Trell Daray
I recently interviewed Trell Daray as part of the Amused Now Featured Artist Series, so I was very excited when Khymberlee Carlyle announced that Trell won for Best Pop Artist at the 2014 Indie Music Awards. Did Amused Now give Trell the bump he needed to win? Hope so! Trell describes these last couple of months as “nothing short of a blessing. I’m very grateful.”
Trell Daray has been working with Khymberlee Carlyle and Lipstick Radio since 2012. “She’s been spinning my records Secret Crush and Night Owl on the radio for two years now. They’ve been playing in Los Angeles and New York. We’ve had a great relationship.”
This year’s Indie Music Awards winners were selected by their fans. Trell Daray used quite a creative method to get his fans to vote: “I was at a performance and, while I was at the performance, I made everybody take out their cell phones and I made them vote for me right then and there.”
Trell told them, “You guys have to vote for me. I have to win this. I need this award. It was beautiful.” What a great outpouring of affection.
Trell Daray connects with his fans over all social media outlets: Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. He also has an MTV Artist page as well. “I try my best to keep it current, keep it fresh and keep it tasteful and classy, so I can get to the right people, demographics and my true fans. Whenever they talk to me, I talk back to them. We keep it like a bond. They are truly, truly special to me.”
Trell does his own social media, which is rare these days for many recording artists. “It’s a lot of work, but I love it. I love my fans and they support me. It’s fun.”
Trell Daray has been an indie recording artist for two years. “Previously, I was working with labels in New York and Atlanta. It just never worked out. It was difficult, because I had a vision and I knew the vision I had was given to me from a higher power. I didn’t want to sway into something that wasn’t me. A lot of things they presented to me, I didn’t want to do, because of my morals and my upbringing.”
After parting ways with his last label, he told his head of operations, “I want to do this independently from now on, because no one knows me better than me. No one gets me better than me.” Also, Trell does not want to focus on money has his targeted goal. “It makes you do things that you don’t want to do. That’s why I’m indie and I love it!”
As he also mentioned in our Featured Artist interview, “I love being true to the art. Being anything else is just not right, because you’re not really fulfilling your purpose. You are not true to who you are as a person.”
Trell Daray has been training in music since he was very young. It started in church. “I started singing in the church as a young boy, my dad’s church. From my early upbringing, my training came from the pianist. I also had a teacher named Ms. Jackson, who had music classes in elementary school. She taught us about tempo, time signatures and how to locate the notes on a scale and the piano.”
“In junior high and high school, my teacher, Mr. Watson, he trained me like I was training for the Olympics. He taught me the art of music. Music is more than just singing or playing an instrument. You have to become it. You are the main instrument.” Trell competed in many competitions and rallies.
This prepared Trell for the next phase of his life when he attended The American Musical and Dramatic Academy (AMDA) in New York City. “I was singing and dancing and acting every single day of my life for three years. It was a lot of work. The teachers there did not care how you felt. No excuses were allowed whatsoever. I can recall going to school with the flu (almost). I just wanted to sleep, but I had to go to school and present my final piece, my showcase. The dedication made me advance, conquer everything.” Now, Trell Daray happily and independently performs at a professional level.
Trell’s first inspiration was his older sister, who is a gospel singer. “She has a beautiful voice. I would listen to her sing around the house and I would think: Man, I want to sing like that! Listening to her made me want to get better.”
Growing up, Trell listened to his father’s Motown recordings. “My father would play a lot of The Temptations, The Supremes, Bobby Womack and Smokey Robinson. A lot of them influenced my vocals today.”
Trell’s first professional inspiration was Aliyah. “Her voice was like an angel. She was so pure and she was so honest with her music. She was really what I would call a true artist. She loved what she did. Her ability to grasp, to take a song and make it into something not of this world, was just angelic to me. I wanted to aspire to be in that type of position, where I can be true to the art.”
When it comes to collaborating with other artists, Trell looks for originality. “I don’t want to be on a project with another artist just to get a buzz. It’s just not true. I’m all about truth. If you’re not true to the art, I can tell. I collaborate more with producers and songwriters, because they bring out an element in me that I don’t know I have.”
What’s up next for Trell Daray now that the awards show is over? “The awards show has been a great thing in my life. Khymberlee is such a beautiful soul. She’s opened a lot of doors for indie artists. I have magazine interviews, radio interviews and interviews with beautiful souls like you (I’m blushing). I’m currently recording a new project that I’ll be ready to release, hopefully, by October.”
“Like I told Khymberlee, the awards show was a beautiful beginning. What God has for her as a result is beyond her wildest imagination, because she’s doing it from a place of love and a place of truth. You can never go wrong with being a good person.”
Truth!
Watch the complete video interview with Trell Daray on the Amused Now YouTube channel: http://youtu.be/cWF-qv8MTvo
To learn more about Trell Daray, read our Featured Artist post: https://amusednow.com/blog/trell-daray-target-truth/
Watch our original Featured Artist interview on the Amused Now YouTube Channel: http://youtu.be/tH3Y9sVrZyg
2014 Indie Music Awards Winners Series
Trell Daray
MTV artist page: http://www.mtv.com/artists/trell-daray/
http://www.trelldaray.com/
@TrellDarayMusic
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Cynthia Kahn, Founder of Amused Now
@Amused_Now
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If you missed the awards show, you can watch the 2014 Indie Music Awards Show anytime on the Amused Now YouTube Channel: http://youtu.be/bC1eXdqoaZA
Read about the 2014 Indie Music Awards Show on Amused Now: https://amusednow.com/blog/2014-indie-music-awards/
Read the Khymberlee Carlyle’s back story behind the 2014 Indie Music Awards show:
https://amusednow.com/blog/khymberlee-carlyle-2014-indie-music-awards/