Singer, Fidelis, Makes Debut With “Want This”

Fidelis is making a grand start!

It has been a long hike to get to the precipice of putting out his first single for Fidelis. When we speak, the singer remembers that the dream of making music for a living was first conceptualized as a nine-year-old, and with a week to the Christmas of 2020, that plan is kicking off with his debut single, “Want This.”
“The thing is I’m a writer first,” Fidelis admits. “So, at the age of nine, I started writing lyrics. I didn’t really know what they were at the time but I knew I could string words together and make them look somewhat decent.”

The Canada-based singer grew up between Europe and Nigeria, spending considerable time soaking up influences aplenty. “I was born in Nigeria, Port Harcourt more specifically,” he said via Zoom. “I grew up in London when I moved there for secondary school. That was the first time I ever really did music. I went through secondary school travelling back and forth between Nigeria and Europe. So, I explored getting guitar lessons, getting vocal lessons, and learning how to hone my craft, becoming a better musician. And over time, that just grew into something I wanted to do with my life as a career.”

A list of names that inspires Fidelis harkens back to the titans of American soul and soul as well as modern pop British behemoths, explaining the textured lilt to his music. “I was heavily influenced by female musicians, from Aretha Franklin; Nina Simeone was someone I used to listen to a lot; Tracy Chapman too.

Fidelis

“But when I moved to London, I got into the pop scene that was at the time making a buzz. At the time before Ed Sheeran became Ed Sheeran, I used to listen to his early stuff before he made that name. Ed Sheeran was a big deal for me growing up, Olly Murs too. Just learning about writing and music (from them). They were definitely big influences.”

Distinct variations of those influences can be heard in Fidelis’ music that he vaguely describes as “pop-indie-soul,” but “Want This” subtly avoids all those descriptors, rising and falling based on the tides of emotion that Fidelis feels in the moment without losing the populist theme that makes pop music pop.

“I think it’s really appropriate as a first song,” Fidelis says about the single. “It’s really an ode to why I’m still doing music despite what I consider to be my many trials. Why I’m still here despite everything that has pushed me away from being here. It’s about returning to your point of inception, the original reasons and thoughts, and remembering that those thoughts and reasons are what make everything important instead of getting overwhelmed by what’s going on today.”

Explaining why it has taken this long to get music out, he explained: “I haven’t had much experience musically just because I hadn’t understood what it took to make music until more recently. Obviously, since I was a lot younger I’d been in studios and all around London, and they gave me somewhere to experience music, but in terms of working towards putting stuff out, I haven’t done much of that. I hadn’t been allowed to, from my family’s perspective. I wasn’t really given that space to explore that.”

With “Want This,” Fidelis wants to bring people into a more accepting side of the world. “For me, music has always been about passing on a message. Creating a space for anyone who listens to my music to feel somewhat easy, warmer, and to feel the less-cold sides of this world we are living in. I try to make music that makes people feel that. It’s very relatable. It helps people feel better about what they are going through. And it tells them that there are other people like them out there and they aren’t alone.”