Up and coming Boston pop singer Casey Desmond recently returned from Los Angeles where she auditioned for an NBC TV show called The Voice that will air April 26th. Desmond couldn’t say any more about the TV show.
Desmond jumped into the music scene six years ago in 2005, after growing up in a musical family in Boston. Her supportive parents were in the theater rock band The Bentmen, and her father owns the Sound Museum rehearsal spaces in Brighton.
“I don’t really have any background and musical training,” Desmond said. “I was brought up around the local rock scene. My parents were both in bands, so I definitely watched them when I was younger, and I played with the keyboards.”
Today, Desmond pursues music full time. “I didn’t stray too far from the farm,” she said. Outside the family, Desmond grew up idolizing the likes of Peter Gabriel, David Bowie, Cyndi Lauper, and Blondie. “I just really loved those kooky, awesome, unique people. I was also into strange stuff that my parents had or that I heard when I was growing up around so many musicians around the Sound Museums.
Desmond was influenced by those quirky artists because they remained unique and uncompromising. “The most inspiring part is, I don’t feel like I’m like everybody else. I kind of a weirdo. They definitely make me feel like I can make it as somebody who isn’t packaged like everybody else.”
Yet, Desmond, as can be determined by listening to her, doesn’t copycat any of her favorites. She has forged her own sound. She is a do it yourself composer equipped with her own studio supplied with weird instruments and synthesizers. “I spend a lot of time experimenting and producing my own materials,” she said. “I get to be an individual because I get to make my own sounds.”
Musical gadgets from the 1980s abound in her work and she doesn’t really have a “go to instrument” and she loves to write pop music. “I don’t think pop music needs to confined to what’s mainstream and what is current sounding. I think people should experiment more and have more pop.”
Desmond has been labeled “alternative pop” but she says her music is only pop on the writing side but that she is also a producer, and her production techniques vary and allow her to mover her sound in many directions. Her song “Tilt Me Back” features according and other lush instrumentation. Desmond wrote the tracks on a synthesizer so even though it sounds organic, there are actually a lot of crazy sounds in it. “I would say I’m pop electro pop-dance,” she said.
“Tilt Me Back” has a really smooth line bass line, courtesy of renowned bass player Tony Levin. She also composes music for Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions, a job she picked up through her work with Studio 51. If she seems well connected for a 24 year old, it is because she grew up in the music business and she knows how to network. Casey firmly stated that she is responsible for her own success, not riding on her parents’ coattails.
“I didn’t just come out of my mom and the next day become a pop star. I had to pay my dues like everybody else,” Casey said. “I had to do it underneath the Bentmen’s shadow. Which when I was young, sucked. A lot of people would give me crap for that in the beginning. They were like, ‘You’re just the daughter of the Bentmen so that’s the reason why you’re famous’ and that’s not true at all. I had to pay my dues.”
Desmond’s song “Meaningless” from her first CD is sung with a silky smooth, self-control, and perfect pitch that singers wish they could have been born with.
“It just came with me. It’s just something I can do, I guess,” she said, embarrassed at being complimented. “I probably had two or three voice lessons in my life. I think it would be fun to meet with vocal coaches at some point. But I didn’t go through any classical training. I can’t read music. I just pick up things. I’m not a master guitarist or a master synth player or pianist. But I can play all sorts of things. I’m a jack of all trades, but I’m not a superhero synth player or superhero soloist.”
One of Desmond’s favorite instruments is the electric harp or Omnichord. The Omichord was a gift from another recording artist. She immediately fell in love with it and started writing with it.
“It’s pretty simple,” Desmond said. “It sounds really sweet, though. You have to find ways to make it work with your music for your sound. I run my Omnichord through a delay and it’s the prettiest sound in the world. Even if the song isn’t completely based off of it, it’s in almost every one of my songs.”
Desmond once released a song called “Loose Ends” that had a danceable pop beat that could’ve become a hit single. Desmond got the inspiration for the song from someone she was seeing who was keeping a lot of secrets from her. When she confronted him about his secrets, he practically fed her the lyrics by saying he had some “loose ends.” The video for “Loose Ends” actually finds Desmond wearing different outfits because it is several videos spliced together. The montage celebrates her many different self-made outfits. Fashion design is another of Desmond’s side jobs.
“I like to present myself in an outfit I made for the stage,” she said. “I usually use unique vintage looking fabrics. I’ll take an old dress that’s like four times too big for me and I’ll use extra fabrics to make something that’s perfectly my size. I’m like a space and science fiction dork. I really like the idea of being a space warrior. I like shiny, electric looking outfits. That plays a huge part. I like color and psychedelic looking things. My outfits are outrageous but at the same time I think they fix the music style.”
Bright spandex pants and or bodysuits bright enough to blind are par for the course in Desmond’s wardrobe. “I love colors. I love tight spandex and shiny fabrics. I like the way it looks on the human body. They feel really comfortable and I wear black spandex almost everyday. I’m a huge 80s fan.”
Desmond has been around the music business since childhood. She seems unfazed by big names. She has been co-writing with Nashville songwriter Robert Ellis Oral, and she co-writes with producer Chris “Deep” Henderson. Henderson produces tracks, sends them to Desmond, and she writes on them.” Desmond met both at an ASCAP headquarters in Los Angeles.
Desmond has her own studio, OHDEERGOD Studios, and she works in Taylor Barefoot Productions which is located in the Sound Museum in Brighton. Taylor Barefoot is a musician/producer who has been working with Desmond for seven years, starting out as her engineer and is now her guitarist in her band. Barefoot also co-produces her CDs. She now no longer uses multiple musicians on her CD as she and Taylor Barefoot do it all themselves. She describes Taylor Barefoot as her “best friend in the world and my homey” but she is engaged to another person.
When Desmond’s appearance on The Voice airs on April 26th on NBC, she will simultaneously release newer material, two remixes, two singles, and a music video. Desmond will make available a free download for one of her songs.
One of the new songs was co-written with Robert Ellis Oral. Titled “Talking To God,” Desmond describes it as “retro” with “old dance sounds” and with “old synth sounds” and “old disco beats” but “still very current, a mainstream pop dance song.”
The releases will be marked by the usual colorful faire associated with Desmond. Desmond and her sister were the story writers and the art directors for the video that will accompany the songs. Desmond also made all of the costumes she’ll be wearing in the video and all of the backdrops.
“I can’t wait to debut that,” she said. “We’re going to do that right before the show goes on. There will be the songs available for download. The remix will be available for download for free.”
As good at marketing herself as she is musically talented, Desmond has her whole life in front of her. The world will have to wait and see what she makes of herself.
Post Production and Mixing at Studio Bopnique by Karyadi Sutedja and Anthony J. Resta