A Chat with Elina Filice (27.03.26)
Known for her genre-defying songs and confident performances, singer-songwriter Elina Filice brings soulful melody and hard-warming solace to our ears. We speak with the Canadian musician about her single, ‘The Days’, what music means to her, and music in the LGBTQ+ community.
OSR: A bit cliché, but how were you drawn to music? What made you decide you want to be a musician?
Elina Filice: I grew up in a very musical family. I started playing at a young age, and there was always music in my house. I was into theatre and a band geek all through school and even university. I played the tuba for a decade! I’ve had rock star dreams from a young age, and have always loved performing. I also started writing songs and playing guitar very young. I’ve always just wanted to share my songs and stories with the world!
OSR: What does music mean to you?
Elina Filice: So many things! The soundtrack to everything. An expressive form that I love deeply and am humbled by its influence. A marriage of melody and poetry that I’ve always adored.
OSR: You recently released your indie-pop single, ‘These Days’. What can you tell us about it? Is there a particular backstory or theme?
Elina Filice: The song was inspired by a long-distance relationship. I wanted to capture the pain and longing of distance, the always running out of time, the leaving your heart in another place. The experience of yearning for a future where you’ll have all the time in the world. I wanted to capture that unresolved feeling of leaving your heart in another place. But also the hope that you have to hold in your heart when the future is all you have!
OSR: What do you hope people take from ‘These Days’, and what does the track mean to you?
Elina Filice: To me, the track captures a moment in time, a chapter in my story. I like that it’s kind of a ‘time capsule’ (as most of my songs are) of how I was feeling at the time. I like that it’s immortalised in that way. I hope that people can relate to the hopefulness of the song and remember that hope is all we have. We simply must believe that the future will hold everything we need.
OSR: I read that you are an advocate for queer visibility. How do you think music helps support visibility in the LGBTQ+ community?
Elina Filice: I see music as a powerful tool for queer storytelling. Our stories matter, and music is a powerful tool to convey these stories, messages, feelings, and unique experiences. I think storytelling is the best way to ‘humanise’ anything, and visibility and acceptance come from humanising. I also hope that queer music can help queer people everywhere, particularly those who aren’t ‘out’ or are living in places where we’re not accepted, feel a little less alone. Even if you can’t access queerness or community IRL, queer music and media are accessible to anyone with internet access, so it’s a love letter to them too.
OSR: Your roots are quite diverse. You were born to Canadian parents, went to university in Canada, but spent your formative years in Singapore, as well as living in Ireland for a bit. How do you think these different cultures have contributed to your sound and you as a person?
Elina Filice: All of those experiences have shaped me as a person. I’m lucky enough to have gotten to live many different lives and share space and time with people from many different walks of life. It’s funny, you think the more you travel, the more you’ll develop an understanding of the world. I think it’s just left me with more questions. But definitely more empathy, stories, and experiences that inevitably find their way into my songwriting. A lot of my music is inspired by movement, travel, and a search for something beyond the horizon.
OSR: You’ve performed internationally, but is there any specific show that is most memorable? If yes, what show was that?
Elina Filice: The first one that came to mind was a show I played in Newtownards, Northern Ireland. I was invited up there for a showcase and had no idea what to expect. It was me and a few friends falling out of a cab into this small town outside Belfast that none of us had ever been to. It was an incredible show, one of the most attentive crowds I’ve ever played for, who truly cared about my songs and stories. It was one of those moments of being so grateful for all the places and spaces that music has taken me to.
OSR: What can we expect from you in the future? Some more releases or perhaps a tour?
Elina Filice: More releases on the way, more shows, more art, more life! Make sure you’re following me on Instagram to keep updated!
OSR: Do you have a message for our readers?
Elina Filice: Keep supporting independent music! The independent artistry life is not an easy one. We definitely carry the world on our shoulders, and there’s an impossible amount of things to do just to get the music out there, for what usually feels like very little payoff. That’s why YOUR support is so important to us! You really do help us keep this dream alive. If there is independent music in your life, I hope you give it all the love you can.
Many thanks to Elina Filice for speaking with us. Find out more about Elina Filice on her Instagram, X, Soundcloud, YouTube and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
