(Photograph: Acacia Evans)
Nashville artist Dana Rogers goes by the stage title “daena” – and her debut album Alter Ego feels destined to make quite a lot of “Better of 2024” lists.
The brand new album is a showcase not only for daena’s very good songwriting however for her extremely versatile voice as nicely. It’s onerous to convey tenderness, however daena is a grasp at it. Songs like “Fortunate Quantity” and “Bri” are intimate and touching.
But the album has loads of uptempo delights, too – just like the album’s title track that has a Sabrina Carpenter-style Massive Refrain.
We spoke with daena concerning the new album and her plans to market it:
“Fortunate Quantity” is SO stunning and feels like a success to my ears. What’s the backstory on this nice track?
Thanks a lot! This one is certainly some of the particular on the album to me. My fiancée and I are getting married in April, and by the point we do, we’ll have been collectively for 10 years. However, after I wrote this track we have been about to hit our 7-year relationship anniversary. Nearly in a single day, I felt a shift and realized that not solely did I wish to spend the remainder of my life along with her, however I used to be truly prepared to get engaged and begin the following chapter of our life collectively.
I wished to write down about how the perfect love doesn’t must be grandiose or over-the-top to be stunning. And that secure, comfy love can preserve getting higher and higher 12 months after 12 months. I got here to my co-writer Kate Yeager with the thought, and after speaking each about my future in-laws’ love of playing (LOL) and the tender and candy manner we love our respective companions day-to-day, we discovered our method to “Fortunate Quantity”.
“Bri” can be a really particular track. What led to you writing that one?
This was a troublesome one to write down. I wrote it as an apology to my childhood greatest buddy, Bri, at a time after I felt like I hadn’t been pretty much as good a buddy as I ought to have been to her. I feel it’s onerous for anybody to confess one thing like that, and it truly took me just a few years to write down. There’s an early model of the track from round 2018 that I then dropped at my co-writer Kären McCormick in 2022, and she or he helped me form it into what you hear on the file. And sure – Bri and I are STILL greatest associates! I’ve by no means as soon as fearful that we wouldn’t be. I feel it’s only a testomony to how robust our friendship and belief with one another is, and I’m so fortunate that she gave me her blessing to launch this one.
Will you be doing any reveals this fall to advertise the brand new album?
I simply had my album launch present final Friday at The Lipstick Lounge in Nashville, which was an absolute blast! I’m nonetheless driving the excessive and must say I’m form of itching to plan some extra now… so preserve your eyes peeled on my social media for any new dates being introduced.