Delacey
Artist/Songwriter
You know the one friend who shares the intimate details of her life without fear to the point it actually encourages you to do the same? That’s Delacey. With soulfully smoky delivery and a razor-sharp pen, she’ll dish on her insecurities, anxieties, thoughts, desires, and dreams, holding nothing back. It’s why she’s emerged as a chart-topping songwriter behind-the-scenes and as a relatable, raw, and real solo artist in the spotlight. It’s also why her second full-length offering and debut LP for Photo Finish Records, The Girl Has A Dream, cuts right to the core.
“I know it sounds simple, but I’m not trying to be anything but myself,” she exclaims. “At some point along the way, I learned to truly not care what other people think of me, and that feels like my superpower.”
She has inched towards realizing this sound since her childhood in Orange County, CA. Growing up in an Italian family, dad played drums and boasted “the most iconic record collection ever.” From a young age, she listened to the likes of Billie Holiday, Fleetwood Mac, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Cash, AC/DC, and more exclusively on vinyl. “All my friends had CD players, but I had a record player and was such a snob about it,” she laughs. “I was obsessed with expressing myself through art.”
She spent countless hours writing poems, musicals, plays, and scripts of her own. In addition, she penned songs on the piano from the age of five throughout high school. At 18-years-old, she spent six months in New York before settling back home. Her experience in the Big Apple informed her first major placement—the gold-certified “New York City” for The Chainsmokers. Among many highlights, her songwriting catalog eventually expanded to include the platinum-certified “Boyfriend” for Dove Cameron, gold-certified “Ruin My Life” for Zara Larsson, and the diamond-certified Billboard Hot 100 mega-smash “Without Me” for Halsey. Along the way, she introduced her artistry with the 2020 full-length, Black Coffee. “Cruel Intentions” reeled in 34.2 million Spotify streams as “The Subway Song” followed with 24.2 million Spotify streams. Meanwhile, she garnered acclaim from American Songwriter, Billboard, and Refinery29, to name a few. She continued to write and record solo material with ambition for her personal material to be heard on the largest stage.
Staring down the chaos of the global pandemic, wrestling with the awkwardness of ZOOM sessions, parting ways with a prior label, and facing personal and professional ups and downs, she opted to decamp to a remote cabin for the initial sessions for The Girl Has A Dream. Joined by frequent collaborator, creative confidant, and co-producer Ido Zmishlany [Justin Bieber, The Kid LAROI, Camila Cabello], she built the foundation for what would become The Girl Has a Dream. A whole road trip away from the noise of the city, they mic’ed up the cabin and even rented a grand piano. The only guest would be a particularly curious local…
“We had a black bear sitting on our back porch staring at us the whole time we were making the music,” she laughs. “We had our own lake, and we were totally isolated. We started a lot of music there. Then, my plan hit some snags. Between the pandemic, family issues, and trouble with mental health, I was paralyzed by my emotions for a while, and it was hard to write. I didn’t make music for a bit, but it’s the only way I know how to function in my life, so I started to get back to writing.”
Building out those ideas from the cabin, the songs crystallized under her care over the next year. As the vision became clear, she reconnected with her essence.
“The main theme was trying to get back in touch with the little girl in me who was a dreamer,” she notes. “I was trying to fall in love with music again. There are two halves to the album. Some of it feels like the dreamer, and some of it is giving up on the dream. One half is healing from trauma, and the other half is my darkest season. It feels like my own sort of coming-of-age story.”
She introduces this chapter with “Man On The Moon.” Glassy piano echoes beneath a lush vocal performance. It hinges on a clever confession, “They can put a man on the moon, and I can’t figure out a man like you.”
“‘Man On The Moon’ is about feeling helpless when someone you love is hurting and not letting you in,” she comments. “It’s about struggling with the vast distance we can feel in relationships that should be our most intimate. Sonically and visually, it’s a good palette started for everyone to understand where I’m planning on taking them with this album. I really prioritized making a world for this whole body of work.”
On “One Mississippi,” Delacey’s intonation barely cracks a whisper over waves of lithe synths as she repeats an intoxicating mantra-like refrain, “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, I keep count. It keeps me busy. You’re not with me. I’m so tipsy. Swear to God that you still miss me back.”
“It specifically recalls when my fiancé and I were forced to be apart,” she says. “He’s an artist and a writer, and he needed to work on his album. I was working on my music. We were feeling super disconnected from each other. I was disassociating from myself, disconnecting from my significant other, and losing my mind. I was wondering if my friendships or relationships would make it out of this haze.”
Elsewhere, her vocals dip in and out of a glassy beat on “The End.” The lyrics unspool with a novelist’s eye for detail as she urges, “Meet me on the lower east side at nine outside the Chelsea Hotel. Tell me that my dress would look better lying at the foot of your bed.”
Then, there’s “Things I’d Save in a Fire.” The words glow like embers over gently strummed acoustic guitar as she makes confessions a la “When I can’t sleep, but I’m tired, I’m listing the things I’d save in a fire.”
“I know a lot of what I write about stems from trauma at a young age,” she goes on. “I’m always feeling as if I’m ready for something bad to happen, and I know it sounds morbid but I spend a lot of time thinking about my own inevitable death”
Elsewhere, lush piano sets the tone for “Imagination” where she ponders the central theme through vivid lyrics and a dynamic performance.
“At what age do we lose our imagination?” she wonders. “I’m grateful music enables me to go back to a sense of wonder, magic, and creativity.”
She consistently taps into this wonder, and it’s empowered her to embrace a new level of strength along the way.
“I’ve gone through so many changes in my career,” she reveals. “My life is so different personally and professional. I’ve learned a lot, and it feels like a safe space for me to dive back in. I’ve never been so motivated and excited. I’m at peace with it all. I’ve given myself up to art and delivered my truth. I’m dying for everyone to hear it,” she smiles.
By opening up, Delacey makes it okay for her audience to do the same.
“When I listened to vulnerable music, I could also express my own pain or grief,” she leaves off. “I feel most alive when I’m sad, grieving, or going through pain. It makes me wake up, be present, and connect to God or a higher power. I hope audiences feel that when they hear my music. At the end of the day, pain, grief, and life are all beautiful. You’ll hear all of this on The Girl Has A Dream.”
Thankfully, her dream has come true, and the rest of us get to experience this album.
