Interviews

Interview – Filo Vals Talks About Self-Directing His Music Videos

Songwriting has been a pillar in the life of Filo Vals since he first picked up a guitar, aged just six years old. Influenced by the likes of Paolo Nutini, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley and Jack Johnson, a love with music developed almost instantly, and a few years later he took the step to learn the piano. As soon as he turned eighteen, he moved straight to London to pursue a career in music.
Filo Vals released his first single Mr World in April 2017 to unprecedented critical acclaim. The track was selected from BBC introducing artist section in Devon, before being chosen by Ford Italy to be the soundtrack for the new Ford Fiesta. The track was then featured as the soundtrack for the Italian movie “Chi M’ha Visto” last October. As a result, the single increased Vals notoriety and led to appearances on important live performances such as the Battiti Live Festival in front of 15k people, broadcasted on National TV. Mr.World ultimately managed to stay on the Top 10 of Spotify Italy Viral Charts for a number of weeks.
Creativity is the path to a greater freedom in Filo’s case. As well as writing stunning, feel-good music, Filo also self-directs his own cinematic & visually striking music videos. We spoke to the young Italian about his latest project ‘Dance’.

Hi Filo, could you introduce yourself to our followers?

Ciao! I am a singer songwriter and I am from Rome. I moved to the UK when I was 18 and I am currently living in London working on my Album that will come out very soon!

Talk to us a bit about your songwriting methods?

I try not to have a proper method really. I rather try to be driven by the vibe I am with in the moment. There is no method also cause it’s always different. Sometimes a song you literally feel it and you write it in 5 minutes but sometimes you might only have a cool guitar riff and you spend hours hoping to finish the song and to find the good lyrics.

‘Dance’ seems to be a song written with summer in mind, do you write music with context in mind? Or just write what comes natural?

There is no context, there was no “oh I am gonna write a song for the summer” to be honest! I rather try to have it driven natural. A sort of “go with the flow” method.

We hear that you direct your own music videos, firstly, how do you find the time?

Haha time is being a big issue in the last months we are literally running against it! But thank god is working out! For both videos of Just Guessin’ and Dance I had the idea of the video since The beginning so I just had to actually make it happen!

There seems to be a strong Italian theme throughout your visuals, is that a conscious thing?

It is! I love my country and the beauty of it’s art! It really is a big thing for me and I love to try to share some of it in my videos!

If you weren’t a musician, do you think your career path would lie in film-making?

I never thought of it! Maybe one day I will do a Movie…who knows!

Any great directors out there we should check out?

I strongly recommend to watch latest Matteo Garrone’s movie Dogman…incredible!

Can we catch you playing live anywhere soon?

We will release some new dates very soon between Italy and UK! Stay tuned!