Tommy Lisi: 2021 Ambassador

My first insight into music was as a child as my parents were both massive music fans and it was rare for there not to be music playing in the house growing up. My mum's favourite albums to play were Elton's goodbye yellow brick road, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours and Tears for Fears greatest hits while my dad enjoyed anything Genesis, Ian Dury, Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin. I loved listening to all of these as well and would regularly play things that were recorded years before I was even born, and still do to this day.

My first love band wise would come in the shape of Queen. My dad had a lot of they're albums on vinyl and I would listen to them over and over especially news of the world and a night at the opera. I also enjoyed The Beatles growing up, (in particular Revolver and the white album) and followed the fab fours solo careers as well, delving into the back catalogue of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr.

The next big band that had me hooked was Blur. When I first heard modern life is rubbish it sounded so fresh and new that it blew me away. When I put it on the turntable now I instantly get transported back to the mid 90's. Great album, great band. Blur got me into the Britpop scene and through that I found Pulp and Oasis and along with Blur they seemed bigger than music, it was a scene, it was a lifestyle… the music, the fashion, it was now a way of life.

As I was growing up in secondary school I found a love for hip hop music, in particular Notorious BIG's ready to die, Nas' illmatic and 2 pac's me against the world. Hip hop for me was a whole new way to listen to music and I loved it, especially the clever word play that rappers like Biggie and Nas would use regularly. I decided around this time to start writing lyrics and was in a group at school called the incredible thing. My biggest influence on writing lyrics was Ian Dury who for me was and is still the greatest wordsmith this country ever produced.

My music taste is basically anything that sounds good. My record collection has everything from The Beatles to Genesis, to Ian Dury to Talking heads and there's no better way to consume music than vinyl… the artwork, the sound, the feeling of browsing in the local record... all amazing.

In my next blog I will be going through some of my favourite ever albums and writing a bit about them. Cheers.

Follow Tommy on Instagram: @tommyboylisi