Author: Faye Allego

Michael Seyer, Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Man? Interview by Faye Allego Music has been a diary for songwriters for centuries, and Michael Seyer is no different. But how does a man write his legacy? Memory is ever-changing and sometimes fails to hold still. However, when used in music, we can preserve them forever. In his latest release, Michael Seyer introduces an amalgamation of his memories and experiences on boyhood vs manhood, family, love, and ghosts in Boylife. For nearly a decade, Seyer’s rise from the bedroom music scene has been unhurried and steadily paced – his distinct lo-fi, jazz-tinged dreampop and vintage soul sound originated from his 2016 debut album, Ugly Boy, and is further intensified in 2018’s Bad Bonez. Seyer’s diaristic lyricism, as well as sentimental textures of Japanese city pop and the reminiscent glow of early OPM influences in his 2021 album Nostalgia and throughout his discography, he never strays away from an inward gaze of his identity and perception of love. Talking to Michael Seyer from one bedroom to another at different sides of the Earth felt like catching up with an old mentor from high school, you really learn the essence of ‘dudes just being dudes’ who are really in tune with their passion. During the interview,  he mentions that music is all he really knows, and it was said in the same way that Alex G thinks he’s a very boring person, from the receiving end of things, it’s honestly far from the truth.  **This interview was conducted in June 2025 and has been edited for clarity and brevity. FA: Do you know what Lugaw is? Seyer: That sounds familiar. You know what? I love the Philippines. I was born there, but I left when I was three or four. So yeah, I just, I didn’t do my very best to keep the good look in my mind.  FA: So, Lugaw is Porridge. Where in the Philippines were you born? Seyer: I was born in Manila.  FA: Is nostalgia a recurring theme in your work? What role does memory play in how you write music or understand yourself?  Seyer: I write about memory for sure, but it’s not the most overtly “themed”. It’s more in the sense that I write [about] my experiences. So, in that kind of really far stretch of my experiences, are my memories. Mostly, I’m writing about me looking back at certain things, how I am now, you know? Memory drives the music. I tend to write songs or do things in a way where it’s the music that I have found the most fond in my memory; I try to make my music sound in that way, that whole nostalgia EP, I was really into a lot of the Japanese city pop and even a lot of OPM music. I have always been listening to that kind of stuff. Even as a kid, I remember listening to it. I would take things from music that have really affected me in the past and then use that as a jumping-off point. I guess for this recent album, I was writing… a good amount. One of the songs on the new album, “1995”, that’s the year I was born, [and] I wrote that song specifically about the Philippines. The way I remember the Philippines is not– I don’t have a very concrete memory of it. I left when I [was] really young, and I came to America. So, a lot of the stuff that I do remember from the Philippines is really just abstract, senses, taste, and maybe the few images that I do remember, they almost feel like an old film reel that’s [a] really colorful and nothing is really graspable. It’s really ethereal. I was trying to write a song about the Philippines with my very limited memory and my really abstract memory about it. So those are a few ways, I guess, nostalgia or memory comes into play.  FA: Are there any Filipino artists that are from the past or present that you’re curious about, in terms of musical influence, and your new record label, Seyerland? Seyer: Yeah, that’s a tough thing, right? We’re in a kind of an interesting situation with Filipino visibility, right? There aren’t many artists to really pick from, especially in my lane of music [in the West]. We have that Filipino Pride…Once anyone’s a fucking drop of Filipino, we claim it. That being said, there’s nothing there’s not much range that I could pick from. Obviously, I love all kinds of music. So I am always listening to everything, especially with OPM, Hotdog, and Bong Peñera. My parents would always play Parokya Ni Edgar, Eraserheads. Yeah, it’s… A lot of old stuff. I would love to find some artists that are more contemporary in that lane, and we don’t have that many options to pick from. So I’m just always trying to find new music. and I definitely want to encourage Filipino artists to carve out a lane for themselves, and I want to discover more artists who are Filipino [and are inclined to make] great music. Because we’re a fucking–we’re a musical culture. Nine out of ten of us can kill it in karaoke and belt out of nowhere.  FA: You released your new album under your new independent label, Seyerland. Are there any lessons and niches you have gained in the behind-the-scenes process of starting your own DIY label?  Seyer: Well, you know what? I am only a month into it. I’m not sure if I have any lessons to give anyone, but [a] part of the reason why I want to do this is because I’ve been doing [music] for a really long time– almost 10 years now, and through that process of being forged to release on my own [music], because I haven’t really had any connections. I was just someone who threw a project on the internet and then fell into this. I