Shannon Rebecca Saunders, known professionally as iiola is an English singer-songwriter from Wiltshire. iiola started writing and producing songs at the age of thirteen. She later went on to study Songwriting at BIMM in Bristol before heading for London to pursue her career. She had several successful releases using her own name ‘Shannon Saunders’ however as her writing evolved she decided to create a new persona that emulated the essence of her new music. With a lucrative YouTube channel to her credit and an ever increasing following on her social media sites she decided to set up her on label, Lovejoy Records and release her music independently. iiola is a firm favourite of BBC Introducing and is currently writing her debut album whilst creating and designing her live show.
Career
Saunders started a YouTube channel in 2009 posting covers of songs by many artists, as well as her own originals. As of October 2018, she has over 62,000 subscribers and over 2.5 million total upload views. Her first single released as Shannon Saunders "Heart Of Blue" received over 30,000 views on YouTube in less than four days which featured Shannon running barefoot through Oxford Street, London filmed by Damian Weilers. Whilst touring in 2013 Shannon independently released Atlas, and created the official music video incorporating her live performances and interactions with her fanbase. This has over two million streams. In 2015, she released an EP in partnership with Caroline International titled Instar. After performing stripped back live versions of the EP on SBTV one of her songs "LO-FI", co-written and produced by Dee Adam, was then picked up and sampled by frumhere on his track "she only likes me when i'm drunk" which has over three million Spotify streams to date. Following the success of the "Heart of Blue" video, Shannon teamed up again with director Damian Weilers and created a music video for her song "Pure" which was shot at Reynisfjara, the black-sand beach found on the South Coast of Iceland and marks a turning point in Saunders' soundscape introducing minimal electronic elements and electric guitar. "Rips in your Jeans" was released in 2017 and highlights a self-directed and produced video featuring Saunders' fanbase. It was shot by her with the help of Raja Virdi in East London's vintage store 'Atika'. The last track released under Saunders' birth name, "Still", was created as an awareness track for mental health issues and was supported by Heads Together, a charity under The Royal Foundation umbrella. Starting a new chapter in 2018, she released her debut four track EP under her new artist nameiiola titled Chrysalis. Chrysalis has been so well received on Spotify that all three singles have been added to 'New Music Fridays' as well as many other influential playlists. Live stripped back versions of the first two singles are available on YouTube.
