Danah Denice has a lot going on. When you’re in her presence, she’s very friendly, but it doesn’t take long to realize there is a ferocity inside her.
“I went through a lot as a young gal,” says the soon-to-be-29-year-old musician, “and honestly, well into the present day. In early high school, I turned to songwriting to deal with the very large emotions that often accompany challenging experiences. Before I was writing lyrics, I was pouring my heart into classical piano. I’ve always had a level of guardedness about me.
“People look at me and say, ‘Oh, my God, you’re so vulnerable!’ And while that is true to a degree, I still feel as though I’m only giving people a window into 10% of what’s actually going on in my head,” she adds.
I sat down with Danah to talk about her show at Rams Head on Stage in Annapolis on Friday, Jan. 16. It’s her first time headlining at Rams Head, and she’s really looking forward to it.
“This show at Rams Head is obviously a pretty big deal to me in many ways. I consider myself an Annapolis musician, because this has been my musical base for about 10 years already. This is my music community. These are my chosen family. I’m excited to show them that I’m not just a melancholy girl with a guitar, but that I’ve grown into a multi-faceted front-person through lots of hard work and dedication.”
Danah has come a long way in those 10 years, playing solo and with other musicians, including a stint with the band The Dead Pens, before going solo again: culminating in the 2024 release of her debut EP — Light from a Dark Room, which spent many weeks on both the CDX Nashville Americana Music Charts and on the National College Radio Charts.
Those were songs of heartache and pain. I told her that I had relistened to the album the day before and it struck me that all those songs could have taken place in a dark alley — some as confrontations in the alley, some gazing out from an open window above, and some crouched waiting in the shadows at the end of the alley. The songwriting was difficult but therapeutic for her, and she looks at those songs as snapshots of the person she was at the time.
“You end up with a bank. It’s important to afford yourself the moment to write. Because you’re essentially cataloging your emotional experiences as the years pass and, as you continue to grow as a person, you then have this timestamp that you can reflect back on and use as a reference point for how far youíve come,” Danah says.
Watch the official music video for “To Say Goodbye” by Danah Denice on YouTube:
Danah first sang in public at her sixth grade talent show: “My own mom didn’t really know that I sang. So I’d been quietly practicing singing this song, to sing for my entire school. I sang “My Immortal” by Evanescence, which is the saddest song of all time, and I made the whole auditorium cry. My teachers from middle school that still come to see me play, still tell me ‘I will never forget you playing that song!’ That was the day I first made a room cry. Not much has changed, except that I get to do it for a living!”
Danah has impressive plans for her future, citing musical icons such as Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Alanis Morissette, and Sinead O’Connor as examples of the future she strives for.
“I think that showing up to music authentically is what makes someone a timeless artist. I just want my next record to be a better reflection of where I am, without any frills. I feel clear about my songwriting and where I want it to come from. Sonically, I do have an idea of where I would like to go. Those artists I cited weren’t hiding behind big production or anything. They were just fucking singing their truths,” Danah says.
“The production on my last album, it was big. It’s kind of what you do, and you have all the bells and whistles in the studio. But in hindsight, I feel like I wasn’t showing up to make music from a place that was just ‘for me.’ Presently, I’m the most authentic version of myself that I’ve ever been and I want to create an album that really reflects that. I want my next record to be a hell of a lot more personal, which sounds silly, because that first record is quite personal — but it was personal in a different way. I wrote from a place of conversation with others. With this next record, I want it to come from a place of conversation with myself. I don’t want to be afraid to do what I want instrumentally, either, because I’m nervous about being marketable enough for radio play. Light From a Dark Room experienced a significant amount of time on the airwaves, and while I’m grateful for the spins, there’s more to music than appeasing the masses.”
Danah adds, “I’m really drawn to artists that seem to be quite unapologetic in the way in which they show up to not just their music, but their lives. I believe that the ways that we nurture (or neglect) our creative practices, bleed into how we live our lives. Sinead O’Connor was an amazing artist who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. Dolores O’Riordan, from The Cranberries, another unique and badass talent.
“All the things that these people have in common was that they just were themselves. Jeff Buckley is my biggest songwriting hero of all time. And that’s a motherfucker that went for tons of shit that didn’t land. I was just listening to his Live at Sin-È album today and some of his shit on there is ridiculous, but he didn’t care. He went for it, for his own enjoyment and his own gratification. And that is it, man. I want that for all my albums moving forward. You know, that’s what I want for my life in general.”
***
Danah Denice performs at Rams Head On Stage on Friday, Jan. 16.
Danah Denice Band
W/ Burnsie
Rams Head On Stage
Friday, Jan. 16
Doors @ 7pm
$28-$42
All ages
