For those who love eclectic albums, new local artist Brett Tyler is on the rise. In his freshman album Bittersweet, The Minneapolis native creates a journey through love in which each original song has its own specific flavor. He does not stick to one particular genre, and in his music one can find a country twang, a touch of pop, and more than a hint of Midwestern style.

Tyler starts with a simple idea, and surrounds it with music and gives it heart. In our interview he mentioned the variety of music he’s influenced by.

“I can create a song from as many different styles and genres that you can think of, If I hear a good melody, I hear a good melody,” Tyler said.

It’s obvious that he draws his inspiration from diverse influential bands, one of which is The Beatles. At the very start of his song “Something”, which the title in itself echoes a Beatles classic, a mellotron sounds just like The Beatles’ song “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Although there are other big names that have influenced Tyler, there are also smaller, more local bands that had a large impact on him. Some of these Midwestern heroes include The Jayhawks and Wilco. According to Tyler there is “something you can’t get anywhere else that you can get in the Midwest.”

This is probably why Tyler’s first album, according to his myspace page, “is a collective of love songs that have been written in the past five years”. One song in particular, “Here’s My Heart,” stands out. The lyrics in the second verse are “There is no good reason I have travelled all this way/ just to see you from a distance and not know what to say/ still I wander carelessly into this place/ wrestle with the courage just to see your face.”

“[The song is] for a girl I liked but was too shy to do anything about,” Tyler said. In an honest moment, this song says “this is where my heart is at” by a young man who was a little too shy to say it in any way but a song, a sentiment many can identify with.

Most recently, Tyler played at the Fine Line Music Caf? in Minneapolis where he played with a full band. He also has played at the Ritz Theater (also in Minneapolis) where a fellow musician was having a CD release party as well. He said of his shows that “everybody can feel comfortable and feel like they are friends” and there is a “cool family community feel, we laugh and joke around a lot.”

“I’m aspiring to write the best songs possible. If they like them that’s great. I just want people to like it,” Tyler said.