BIO
My bio used to say I started singing in 2011. That's true from an "I'm a serious musician" standpoint, but I've actually been singing for longer than that. There's a video on a camcorder cassette somewhere that looks like something out of a horror film - you're looking into the blackness behind a bedroom door cracked open and there's this embarrassingly bad child's voice coming from within, singing "Si-went night, ho-wy night..." (That was my first music video, by the way. :)) I can't remember not having the singing itch.
My mother is also a singer. She is classically trained and I grew up next to the best voice in the congregation at church. My grandmother and her sister were also singers, but I didn't grow up knowing that. It's been amazing uncovering the musicianship in my family tree. Grandmother and Aunt Hilda sang on the radio in Washington, North Carolina, during World War II. On top of that, my grandfather, Joe Carroll, was a professional fiddle player. He played on the Grand Ole Opry at Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee (where I had the opportunity to record a cover of "Amazing Grace" in 2015). He could whistle with vibrato. I sincerely regret having never heard him play.
So, with all this genetic priming, does that make me a musician? Probably not. The best part of my musical endeavors thus far has been seeing my own improvement. I didn't always love performing and making music as much as I do now. I was the one who wanted to quit piano lessons, after all. I got tired of major chords and mandatory recorder playing and children's choir (crappy even in chorus). And then I found my niche.
I actually have to thank a particular someone for what I do now. Brayden will probably never read this, but he introduced me to Slipknot, for which I am eternally grateful. While he was moving on to indie (why?), I got busy exploring the metal and rock scenes. I latched on to Slipknot's performance and musical style and it made me want to perform, too. I began to see music as cathartic and emotional rather than just a good beat. Imagine how surprising that must be to people who have seen me perform Ave Maria!
What's not surprising is what came next - I discovered Evanescence. What a crapshoot, though - I heard "Going Under" on the radio and, without even knowing the words, the title, or anything, looked for it on the top 100 rock songs on iTunes. Female-fronted rock has been my go-to for covers ever since. These were emotions I understood, songs that could make me cry, beats that made me want to keep listening, and finally, it was in a good key for singing.
The rest can actually be found under the two links on the left - I've been performing and recording as much as being a full-time college student will allow. In 2014, I released my first CD, The Kitchen Sink, and it is now unavailable because it was astoundingly bad. When I first started out making recordings, I was "mixing" it all on my recording app on my iPad. Not a great plan, but when you're not too computer savvy, it's all you can manage. These days, I'm taking advantage of professional technology and recording platforms in my own Smiling Corpse Studio as well as drawing album and disk art by hand. I'm so excited to share this journey with all of you!
Since 2014, my most notable achievements have been an Evanescence cover album (The Open Door, 2015) and my first original release, Fly (2017). I debuted my first original works at a Greensboro concert in June, 2016, and released a demo EP featuring the song that would become my first commercial release. As of 2017, I am preparing to launch into the demo process for my first original full-length album. Alongside my own projects, I am acting as producer for several projects, including a single for the death metal band Wings of Steel and a classical piano compilation by my father.
A few things are and always will be extremely important to me in my music career: roots, experimentation, and authenticity. I strive to create music that acknowledges where I came from, but that is not afraid to take risks and be something completely novel. Music is my way of taking a deep breath and moving on; I can only hope that, in some small way, my songs connect me to my listeners and enable them to do the same. But as important as it is to achieve depth of meaning in lyrics, at the end of the day, what brings us all together in the name of music is a passion that can't be expressed with words. Let's create something beautiful together!
Veronica DaVanzo