Conversations with Dea Galore

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dea Galore.

Hi Dea, 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 grew up around music and in music. My parents played a lot of gospel and my dad played a lot of others genres such as classic soul, R&B , yacht rock with a tad bit of jazz sprinkled in there. For example we grew up listening to 94.7 the Wave which was like a so-cal station that played a mix of a lot of these genres. I was very influenced by my Dad music wise. My Dad would have me listen to songs and pick out the harmonies. My dad was also a writer and a songwriter and while working his day job he wrote some songs for Daryl Coley. I have memories of my Dad playing songs for us that he would be working on. I can definitely say the passion for music was instilled in me.

I’ve just always been obsessed with music. I always just soaked music up, sought it out in any form and drank it in any way I could. I loved musicals and I had some strong eras of going to the library and renting a bunch of classic musicals to watch. Before streaming I would do things like spend hours in Barnes n Noble scanning CD’s to listen to new-to-me music. If I heard a cool song in the grocery store I would write the lyrics down and google them when I got home. I’m sorry but I also downloaded music on lime-wire back in the day (I was music obsessed too young to get a job to buy my own CD’s! Haha). That’s how I got into so much more music discovery and more jazz. Am I a music nerd? Yes.

I grew up singing as much as possible . I started singing at church in the children’s choir. I was in the district wide school choir in elementary school and in middle school and high school I was in show choirs where I really got immersed in a lot of show tunes and musical theater. I sang on the workshop team at church in middle school and high school. After high school I majored in music at Cypress college where I got to study jazz a little deeper on my own and in school. I transferred to the New School for Jazz and Contemporary music as a jazz voice and was a student there for a year.

I remember writing songs as a child and always keeping journals with ideas and thoughts. The first music I really made was when I was in college and I got my first MacBook. It was created on garage band because that’s what I had, but I had a great time just expressing myself and playing with harmonies and ideas and lots of acapella harmonies and sooo many feelings.

I spent a lot of time at jam sessions, live music events and open mics in LA and Long Beach such as Bananas in Leimert Park, Tha Juice Joint in Hollywood, Unplugged, and Fight Club in Long Beach and I met some amazing beautiful artists, singers and friends over the years. That kind of leads up to the most recent project “The Flow” EP which is a collaboration with The Melodiks and produced by Mrcl. I met Mrcl back in around 2018 from a local Long Beach show called Moon Rising at Que Sera where we incidentally used his studio for our rehearsal. We ended up later collaborating on a song called “Million Waters” from one of my old acapella projects called “Involuntary Island”. He used what I had and put an 808 and music to it. That was the 1st time we collaborated. During Covid everyone was making so much music (because what else were they gonna do?) and Mrcl was inviting people to Tay aka Crommatic’s studio to vibe and cook up. Before the name the Melodiks, we were all just making music because it felt good and we had synergy. The 1st night we all made music together (Mrcl, Josh Rose aka Bass God, Miguel Angel, and Oliver aka King Oliver) we legit made like 3-5 songs that night. After that 1st session we just kept meeting up and making music. Thinking of that time warms my heart. It was a beautiful, creative time. Our personalities and musicalities mixed really well. We were just making music for making good music’s sake and because it was fun and from some of those sessions came “The Flow” EP which is my most recent release.

I’m currently working on new music to be released at the beginning of next year and on the hunt for artist grants and funding to make the whole experience come alive.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The first challenge I can think of is working day jobs and balancing work play and rest to try to be an effective artist. For me personally, there have been seasons where my creativity has taken a hit because of working multiple jobs at a time, while being a student (I went to school for Psychology after stopping music school). Creativity and music are like a child I’m always responsible for and instinctually want to nurture, and it’s always in the back of my mind even while I’m doing something else.
Sometimes it’s also a challenge having my main instrument in my body. I’m sure many singers would agree with me when I say it requires staying on top of your rest, your diet, your physical health, mental health and spiritual health. You can hear and feel everything in the voice. It’s so beautiful yet so vulnerable. The human voice is so amazing because it’s so emotive and specific and at the same time. It’s a devise comes so many layers of care and responsibility.
It takes vulnerability to keep your heart open. Sometimes it can be a challenge not knowing when the next audition or gig will be. There are always ebbs and flows. During the ebbs sometimes it can be easy to get mental with it and go into internal loops that can get me stuck. I always have to have something creative I’m working on or dreaming up and looking forward to, keep my heart connected to the art form, and live IN it and not just in my head.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I would say my music is soul music. I also really love creating worlds. The type of music I love is music that creates a world the listener can escape into and that’s what I try to capture. I always gravitate to music that creates a sensory world. It’s like you create a world and the listener creates their own worlds in the world you created. It becomes an internal place. That’s so interesting to me.
I love things that feel natural and organic in sound and texture and I try to create from that center.

We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I’m not sure how surprising it would be to people, but I’m currently in school to become a music therapist.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.deagaloremusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dea_galore
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dee_flow?utm_source=mobi&utm_campaign=social_sharing&utm_terms=mobi_display_ads_experiment_v3.variant_1
• Other: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/deagaloreandthemelodiks/the-flow

Image Credits
Photo 2 &3:Taylor Washington Photo 4: Alexxis Todd