[Music Exclusive]: An Interview with Emma Dzalin - Director of Urban Ignite

Emma Dzalin is a 19-year-old girl with a bubbly personality from Republic Polytechnic. She has many interests such as writing, photography and playing tennis. However, her greatest passion lies in singing. Emma is the lead singer of her very own band Emma and the Jets as well as the editor of Urban Ignite, a blog that features budding Singaporean musicians.

The All Reviews team had a privilege to meet up with Emma for an exclusive interview, where she shared her personal opinions about the local music scene.

All Reviews: Who inspired you to start singing?
Emma Dzalin: I have an old soul, so I look at people like Aretha Franklin and Joss Stone. I am inspired by them and but I try to make my own sound.

AR: What was your most memorable performance?
ED: I think when people say memorable, they would think of some big performance. For me, it’s the start of my first band, Emma and the Jets, which I really like. I was comfortable with the genre, comfortable with the people and the memorable performance I had with them would be the band’s very first gig in Republic Polytechnic (RP). It was called ‘The Initiation’, where we performed Jamiroquai’s ‘Love Foolosophy’ and ‘You and I’ by Lady Gaga.It was the start of everything.

AR: If you could collaborate with any local band, which will it be?
ED: Sixx! But it will be hard because they are a nine member band and we have five, so it will be like an orchestra instead of a band.

AR: What’s a good place to catch local bands in action?
ED: I would say Tab, located at 442 Orchard Road #02-29. The ambience, environment and setting is good. The crowd is just perfect, so it’s a good platform for local musicians to perform there. *giggles* Also, my favourite local band Sixx usually performs there.

AR: What’s the most interesting band you’ve come across while blogging for Urban Ignite?
ED: I think the most interesting band that we’ve interviewed would have to be Bear Culture, because they are the very first band that we featured on Urban Ignite. They’re from RP, they’re actually friends of mine and they performed for Baybeats 2011 held at the Esplanade. Bear Culture had an interesting story to tell because they all started from different genres and they had a lot of things to share with us about their journey when they first started out in one Interest Group (IG, equivalent to a Co-Curricular Activity or club) as different individuals coming together.

AR: Negative comments are bound to appear on blogs, would this affect you and your band? ED: Sometimes we just need bad comments to improve ourselves because we are not up there yet. We still got to be open to comments, so if what people say is true and bad, we’ll just take it and turn it to something positive. So you’ve just got to suck it up!

AR: Before you go, what songs by local musicians would you recommend for our playlist?
ED: Every song by Catalogue V and Sixx. I would put them all in!

Without further ado, here's Emma herself in action singing a little excerpt from Summertime!