Nashville's indie pop scene is growing, and at the forefront of this movement is Daena, an eccentric and unapologetically authentic singer-songwriter who's making waves with her unique brand of "quirk pop." Daena’s songs have be found on Spotify’s “Fresh Finds” and on "Night Pop" editorial playlists, iHeartRadio, Nashville’s Lightning 100, and Breaking Sound Radio. Her latest album release, Alter Ego, is self-described as "2000s-inspired, blending tongue in cheek relatability with the perfect amount of grit and honesty, sure to hook fans of Oliva Rodrigo and Zolita.” Alter Ego is not just an album, but a journey through Daena’s twenties, showcasing the various facets of her personality and artistic growth.
As an independent artist in a city often associated with country music, Daena has carved out her own niche in the expanding pop and indie scenes of Nashville. Her music career has been marked by perseverance, creativity, and a willingness to embrace every version of herself.
As you will read in the interview below, social media plays a crucial role in an artist's success, especially for independent musicians like Daena. She acknowledges the challenges of balancing content creation with music-making, describing it as "chaotic" but also enjoyable. TikTok has become her primary platform for connecting with fans and promoting her music, a strategy she adopted in 2020 at a friend's urging. Daena's approach to her online presence mirrors her musical style – authentic, quirky, and unafraid to showcase her niche interests.
Daena will celebrate her 30th birthday on January 15, 2025 and over a decade in Nashville's music scene, Alter Ego stands as a testament to her journey and growth as an artist. This album encourages listeners to embrace all aspects of themselves, reflecting Daena's own philosophy of self-acceptance and artistic authenticity.
What is it like kind of having to manage a social media page on top of a music career in order to get your music out?
It's a lot. I probably would say TikTok is my main one. I definitely post there most. I think I'm less embarrassed on Tiktok. It's hard to embarrass me, I would say, but in terms of being a content creator and a musician, you just, if you are an artist you also have to be a content creator. I think because it's such a huge way as an independent artist to get your music out there, which is amazing, but also really hard. You have to be balancing all of these different hats and it can get chaotic, but also I really enjoy making the videos. I've been making stupid videos on YouTube since the early days of YouTube. It's kind of always something that I enjoyed. So it's less of a hassle for me and more fun. I wish I had more time to do it.
Is that something that you started doing when you got more public with your music or was that something that you had to start doing because you realized it would help your music?
Yeah, I really didn't start doing content properly. I started posting covers on YouTube when I was in high school. Um, and I was basically doing that until 2020 and my friend was like, “You need to get on TikTok now.” I was scared of it and she was like, “No, no, you got it. You're good at this kind of thing. You can do it!” so I think that's around the time when everyone started realizing kind of early on this is the next move for artists.
How involved is music in your life?
I would definitely call this my career. I have side jobs as a lot of independent artists do. I think everyone has a side hustle or many, which I do. I also teach songwriting through this non profit in Nashville for middle schoolers, which is so fun. I walk dogs on the side, all kinds of stuff, but I feel like music surrounds everything that I do. And I definitely would say that it is my career, whether I'm working on my own artist project, like this album, or writing for other artists in town, which I do quite frequently as well.
Can I ask for the name of the nonprofit?
Yes, it's called Girls Write Nashville. They're incredible. I also have taught with another music non-profit in town called Yeah Rocks and they do a teen summer camp and they make their own bands. It's so cute. It's so cool
I also saw you are part of the It Gets Better Project. Do you mind just explaining what that is?
Yeah. So I'm an alumni of their Tik Tok creator program.I think it was, maybe two years ago. I have a warped sense of time. Sometime the last few years after I had gotten the hang of TikTok, I found that they were taking applications for this creator partnership – and I recognized It Gets Better from when they first were around in the Tumblr days – but they've expanded their brand and basically they took on me and a bunch of other Tik Tok creators to create content for their page, in partnership, just to target the young adult and youth audience of questioning like “ I'm queer and I need guidance from these older queer adults that are like, ‘Hey, I've been there’”. So that was a really cool thing to do, especially having grown up with that brand. It was really cool to partner with them and be able to make some content together
As far as the Nashville music scene goes, do you think they're pretty receptive to your music? I wanted to ask what kind of venues you normally play.
In the past five years there was always a little tiny pop scene underground, but the pop scene has grown here so much and the indie scene as well. I feel like people think Nashville is just country, and there's definitely country here, but I'm so not in that world. I've played at a couple of cool venues. My first release show here was at The End. It's this divey, like, bar venue. I'm playing my release show next Friday at my favorite lesbian karaoke bar, Lipstick Lounge. It's really cool because they are one of the last standing lesbian bars in the country. There's I think under 30, which is crazy, specifically lesbian bars. They do call themselves “a bar for all humans” which is great. But knowing their roots is just really cool.” I'm about to play there and I'm really excited.
Do you ever notice the same people coming to your shows? What does your audience tend to look like?
Yeah, that's hard because you know, I don't play as many shows as I would like to. I think my biggest love when it comes to making music is definitely in the writing room And then in the recording space. The creation phase is my absolute favorite. But yeah, it's interesting, like, thinking about my audience because so many of them are online and I've never met before and I've never really gone on a proper tour, which is one of my goals for the future. So I think it'd be really cool to go outside of Nashville or, you know, some surrounding cities that I've played and go on that kind of tour.
Do you get to interact with them over social media at all?, Or do you usually get DMs? Do you stalk the comment section?
I do try to kind of be on that base level and engage. I started a discord group because I was like, I actually want a place to actually talk with my fans and not just see them in the comments. For me It's been really cool over the years. When I started this project, this artist project in 2019, I was really, and I'm still, on the ground level, reaching out to independent playlist curators and, you know, trying to get some traction that way. There's even some independent curators that now follow me and I feel like we're friends. So that's something unique about being a small indie artist is you can actually make those connections on the ground level. Hopefully they translate as you continue to grow, but yeah, it's really cool.
You mentioned that the writing room and in the creation phase is more where you thrive. I wanted to ask what the songwriting process is like for you.
Sometimes I'll just be making my coffee and like a lyric or something. So I think it can happen in all different ways. When you bring co-writers into the mix, it just is completely randomized. Who knows what the creative process is going to look like that day. Other times if I'm working with a producer in the room and they have a track, I'll just start singing over the track. But I do think it helps to come in with some kind of clear goal. I think that is kind of a testament to Nashville and Nashville songwriting. Cause it's very storytelling based. I feel a lot of other indie music scenes elsewhere are kind of “more go with the flow” and “let's create” which I love doing that too.
I watched some of the behind the scenes of your music videos, which is also sort of a creative process in itself. You seem to have a very good group of friends or colleagues around that sort of help you out with that. Who's your team that helps you with your career?
My team is my fiancée and friends and they're my support system. I have a friend Levi Gibson. He does, he's done the past three music videos of mine. We're just close friends. And he is a videographer and he was like, I'll make cool shit with you. And I was like, I want to make cool shit with you.I think there's just a notion of everybody wants the song to succeed and we all want each other to succeed. A lot of my co-writers are artists too. So I have my co writers coming over after this, we're going to film some content for each other. It’s all collaborative in that way. This last video that I put out for my single “Intrusive Thoughts”, my friend Levi filmed it and then my fiancée and three of my other best friends were the crew and it was the most fun shoot ever because we were just hanging out and they were throwing dirt and paint at me.
What is the vibe of the Daena brand?
I've just been being my kind of weird quirky self and just having fun. I think that's kind of become my brand. This room is where I do writing and stuff. Is sp colorful, I don't think I could force anything if I tried. I think also online, I definitely lean into some of my geeky or niche interests.I post a lot about Buffy the Vampire Slayer show. And D&D or Baldur's Gate and video games like that. Somebody described my music one time as “quirk pop” and I was like, I love it. But at the same time, I think it's not fully this edgy kind of thing. I'm just going to do me and however that comes out is cool with me. I think that's definitely bled into my brand for sure.
Let's talk about some of your musical influences. Do you have people that you're drawn to that you find any musical inspiration from?
I mean growing up, my biggest influence was Taylor Swift. That's such a generic answer, but she was literally my songwriting idol. It’s interesting because before I moved to Nashville, I thought that that was the only way to be an artist in music; you are a superstar and you write and tour and that's it. Then I moved here and I was like, oh, there's so many ways to be in the music industry, like writing.I had no idea that was a career path. I had no idea people wrote for other artists, you know, and I had no idea what it would be like to be a working independent artist and be in that “DIY” scene, which is awesome.
But yeah, she was definitely my earliest songwriting influence. Um, I would also say definitely influenced by Carole King and Joni Mitchell songwriting wise and storytelling. And then the first sound I got really into was MUNA when I was making my first EP for this project. I'm really into the synth pop thing, but their songwriting and their production, just everything is incredible. I'm big into Chappell Roan right now. I listened to a lot of music. Anything pop, indie pop, alt pop, bedroom pop. And then stuff I grew up on, like Bruce Springsteen.
I want to know what your relationship with D-Pain is and where that name originated from (the name of Daena’s personal alter ego). Your EP “Alter Ego” must have some kind of relationship with her, whoever she is.
The clip I posted on my Instagram, this is maybe the funniest and craziest thing that has ever happened to me. I won this contest through Girl Scouts. I made this Girl Scout cookie rap and they put on their 100th anniversary event in Washington DC. So I won the contest and they literally invited me to perform it in front of 250,000 people. It was absolutely insane. And as funny as that story is, it's just hilarious that first of all, the joke song was what won the contest. But honestly it was also kind of a moment - because I was 17 - where I was like, oh, I could maybe actually do this as my career. I think I can be an artist. I think I can be a musician. It was honestly very affirming for me, but I also do think I peaked.
Do you look back on your alter ego and are you fond of her or do you just cringe?
Oh, she's cringe and I love it. I also think I have no shame. I think that's kind of what Alter Ego is about for me, the song. It’s kind of saying to just embrace every single version of you and you don't need to put this alter ego on to feel like you're cool enough or, uh, whatever enough that you think you need to be because all of those different versions of you are still you and they're in there. So I definitely, I think I own it.
What do you want people to take away from the album as a whole for upon listening to it?
This album kind of walks you through my twenties. I'm about to turn thirty in January, which is crazy, and it's also going to mark, I mean, I've recently passed the ten year mark of being in Nashville and being really serious about music and being an artist. So I think this album walks you through that. And it kind of goes through all of these eras of Daena and all these versions of myself. So I think when people hear the album, I want them to take away that it's okay to embrace every version of yourself. There is no embarrassment. I hate the “glow up.” It's like, no, you are still that little kid. You are. I am the seventeen year old girl, rapping about Girl Scout cookies on stage, because it's all been part of my journey and making you who you are today. I just want people to give themselves grace and be proud where they came from and who they are.
I left this interview feeling more like I had conversed with an old friend as Daena and I not only went through the prepared questions but also shared our mutual interests in video games like Legend of Zelda, The Sims, and Life is Strange (semi off the record). She was truly a delightful person to get to know. I am so pleased to have had the chance to discuss her experience as an independent artist and her various takes on what it means to have a music career in 2024.
Additional Information
Joleen is a Senior English major at the University of Connecticut, currently pursuing the creative writing track. This semester, she is interning with Withitgirl, with a focus on music, art, culture and environment . She enjoys writing poetry and other creative non-fiction stories as well as indulging her artistic side through various crafts, especially collage, which she does both digitally and physically. Outside of her studies and creative pursuits, she has a passion for the culinary arts, particularly baking. She also has a deep appreciation for wildlife and spending time in the woods. She’s recently gotten into yoga and is a mediocre rock climber and bassist.
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