just to be able to spend time together. We finally began practicing in my backyard, standing six feet apart and not facing each other. After that, we created our own gigs by setting up in the open doorway of my garage and performing for the neighborhood and people in the street, and streaming it live to Facebook. Sometimes we’d have quite a crowd, masked people sitting in beach chairs or in their cars, standing around, dancing in the street. KUSI came out four or five times and featured us on their evening news. We had an Amazon Prime delivery guy dancing pirouettes in the middle of the street on his way with a package. Those driveway concerts were such a blast and it meant so much for us to be able to do them, it really lifted our spirits. However, the most beautiful thing was hearing from people who came saying how special it was for them to be able to go out and hear live music, and how much they appreciated the opportunity to be safely around others in the open air. I’m always grateful to know when I’ve been a part of moving someone, of touching someone’s heart; that touches me. Something else that came from the pandemic was that I kept writing songs, but since we still weren’t able to spend much time together, the trio couldn’t keep up and I spent months practicing them alone. It got me thinking about other ways to share my music, other ways of arranging, other musicians that could make a different impact in my sharing. With that in mind, I began to explore what more was available to me, which ended up meaning working with award-winning producer Jeff Berkley, studio musicians, new and fresh concepts, and objective ideas from outside my usual sphere, to release my first solo album, Being Human. I have never proposed that I am the end-all to what my music can be. On the contrary, I believe the success of any of my songs is the sum of what I have written and what others who have ideas and talent and vision for them are able to execute better than I ever could alone. I’ve always believed in my songs, and through the contribution of others, they are able to rise to be their best self. Being Human presents a snapshot of what pandemic life has been like for me, through the BLM movement, through political unrest, and through upheaval in family dynamics. The songs are intensely personal as I relish the hope and suffer the despair of what it means to be human. I am so proud of it and of everyone who worked on it with me. It has received a lot of good coverage and play, a great review from Bart Mendoza in the San Diego Troubadour, and it’s been a joy overall to have done it.

Sande, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I have wanted to sing my whole life. Over the years I’ve done a lot of solo work, I was part of a traditional Mexican rock band, and, in the early 90s, I led an all-original alternative rock band called Lunar Playtime. I took a couple of decades off to raise our daughter and get my grownup head on straight, which was a task. Late 2013, I dove back into music full force. I guess I’m making up for lost time. I’m so much smarter now though. I used to think I could just wish for success in music, that someone would just come along and say, “Kid, you’re coming with me to the top.” But now I know it takes a lot of business sense as well. Plus, my idea of success has changed over time. I enjoy singing to smaller crowds where I see their faces and look into their eyes, and really connect with them. To hear someone say, “You just sang my life,” that’s where the joy is. When I came back to music and writing, so much had changed in my life. My approach to writing now is more open, more adventurous, and more honest. Not all my songs are autobiographical or from things I’ve experienced myself. I hear bits of conversations in cafes, or read lines in a book, or wherever really, and I put them down in notes on my phone for later. I have learned to never say no to an idea. That it presents itself to me, means it’s important to say. I try to look at all sides of the topic, even if it’s foreign to me. When I write I think of myself as portraying a character as an actor would. I am telling their story, not my own, and I try to think from the perspective of that character. In a way, it’s freeing and safe because I’m relating through someone else, and I can be anyone I want to be. I think that’s part of my success as a writer, and why so many people have found my songs meaningful to them. It’s like I’m more than just myself, I’m bigger. My writing and singing is the most sacred, the most holy thing in my life. At this point, all I want to do is music, one way or another. I still have a day gig though, and it really has been the best of both worlds. In that job, I have spent over 20 years now doing PR, marketing, graphic design, and photography, so all that experience has helped me in what I do for my music. I’ve done all the artwork for our logo, flyers and posters, and ads; the layout and design for our two band albums, and my solo album. When we need something done, I do it. I like having those skills always at the ready. I have realized of late, that other musicians may be able to benefit from my writing and design expertise as well. Simply by word of mouth, I recently wrote a press release for a band’s music video release party, and created another musician’s electronic press kit. It was so much fun and they were happy with what I had produced. I’d like to increase that part of my career so that I can eventually leave my day gig behind. Anyone interested in that aspect of what I do, be sure to contact me.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Art and music are part of our DNA. Every society, no matter how ancient or primitive, has art and music central to their culture. Current day society seems to negate the inherant value that art and music contribute to our very soul, to our personal wellbeing, and to how we get along with others. Babies dance to music, pianos are a magnet to kids, that preschool-aged children spend hours creating art is universal, be it from crayons and fingerpaints to mud. It seems to me we all start out creative. Somewhere along the line, someone says, “That’s all fine and dandy, but you’re going to have to get a real job.” And that’s the end of that. We should embrace the creative and artistic side of ourselves, we should encourage it in our young, we should support a curriculum that includes music and art as required, not simply electives. It isn’t frivolous, it’s necessary. It is a sure way to hold on to our humanity. Not everyone will want to make a living through the arts, but still benefits from its expression. It is a more solid starting point to come from a place of beauty and its expression, to then go on to try to tackle what ails the world.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
There is a great yearning in me to write and sing my songs, it is always there. That I wake in the night with a song in my head, that I suffer a loss and write about it, that writing is therapy, it all helps me hold on to optimism and who I am. I don’t ever think, “Oh, I have to practice now.” I just do it. I can’t not do it. I just go sing and sing and sing. I will sing the same songs over and over and enjoy them just as much each time. It gives me butterflies. It’s an expression from so deep, from a place of honesty, of pain, of joy, of everything, it makes me say, “Yes!” Then to be in a band and create with others, it’s the most intimate thing there is, the most vulnerable, the most uplifting of relationships. I’ve been fortunate to have found wonderful bandmates over the years. I’ve been smart enough to let some go at the right time for the good of the band as a whole. I’ve had my heart broken by some who moved on, or even passed away. The band is a family by choice. Creating music is the bloodline and it is profound. Stardom or fame or recognition doesn’t attract me, the thought of making lots of money through music doesn’t drive me, though I would accept them both to be able to do it exclusive to anything else. The love of creating music and being able to continue doing it is the incentive, it is a self-fulfilling and self-defining continuous loop to my happiness.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.SandeLollisMusic.com and http://www.EnterTheBlueSky.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SandeLollisMusic and https://www.facebook.com/EnterTheBlueSky
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCusj5Z8SAXUusxPHwJYiSkQ
• Other: spotify – https://open.spotify.com/artist/6TyQGMb7Hy3tHTarfAWkn1?si=lxEN9OIWSFyJbrX4eQN0Zw and https://open.spotify.com/artist/01TKlk1QlDpyyFsRMnBDf6 You can find us on Pandora by searching for either Sande Lollis or Enter the Blue Sky

Image Credits
All photos are by Sandé Lollis, except the following. ETBSdsc5884.jpg by Ghia Larkins SandeLollisdsc5688.jpg by Ghia Larkins