Elyar Afshari ( az, Elyar Əfşari; born 15 July 1995), better known by his stage name Elyar (previously Elyar Fox) is an English pop singer, musician and songwriter. His debut single " Do It All Over Again" was released in January 2014, peaking at number 5 in the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

Early life

Elyar Afshari was born in

Ealing Ealing () is a district in West London, England, west of Charing Cross in the London Borough of Ealing. Ealing is the administrative centre of the borough and is identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Ealing was hi ...

, London, to an English mother and an Azerbaijani father. He was brought up in Greenford, London, and was educated at Costons Primary School and

Queensmead School Queensmead School is a co-educational secondary school with academy status located on Queens Walk, South Ruislip, in the London Borough of Hillingdon, England. In 2009, Queensmead established a federation with Northwood School. It offers a wide ...

. He has one older brother named Iden.

Career

2005–2011: Early beginnings

"In 2005 I got a guitar and I started to just play, and then I started to write songs," Afshari stated in an interview regarding the beginning of his career. Whilst still at school he fronted the band 'Just Me Again', and performed for the first time at The Garage in Islington in 2009. After completing his

GCSEs The General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is an academic qualification in a particular subject, taken in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. State schools in Scotland use the Scottish Qualifications Certificate instead. Private sc ...

, Afshari and his bandmates took a year off studies to focus on music. They supported

You Me at Six You Me at Six are an English rock band from Weybridge, Surrey. The band consists of lead singer Josh Franceschi, guitarists Max Helyer and Chris Miller, bassist Matt Barnes and drummer Daniel Flint. Formed in 2004, the name for the group orig ...

on their British tour, including a performance at

The O2 Arena The O2 Arena, commonly known as the O2 (stylised as The O2 arena), is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the centre of the O2 entertainment complex on the Greenwich Peninsula in southeast London. It opened in its present form in 2007. It has the ...

2012–present: Debut album / Debut EP

At the age of 16 he decided to go solo, and changed his name to Elyar Fox. He began posting videos of song covers to

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...

under the name ''eldoode'', generating attention from people including

Ryan Seacrest Ryan John Seacrest (born December 24, 1974) is an American media personality and producer. He is the co-host of ''Live with Kelly and Ryan'', as well as the host of multiple media shows including ''American Idol'', ''American Top 40'', and '' ...

. With the addition of his

Vevo Vevo ( , an abbreviation for "Video Evolution", stylized as VEVO until 2013) is an American multinational video hosting service, best known for providing music videos to YouTube. The service is also available as an app on selected smart TVs, ...

channel, Fox has gained over 27 million views (as of October 2014). In 2012 he signed with

Polydor Polydor Records Ltd. is a German-British record label that operates as part of Universal Music Group. It has a close relationship with Universal's Interscope Geffen A&M Records label, which distributes Polydor's releases in the United States. ...

. He spent a year in the studio, but as Polydor were not interested in releasing, he left them and soon after was signed by

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westin ...

. On 28 October 2013, Fox supported boy band

Union J Union J are an English boy band, consisting of members JJ Hamblett, Jaymi Hensley, George Shelley and Josh Cuthbert. Shelley left the group in 2016 and was replaced by Casey Johnson, who left several months later, Cuthbert left the group ...

at a free gig in London's Westfield shopping centre. He went on to support Union J on their tour from December 2013 to January 2014. Fox came second in

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

's Brand New for 2014, having performed at the launch at London's Drury Club.

Capital FM Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capitals, List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the dura ...

previewed his debut single, " Do It All Over Again", in November 2013, and premiered the single's official video in December. Fox was a surprise guest at the

Jingle Bell Ball The Jingle Bell Ball is a concert held annually in December since 2008 (except for 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic), by the radio station Capital FM at The O2. Artists that have headlined the concert include Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Lit ...

in December 2013 where he performed his debut single in front of 16,000 people. On 12 January 2014, the official release date for "Do It All Over Again", Fox was a guest on ''The Matt Edmondson Show'' on

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

. He performed a live acoustic version of "Do It All Over Again" on

BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

's ''

Blue Peter ''Blue Peter'' is a British children's television entertainment programme created by John Hunter Blair. It is the longest-running children's TV show in the world, having been broadcast since October 1958. It was broadcast primarily from BBC Te ...

'' on 16 January 2014, and a recorded duet with presenter

Barney Harwood Barnaby John "Barney" Harwood (born 7 November 1979) is a British actor and television presenter. He is known for his work with CBBC beginning in 2002. Career Television For CBBC, Harwood presented '' Prank Patrol'' and was a voice-over comment ...

singing

One Direction One Direction, often shortened to 1D, are an English-Irish pop boy band formed in London in 2010. The group are composed of Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and previously Zayn Malik until his departure from the gro ...

's " Story of My Life." Fox performed "Do It All Over Again" live on

CBBC CBBC (initialised as Children's BBC and also known as the CBBC Channel) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the bran ...

's ''Sam & Mark's Big Friday Wind-Up'' on 24 January 2014. The song peaked at number five on the

and number 83 on the

Irish Singles Chart The Irish Singles Chart is the Republic of Ireland's music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) and compiled on their behalf by the Official Charts Company. Chart rankings are b ...

. Fox's second single, "A Billion Girls", was announced on 14 February 2014. Released on 13 April 2014, it was first played on Capital FM on 20 February 2014. A lyric video was released on Vevo on 7 March 2014, followed on the same channel by the full video on 25 March 2014. Fox was the opening support act for

The Wanted The Wanted are a British-Irish boy band consisting of group members Max George, Siva Kaneswaran, Jay McGuiness and Nathan Sykes and, until his death in 2022, Tom Parker. The group was formed in 2009 and signed a worldwide contract to ...

on their

Word of Mouth Tour The Word of Mouth World Tour is the debut world tour by British-Irish boy band The Wanted. The tour is named after their third studio album ''Word of Mouth'' (2013). The band performed a total of 40 shows across Asia, Europe and North America. T ...

from 1 March to 14 April 2014. He was a supporting act for

McBusted McBusted were an English pop-punk supergroup composed of members from bands McFly (Tom Fletcher, Danny Jones, Dougie Poynter, and Harry Judd) and Busted (James Bourne and Matt Willis). The only member of the original groups not participating ...

at an open-air concert in

Hyde Park, London Hyde Park is a Grade I-listed major park in Westminster, Greater London, the largest of the four Royal Parks that form a chain from the entrance to Kensington Palace through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, via Hyde Park Corner and Gre ...

on 6 July 2014. In March 2017, he returned from his long hiatus, having shortened his name to 'Elyar', and released a new single called "Beautiful Human" on

Apple Music Apple Music is a music, audio and video streaming service developed by Apple Inc. Users select music to stream to their device on-demand, or they can listen to existing playlists. The service also includes the Internet radio stations Apple ...

Soundcloud SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform and music sharing website that enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is one of the largest music streaming s ...

and

. He explained on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

that he had taken a long break to look for the sound that would suit him, but in order to do that he had to be independent, so he had left his management and label and started producing music from scratch in a studio built by him and his brother in their garden. In April 2017, Elyar released his first independent debut EP called "SVFARI". This EP contains 4 songs along with his previously released song, "Beautiful Human".

Personal life

Elyar has been in a relationship with fellow singer-songwriter

Leadley Bethan Mary Leadley (born 15 December 1995) is an English singer-songwriter, YouTuber, presenter, and actress. Early life and education Leadley was born in Crawley, West Sussex. She has an older brother, Daniel, who is married to Hannah Witton. ...

since February 2017.

Discography

Extended plays

* ''The 'Good Friends' Acoustic'' (2014) * ''SVFARI'' (2017) * ''Sappy'' (2018)

Singles

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Elyar Wikipedia articles in need of updating from August 2019 1995 births Living people People from Ealing Singers from London English people of Azerbaijani descent 21st-century English singers English male singer-songwriters English pop singers 21st-century British male singers