Blue Eyed Mystic is the recording debut for singer/songwriter Tom Lillo. Five years after its conception, and twelve years after leaving his job in the real world, Tom teamed up with producer David Miner and went to work. David Miner had produced such notables as T-Bone Burnett and Elvis Costello, as well as Tonio K, Pierce Pettis, and many, many others; and Tom felt comfortable working with the veteran.
"Music was always what I wanted to do", says Lillo, who's first guitar was a Sears Silvertone (which he still has). But, he followed a more standard career path until he was in his twenties when Tom left his job as a consulting acoustical engineer because "I couldn't keep going, I was dying."
Instead of dying, he struck out on his own to pursue the life of an artist. "I would write six to eight hours a day at the library...music going through my head...trying to figure out lyrics." The result, Blue Eyed Mystic reflects a search for love, and delves into spiritual depths of love and truth. Says Lillo, "The first line on the recording is 'just a blue eyed mystic with my mystery'. I've always been a mystic, someone who believes they can know the unknowable, find a direct connection to God." And in that vein, Tom explains "the love songs on this record are sometimes ambiguous, and could be about a person, or God, or both."
After ten years of producing and engineering other artists, "it was an incredible feeling to have studio musicians putting energy into my project and have them take it seriously...even if I was paying them. That was the best part of the project." And the hardest part? The hardest part was "each step along the way I felt a little more naked, under more and more scrutiny...but this recording was important to me in establishing a new confidence in my own ability...as a singer, as a songwriter, and as a musician."
Tom Lillo launches Blue Eyed Mystic on his own label Insurrection Records, based in Malibu, CA. But in this "search for love" did the artist find any? Lillo answers, "I think so. I've realized love is not a dream, it's not romance. Love is real, it's relational. That may sound obvious, but I think it's easy to hide behind the mystery and lose touch with the reality of relating to the people around you, to God, even to yourself." Any last fears? Tom confides, "Anyone can make up words and melodies, but the good stuff is a gift. I hope my stuff is good."
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Malibu, CA 90265310-589-2996 [top]
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