Interview - Dani Sylvia

Singer-songwriter, dancer and actress Dani Sylvia is back with a brand new single called ‘Omnisicent’ fresh from earlier success in 2016 with the equally great ‘Free’. We caught up with the singer to ask her about her new single.

“It’s kind of a weird on as it’s about something that’s quite sadistic. It’s about careers or lifestyles which are a bit precarious, where you can’t guarantee that they’ll work out. I trained to be an actress but then I switched over to music and there’s quite a lot of rejection in both and they’re quite precarious careers. It’s about that and ‘when is it going to happen’!”

With a career in acting as well we were keen to know what attracted Dani to music over that. “I still have an acting agent and probably will do it in the future but I started singing with a group called Urban Voices Collective and they’re gospel music, and I fell in love with that, and that gave me the confidence to pursue my own career in music and to write music myself.

“I’d always written music but never thought it possible, so over the past couple of years I’ve been writing, and I’m releasing an album, and I’ve done my EP earlier in the year. It was my love for singing and song writing in general that made me give it a go.”

‘Omniscient’ came back after a bad day in the office. “It was one of those nights where I sat down at my piano and was like ‘urgh!’. I have such an amazing career and I’m lucky to do it with all the amazing people I’ve met and I love it, and consider the rejections a part of it but it was just one of those nights where I felt sorry myself but I got over it!”

The video for the single is now up online, and Dani confessed the video, which she’s wanted to film for a while, came about quite randomly. “My friend Bobby messaged me saying that he had this amazing space free for two-and-a-half hours near London Bridge [the next day] – do you want to do a video? We came up with this concept overnight and did it all really quickly in the slot with all the dancers. I trained in dance when I was younger [which helped]. I’ve not done a dancing video before so I didn’t know what it was going to look like, but it was good to merge my skills.”

The tracks is taken from Dani’s EP ‘Monologues’ which came out last February. “It was really good to make a start on something I could give to people to show them what I’ve been doing, that I haven’t just been sitting around! I’m proud of it, but the next batch of material for my album is on the next level so I have progressed.”

The album, called ‘Tall Tales’, is coming together with half of the album being recorded at Metropolis Studios in Chiswick, with a planned release date of early to mid-2017. “That is amazing,” Dani confessed, talking about going in to record a song called ‘Tears at my Piano’ a month ago. “My keyboard player played on Freddie Mercury’s piano which was the one Adele used for ‘Hello’ so we were all really excited about that, just to touch it!”

Dani will be marking the release with a small tour around converted churches in London. “Nothing is better than live,” she told us. “The thing I like to do is connect with an audience and have that kind of raw, vulnerable state on stage. I’ve got an amazing nine-piece band, with full backing vocals, keys, drums and everything. I’m lucky to have that close family around me.”

Dani Sylvia has a good pedigree of live gigs having performed at the Proms, at the 02 Arena and even at the closing ceremony to the London 2012 Olympic games. “We [the Urban Voices Collective] did the Proms with Paloma Faith which was one of my favourite performances. That was so much fun!”

Taking in Dani’s new quill-featuring logo and the titles of her EP and upcoming album, we were interested to know if she considers herself a story teller. “Absolutely! That’s exactly what I’d like to be. I want every song to tell a story and be something that people can relate to. Storytelling is definitely my objective. I hope they all have a message and something to latch onto, and there’s a little homage to my acting side too as when you’re training you have to do lots of monologues to the camera, and also with ‘Tall Tales’ there’s both a link to stories but also I’m quite tall, so it’s a nod to that too!”

With a supporting slot for Peter Andre coming up this Weekend as well as a trip to perform at the Unsigned Music Awards where Dani Sylvia has been nominated for the best songwriter, the future looks incredibly bright for her. But what are her hopes for the next year?

“I want to be able to reach as many people as I can. I do have quite big ambitions so I hope it all comes off, but I’m going to work hard until it does. For 2017 I would just like more people to have heard my songs – alongside my tour and the album that’s my goal!”

You can find out more about Dani Sylvia online.