Sydney performer Andrew Lambrou first attracted attention in 2013 after uploading a cover of the Evanescence ballad, ‘My Immortal’, to YouTube. The performance gained so much traction that Lambrou went on to create an official music video for his version of the song. He spent the next handful of years fostering an ever-widening online audience with frequent song uploads, as well as participating in the 2015 edition of Channel Seven’s The X Factor.
In the early videos, many of which remain on the singer’s YouTube and Facebook pages, a teenaged Lambrou can be seen giving his all to songs by Adele, Little Mix, Linkin Park and Sam Smith. As his vocal abilities matured, Lambrou’s song selections also diversified, branching out to tackle Radiohead’s ‘Creep’, Camila Cabello and Young Thug’s ‘Havana’ and Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
But despite attracting millions of viewers to his YouTube channel, Lambrou waited until March 2021 to premiere his own original music. The 22-year-old Lambrou’s debut single, ‘Throne’, is a statement of purpose. Having spent years familiarising himself with the ins and outs of contemporary pop music, Lambrou now feels confident asserting his own artistic identity.
‘Throne’ is a glossily produced electronic pop song influenced by everyone from The Weeknd to Lewis Capaldi. Lambrou co-wrote the track with Sydney-based production and writing team D.E.L, made up of brothers Joseph, Nick, and Tim de la Hoyde, while Dave Hammer (Lime Cordiale, Montaigne) took the reins on its brawny production.
Watch the music video for ‘Throne’ by Andrew Lambrou
Tone Deaf spoke to Lambrou about his lifelong love of music and the self-belief that powers ‘Throne’.
Tone Deaf: Your family’s background is Greek. Did music play a big role in the house when you were growing up?
Andrew Lambrou: I have a big Greek Cypriot family and we’re very musical. My cousins are artists. I have multiple family members that sing and play music and whenever we get together, we always have a nice jam session.
TD: You’ve been playing music since you were five years old, initially learning piano. When did you start focusing on singing?
AL: Everything started for me at five when I was at AMS music school. They held a vocal eisteddfod every term and I entered at five and I had to sing [‘Do-Re-Mi’] from The Sound of Music. And I won. From that time, I’ve loved being on stage. I kept going in the eisteddfods and doing really well and I spoke to mum and dad and they were like, “We should switch from piano lessons to singing.” And the rest is history.
TD: When did you realise that you not only loved learning and performing music, but that music was something you were really passionate about, as a listener and a fan?
AL: I’m one of the lucky ones. A lot of people my age or younger, they find it difficult to find what they love and what they want to do in life. And ever since that day when I was five and I won that competition, I really knew that I loved this. My parents were so supportive and when they realised that there was something there, they pushed me to get lessons, to work on my craft and I’ve just known my whole life that music is what I love.
TD: Your cover of ‘My Immortal’ appeared on YouTube in 2013 and you’ve continued to post covers to social media ever since. Has part of the motivation been that learning these songs would help you find a sound and style that suited your abilities and tastes?
AL: Definitely. Finding your unique sound that works for you is something that can’t really be rushed. I signed a publishing deal with Sony/ATV when I was about 18 and I was being put in the studio, I was working with writers, which was a new experience for me and we were coming up with great songs, but at that point in time I wasn’t running the session. Now, five years later, I know exactly what I want and when I get in the studio, I run the session and I know what comes naturally.
Having the right team around is you really important too and that can take a lot of time to find, which it did. But now that I’m with City Pop and Sony/ATV, I feel really comfortable and I’m much more confident in my writing abilities.
TD: You competed in The X Factor in 2015. You made it to the top 20 and were very popular, despite not being one of the finalists. You were only 17 at the time. How do you feel about that experience now?
AL: I was a young kid that just wanted to do music and I looked at that platform as a way to enter into the music industry. And I’m actually grateful for how everything panned out – I’m grateful I got kicked off the show when I did, because I was allowed to reach the highest point of the show without being locked into any sort of contract. So I got to go to London, I got to perform for Rita Ora and Simon Cowell and Chris Isaak, and it taught me so much.\
Being in front of crowds like that when I was quite young, it opened my mind to what I can achieve. After that, I put my head down, I did what I needed to do, and it just gave me a lot of confidence and a lot of motivation.
TD: Confidence is one of the major themes of ‘Throne’. You’ve described the song as being about “taking matters into your own hands.” Can you tell me a bit more about the lyrical themes and what they represent for you?
AL: Once I started putting things out online and just getting the response I was getting, with people telling me all these amazing things about my singing and the covers, that made me so happy and so confident in what I can do. I felt like, if I can make people around the world that don’t know who I am smile or enjoy the content I’m creating, that sparked something in my mind, that I can do this.
People look at the biggest artists in the world like they’re so far out of reach, but at the end of the day we’re all human beings. Like, these people came from nothing as well a lot of the time and they built themselves up to this huge name and I feel like anyone can do that if they really believe in themselves.
If you don’t have that belief, it can be much harder to get there. That’s what ‘Throne’ is about – about believing in yourself and taking matters into your own hands and visualising where you want to go in life.
