Today we’d like to introduce you to Britt Daley.
Hi Britt, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I’m originally from Florida; born and raised just outside Orlando. I began playing piano at the-age-of five, but I was always singing. I performed professionally with the Orlando Opera Youth Company and when the Broadway tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat had a two-week run in town, I was cast as a “blue” member of the Children’s Chorus. That’s when I fell in love with music and all-things musical theater. At age twelve, my dream was to become a “Broadway Baby” (as in Broadway New York).
I attended the University of Miami Frost School of Music Musical Theatre conservatory program to pursue my Broadway dreams and also a Bachelor of Music. It was during these undergraduate years the “songwriter bug” bit me.
By the end of my junior year, I had decided that pounding the pavement in NYC for a gig in the chorus line wasn’t for me. I wanted to write music for myself as a singer/songwriter. At the time, I was dating a Ph.D. candidate in applied mathematics and I wasn’t ready to leave academia so I applied to the Masters of Music Business program. I figured it would afford me additional time to figure things out but also educate me on the business side of music.
During my second semester of graduate school, I was married, not to the Ph.D. candidate, but to an English fellow I met through my family. It was both a rushed and short-lived marriage, and although I managed to finish grad school, I had abandoned my dreams of being a professional singer/songwriter.
After the divorce, I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I threw myself back into songwriting. I eventually found a producer, then a band, and within a year, I was booking local gigs around Orlando. In just two years, I had my first commercial cut writing a song for American actress, model, singer, and media personality, Carmen Electra.
That same year, I met my current husband, Nick James. He was a resident DJ at a club night known as “Filthy Richard Party” in Ybor City, FL, and the Director of Marketing and Distribution for Promo Only, Inc., one of the largest distributors of promotional music and music video throughout the US, UK, and Canada. We met in South Beach during Miami Music Week. He was there on Promo Only business, and I was networking as an independent artist. We hit it off and kept in touch but our relationship didn’t move beyond friends until months later. That summer, I was hired by the Promo Only IT director (unbeknownst to Nick) as a multimedia designer. I had been barely scraping by as an indie artist, so taking on this full-time job within the industry was a great way to subsidize my singer/songwriter ambitions, pay my bills, and help me make additional connections. I had no idea I’d be landing myself a husband!
Over the next several years, I opened for acts such as Tegan and Sarah, Shiny Toy Guns, DALEY, VHS or Beta, Cherub, YACHT, and Kevin Barnes (Of Montreal). I also began cutting vocals for multiple dance music producers, including DJ/Producer, Morgan Page. In the spring of 2016, I had my first Mediabase Dance Radio Airplay #1, “Running Wild” with Morgan Page and The Oddictions, which I co-wrote and sang. I continued writing and recording indie electronic pop for my solo project, but I had now found another niche as a top-line writer working with electronic dance music (EDM) producers.
Nick and I tied the knot in 2014 in White Bluff, TN, at his aunt and uncle’s estate. And in the fall of 2017, we sold just about everything we owned to move to Franklin, TN. Nick was born in Nashville, and we had the opportunity to move into a family-owned home while we figured out if Nashville was going to be right for us. We absolutely loved it here and when the opportunity was presented towards the end of 2020 to buy the home from the estate, we jumped at it. We fell in love with our Grassland Village community. Our neighbors, one of the main reasons we chose to stay, are some of the most wonderful, kind, and generous people we’ve ever met.
We didn’t move to Nashville so I could further pursue my music career, but I am so glad we ended up here. Nashville has been such a warm and welcoming place for songwriters. I credit joining Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI) for helping me make so many connections early on. I will continue to pursue and navigate this aspect of my life, and I can honestly say there’s not a better town to be in but Music City.
This last fall, I started a new business venture with one of my amazing neighbor friends. Road & Court: Custom Curiosities is a joint venture between myself and Stephanie Richardson. We take elevated entertaining and thoughtful gift-giving to new heights. It has been a really neat extension of myself as a creator and an artist – and I love the reactions we’ve received from our clients in response to the personalized touches we put into our one-of-a-kind products.
So that’s me in a nutshell. I’m a pop-dance Singer/Songwriter, cat mommy to two beautiful fur babies, who daylights as the Creative Director for a music promotion company and slings hand-crafted, unique, custom gifts for my other side hustle. I also love up-cycling and refinishing old furniture (a skill I picked up during the pandemic).
On March 31st, my song “Used To This” with producer Jeff Retro (resident DJ for Hakkasan Nightclub Las Vegas) will be released. We wrote it during the pandemic when I was itching to travel just about anywhere. It’s a fun song about being in vacation mode.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Overall, I’d have to say things have been relatively smooth. I’ve certainly had personal ups and downs – highs and lows and some challenges, a failed marriage for one, but without that failure, I never would have met my husband and best friend, Nick. He’s the real deal.
From a professional standpoint, constant rejection can certainly get to you. Sometimes it can be a bit paralyzing in that it can knock the wind out of you creatively speaking. Often, it’s not the simple rejection that gets me down but the empty promises that can be quite discouraging. I’ve gotten so worked up over a deal that never pans out or deals that go through but the releases flop. You can’t really blame anyone for that. Timing maybe, maybe the label could have done more, or I could have done more, but should’ve would’ve could’ve is a waste of time.
A few years back I created indie-pop duo, C.C.Vísí, with co-writer and producer, Christian Walker. We were just starting to get our feet wet in the local scene playing various writers’ rounds. We even performed on WSM Radio’s Nashville Today as the NSAI Official Spotlight in November of 2019, but the pandemic pretty much put the brakes on any momentum we had. Despite releasing a few singles in the summer/fall of 2020 in the hopes things might turn around, we decided to put the project on hold indefinitely. It was definitely an artistic blow, but sometimes things just don’t work out. What we created was really special and maybe one day we will revisit the project.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a professional Singer/Songwriter, Top-liner, Recording Artist, and Vocal Arranger. I’ve had Billboard charting cuts with Grammy nominated producers Morgan Page and Bill Hamel, Jayceeoh, and The Oddictions, including Morgan Page’s #1 Mediabase Dance Radio-Airplay single, “Running Wild”. My songs have been featured on MTV, The Wendy Williams Show, NBC’s TODAY, FOX, Freeform, and Nike Training Club. I specialize in Pop + Dance/EDM vocals.
I’m proud of my work on “Running Wild” with Morgan Page and The Oddictions as the featured vocalist and top-line writer, but I’m particularly proud of my 2017 debut studio album, Daydreams & Movie Scenes. It was a labor of love between myself and producer Kinsey Dulcet. As a concept piece, I believe it is some of my best work lyrically, melodically, and sonically. My single “Make It Right” landed at #25 on Spotify’s Global Viral 50 and United States Viral 50 Charts without a single marketing dollar behind it. The stars aligned on that release when it was added to a Spotify editorial playlist and took on a life of its own from there. I wish I could thank whoever was responsible in person.
As a creator, I’m definitely a D.I.Y.er. Part of what sets me apart from others in my field is that I create nearly all of my release artwork, lyric videos, visual concepts, etc… I also record and produce my vocals and arrangements. I love collaborating with other creators but I’ve always felt like if I can learn a new skill and not have to rely on an outside source, I’ll jump right in… it’s an especially good attitude to have when you’re working off a super tight budget!
What would you say has been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
1) It’s not the goal or destination, it’s always the journey… the journey, the come-up is the best part, because once you reach the top… you’re like, “ok – what’s next?” I know it sounds utterly cliche, but it’s true, the most fun I ever had was before I had any real “success” – and I put that in quotes because success is such a personal subjective concept. So enjoy every bit of the journey.
2) It’s not “if” you’ll get screwed in this business, it’s “how badly” (a bit cynical, I know, but I’ve found it to be true). Having a good attorney helps.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://brittdaley.
com - Instagram: http://instagram.
com/thebrittdaley - Facebook: https://www.
facebook.com/TheBrittDaley - Twitter: https://twitter.com/
TheBrittDaley - Youtube: http://www.youtube.
com/user/brittdaleyofficial - Spotify: https://open.spotify.
com/artist/ 4HugcRpMf7KcjdRNVUsgSw
Image Credits
Marc Harmon, Nolan Gray Wiley, and Matt Jylha
