Dallas
Remington Interview by Preshias Harris for Country Music News International
Magazine & Radio Show
Dallas
Remington is a dynamic young singer/songwriter who, at only eighteen, already
has several years of experience as a performer. Her current single, ‘Never Turned
Around’ (RoadWarrior Records), a tale of heartache and love, is now at country
radio, with an EP to follow.
Dallas
stopped by to talk about her new songs and her musical influences.
Preshias
Harris: Tell
me the story behind your new single, ‘Never Turned Around,’ and who did you
write that with?
Dallas
Remington: I
wrote ‘Never Turned Around’ with my friend Regan Stewart and we went into the
session preparing to write a song about a girl who didn’t think she could ever
be heartbroken. She was going to go out with this guy but he wasn’t going to
break her heart because her heart would never break. We got halfway through the
writing session and we were like… ‘This girl really loves him.’ She is so in love with him and she is going
to be so heartbroken when he leaves her.
So, ‘Never Turn Around’ is about that kind of love that you don’t want
to let them go because you love them so much, no matter how much you want them
to chase their dreams, you want to hold on to them forever. But you end up having
to let them go because it’s what’s best for them.
PH: The single is a taste of
your EP titled ‘Freedom,’ due out this summer. What can we expect to hear on
this project? And how many of the songs
have you co-written?
DR: I’ve co-written every song
on the project. There are seven songs on there and I’m very excited. It’s a big mixture of what I’ve grown up
listening to, because I grew up listening to traditional country but also
Lynyrd Skynyrd and classic rock so these seven songs present to the world who I
am through my music and how I like to present myself, so I’m excited for
everyone to hear it. It will available digitally at the end of June or the
beginning of July and the physical copies are available now.
PH: You are a Kentucky girl like
me. What was some of your favorite Kentucky
artists that you listened to?
DR: My favorite artists were
Loretta Lynn, a Miss Kentucky girl, the coalminer’s daughter! My mom loved
Loretta Lynn, she loved Patsy Cline, so that’s the kind of music I grew up with.
I also loved Toby Keith. It’s so weird…
I was a three-year-old, running around singing all these Toby Keith songs. My
mom said, ‘Well, she loves it and she knows the words so here we go!’ But as I
got older, I also played in some rock bands in Kentucky, so that was AC/DC,
Skynyrd, so it was all kind of things. But it was Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash,
Patsy Cline that I grew up with.
PH: You have a band, Gypsy
Highway. What’s it like working shows with your own musicians?
DR: I love playing with these guys,
Gypsy Highway. They’re just some of the best musicians that I know, and they’re
some of my best friends, so it’s not like we’re working. We’re having fun. When we’re on stage
together, when we’re practicing, they all joke around. They say they like playing for me because
they know my mom is going to supply food! So at every practice, we have food
and we have a really big time. We take a
whole day and we just hang out. We take
multiple days sometimes, but we’ve gotten where we are in a really good groove
together.
PH: A few years ago you set up ‘Melody
for the Elderly’ that you see as part of your ministry outreach. Tell us a
little bit about that.
DR: ‘Melody for the Elderly’ is
a ministry that I set up in my hometown in Western Kentucky where I would go
and sing at nursing homes and long-term care facilities and assisted healthcare
facilities. I realized that a lot of them don’t have families that can come and
visit them all the time, or they don’t have any visitors at all. It was great
for me to be able to go and meet them because I made some very amazing friends,
some lifelong friends, through ‘Melody for the Elderly.’ It was also a blessing
for me to be able to see these people who normally would not come out of their
rooms. They came out of their rooms and
hung out with their friends at the facility and listened to songs they grew up
with. I would play the traditional country songs for them. One of the most touching stories that I have
through that whole year was that on my first day I sang ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’
and a lady came up to me and told me she was a coalminer’s daughter from
Eastern Kentucky. She had Alzheimer’s Disease, but every week she would come
out and she would sing that song, even though she could not remember that she had
met me the week before, she remembered the lyrics to that song. It really
blessed me to see these people go back to their childhood, go back to a happy
time and love the music.
PH: You are eighteen. You’re not
a ‘normal’ eighteen-year-old. You’ve been performing for several years already.
How old were you when you began singing in public?
DR: I started right before I
turned eleven. So it’s been a long process. I started playing guitar when I was
ten and I played at a local talent contest. I won ‘my’ week at the contest, and
when you win your week, a YouTube video is posted of you singing. They posted a
video of me singing Miranda Lambert’s ‘The House That Built Me’ and a producer
here in Nashville saw it and booked me to come and do his TV shows. That’s how
I started getting booked in Nashville. So I’ve been in Nashville since just
before I turned twelve. It’s been an awesome experience.
PH: You’re a seasoned performer,
basically.
DR: Yes, I’ve been living in
Nashville since just before I turned sixteen.
It’s been two-and-a-half years and moving to Nashville was probably the
best thing for my career. I love Kentucky and I’ll always be a Kentucky girl
and it will always be home to me. My dad is still in Kentucky but he’s
supporting me. We commuted for a long time but we finally decided that I needed
to be here to do it one hundred percent.
PH: Where can fans find you on
social media?
DR: Just search ‘Dallas
Remington’ or ‘Dallas Remington Music’ on social media, and I’ll pop up!
You
can also connect with Dallas via her website http://www.dallasremington.com and read more about Dallas
and her music.
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