ARTIST SPOTLIGHT ~ AILA FAY

Aila Fay, I'm Music Magazine, Artist Spotlight, Vufcup, Diggy Kat, 3..2..1..Bam!, Nope, Ariel Carreno

Artist Spotlight is a segment that we started to introduce our listeners to some deserving up and coming artists/bands. They have made an impact on us for all of the right reasons. We think they kick ass and we hope you do too! Today we’d like to shine the spotlight on indie artist Aila Fay.

Aila Fay is a singer-songwriter hailing from Southern California who believes that personal transformation and the alchemic power of music go hand in hand. Her goal is to inspire people to believe in themselves and the untapped power we all hold within.

We sat down with Aila Fay for a short, but fun and interesting Q&A!

Tell us the origin of how you got into music?

I’ve been interested in music for as long as I could make sound – I started singing in church and recreationally when I was a child and at the age of 10 my grandpa gave me an old classical acoustic guitar. He showed me two basic chords and sent me on my way. I absolutely loved learning to play chords and mess around with ultimate-guitar.com, spending every minute in my bedroom playing and singing. I joined the choir at school and learned the basics of more trained singing and continued to study singing and music intermittently in various schools, finally graduating with an AA in vocal performance from Antelope Valley College where I really developed my classical voice. I’d been songwriting since the age of thirteen and somewhere along the line met Diggy Kat of Vufcup, who helped encourage me to follow my musical path and to create more original content! I became a member of an online group of streaming singer-songwriters called the Stream Team and dove headfirst into independent music creation. It feels so cool to be doing this into my adult life as I had written my first lyrical song at the age of 13 and am now on track to keep creating and learn from some of the greats at the Los Angeles Music Industry Summer Academy this July.

What are you currently working on?

I recently released “3..2..1..BAM!”, a cover of Vufcup’s original, unreleased song; I also released one of my own originals, “Nope” within the last three months. You can find these anywhere you stream music! I’m the kind of person that likes to have a lot of pots on the fire, so to speak. Besides teaching full-time at my local music store, I’ve just finished recording a song that I co-wrote with my kind and incredibly talented friend Ariel Carreño, which will be on their upcoming album to be released around August this year. On that album, you will also hear me playing glockenspiel and sometimes providing background vocals. I am currently working on my next EP which will consist of three more songs with a completely different vibe than I’ve released so far. I’m really excited to welcome my good friends Kayla Ludy and Lucky Lamond singing background vocals and Sandy Acevedo playing violin. As usual, I’ll be doing a lot of the instrumentation and anything beyond my current abilities will be played by the incomparable multi-instrumentalist and mastermind, Diggy Kat. My plan is to release my songs in three-song chunks, so follow me on all of the socials so you can be notified whenever I release new music!

If you have any tattoos, what was your very first one and does it have any meaning behind it?

My first tattoo was supposed to be about the size of a quarter, but I walked out of the studio with an index card-sized bee on my kneecap! I was all of 19 years old when I got it done and very into puns at the time. I stand by that first tattoo, whose only meaning was to permanently delegate me “the Bee’s Knees”.

What are your 5 favorite albums?

This was honestly such a hard question to answer because I am such an album girl. I love hearing the big picture of what the artists have constructed intentionally for their audience and I love doing deep-dives into artist discographies. I had to narrow my list down by a lot, so I hope it’s okay that I mention a couple of runner-ups as well.

My five favorite albums, in no particular order, are Homesick by A Day to Remember, Folie à Deux by Fall Out Boy, Joanne by Lady Gaga, The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance, and Norman Fucking Rockwell! by Lana del Rey. A couple of runner-ups include Fall Out Boy’s From Under the Cork Tree, Horrorbilly 9000 by the Matadors, and Back to Black by Amy Winehouse!