Meet Liza Dries, a captivating pop musician with a mesmerizing voice and heartfelt Dutch lyrics. Originally from Groningen, Netherlands, Liza has found her creative haven in Cologne, Germany. This week’s Sit In Session features Liza’s acoustic rendition of her enchanting song “Niks Zonder Jou,” showcasing her soft character and playful musical style.
In a recent interview, Liza shares her musical journey and influences. As a child, she always found joy in singing, which eventually led to a songwriter-duo project called “The New Poor.” Exploring the folk-pop genre with acoustic guitars and harmonized vocals, the duo left a lasting impression. After a break, Liza embarked on her solo project, driven by a deep passion for music.
How did you get into making music?
As a kid I’ve always been singing at home with my brother or on the bike to school. At the end of high schoo,l a friend and I started a songwriter-duo project called “The New Poor”. More in the direction of folk-pop, with an acoustic guitar and harmonising vocals. We quit after five years, but after a while I missed making music so much that it led to starting this solo-project.
What is special about singing and songwriting in Dutch?
A certain playfulness with words comes more easy with a better understanding of the language I think, so it felt quite natural to start singing in Dutch. To me, Dutch lyrics can be fairly simplistic while telling an in-depth story. Something that wouldn’t sound necessarily special in English can be literally translated to Dutch and sound all of a sudden interesting (and vice versa). Each language requires a different way of formulating sentences.
Where do you feel most at home – Groningen or Cologne?
Cologne is offering me new opportunities that I couldn’t find so easily in Groningen after having lived there all my live. The creative scene in Cologne is a bit bigger, more diverse and it feels like there is a lot to discover. I feel more at home with the feeling of Cologne as a city. At the same time there is a certain freshness in the air of Groningen that I miss, which makes me feel like home. It probably comes with Groningen being closer to the sea.
If you wouldn’t create music, which job would you have?
Besides making music I am currently working remote as full-stack developer for a company in Hannover. I really like programming and the community behind it. The developer world is very helpful and friendly, where people share their codes and ideas without having necessarily a personal gain from it. The balance of working in both fields keeps things exciting and after the EP-release, coding helped with landing back with two feet on the ground.
What inspires you most and how do you stay creative during the pandemic?
Learning to produce and curiosity for new sounds has been a great motivation for making music. Normally I’m mostly inspired by changing surroundings, since it comes with new sounds and views that you can focus on.
You have recently released your EP “Tegenkomer”, which means meeting someone (if not, please correct me). What does the EP mean to you?
Haha so ’Tegenkomer’ is actually my made-up word for the person you are running into, derived from the verb ‘tegenkomen’ that means running into someone.
The EP is the answer to a period where my emotions were clashing a lot, the parallel of happiness and sadness. When I listen to the EP I get a bit back into certain moods that define the time period, excitement and insecurity that comes with being in love, the pandemic, anxiety. Last year was quite a rollercoaster of emotions, and the EP reflects on that in third perspective, without openly showing these extremes necessarily in sound. It’s more subtle in the details.
How does it feel to release an EP during the pandemic? Would you say there are benefits or downsides to it?
The benefits were that I had half a year to get into producing and forming music from basically a plain song to a track with the sounds that Niels (my partner) and I heard in there. Before the pandemic started there were so many things happening all the time that I wouldn’t really find time to pick up producing. The downsides to the pandemic were definitely that there was no physical sensation to the release, so you can track the numbers and view responses, but there was no concert / tour to live up to. I’m really looking forward to trying out these songs in a live setting.
Which is your favorite track and why?
Niks Zonder Jou is my favourite track production-wise. It’s the last song I worked on so it might be the bridge towards music/sound I would like to make in the future. Working with vocal effects is one of my favourite parts in producing: using pitched up/down vocals, vocoders and autotune for example.
Ria is also one of my favourite songs from the EP, mainly because of the lyrics, but also because the beat makes me laugh every time the song starts. The song feels somewhat off and quirky the first half, but in the second half everything ties together and it somehow makes sense.
Which artist would you like to meet? How do you imagine the encounter?
So Savannah – part of Safe Space Records– showed me Sophia Kennedy the other day and I’m completely in awe of her music. Would love to run into her somewhere in the German music scene and drink Prosecco at a river in the late summer.
At TITLE we emphasize staying true to yourself, your art, and your work. Would you say you’ve found your True Identity yet? If so, how would you describe it?
I feel like there is definitely a core in me that has been the same since 5th grade, which is a bit of a quirky nerd. However, other than that I think a true identity is dynamic and changes with time and surroundings.
