Davis Mallory
DJ, Singer, Songwriter

Transcript

VO: Turn up the volume as we bring the story of DJ singer and songwriter Davis Mallary, underscored by his own music.

Davis Mallory: So my name is Davis Mallari. I am a DJ, producer and a singer songwriter living in Nashville, Tennessee. I've been a singer-songwriter since I was like a little kid, but I professionally trained to deejay in New York at Dubspot School of Electronic Music in 2012. So from then until today, I've been DJng a large range of events from corporate, weddings, last night I played a nightclub with a saxophone player. I came to Nashville to do a singer-songwriter career, which is what I've been dreaming of doing since I was a little kid, you know. And I was writing like five or six days a week in the first year. I wrote so many songs. A lot of them were country, as you would expect.And in 2017, I had my first song I've ever signed to a record company, which was a label in Amsterdam, and a Swedish DJ  sort of remixed it. And I went that very year to a corporate event called Amsterdam Dance Event, and met a bunch of musician managers and publishers and labels and all that jazz. And then in the next year, 2018, I had about ten songs signed to labels. So it was a big it was just it was so worth doing. And since then, I've gone three times to that event. But in that very first year, I found my present manager I work with today, and it's a guy whose name is Alex, and he's really been helpful with my label deals because if you see on Spotify, I have a lot of releases on labels, and it's now like every week or two weeks I'm releasing a song. He's really there to help me look at deals. And then that does piggyback into my career because every once in a while, I’ll deejay, a wedding, and they'll ask me to play one of my songs in their must playlist.And I get emotional when I see that on the wedding list. Like they've actually taken the time to listen to my music and they want me to play one of mine as the DJ  for the wedding. So there's sort of like a marriage between that and last night in Nashville I DJed Justin Timberlake's new club called Pushing Daisies, and I ended my set with an unreleased track. And so it was so fun for me to play one of my songs in that set, you know,

VO: Davis’ career didn't just take off out of the blue. He had to learn his craft and understand the business.

DM: You know, I have to say, I used to work at a record label, and it was a label that had famous DJ David Guetta was one of our artists. And so before that I wasn't a DJ myself. And so I went to both Swedish House, a second artist on our label, and David Guetta concerts a lot that one year and I was like, I'm going to be a DJ. So that's what really kind of directed me towards that goal. And then I actually was gifted for a Christmas present, the DJ school. And so that's really how they kind of started. But at that time, I was still like a 9 to 5 employee after I had a record label. And eventually I moved to Nashville for the singer-songwriter vibe that this place has and found a job as a salesperson for websites to artists. So I was in sort of like a business role then. And then when they found out I was pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter, they felt like it was a conflict of interest and basically were like, you can't do both. And they let me go and I felt like I needed that to happen, to really go all in on being a DJ, because at that point in time, it was still just like I was picking up jobs on the weekends and I was like, I don't think I'm going to look for another job. I'm just going to really try to focus on making my DJ business successful. And so what I did is I joined a lot of websites and really like worked on my online presence, you know, developed my own DJ website, got recommendations every time I DJed an event, was always asking for reviews. I started using my 9 to 5 hours looking for jobs, like introducing myself to venues and wedding planners.  At first it was just Nashville because that's where I'm based and then I was like, I want to go DJ in New York, or I want to DJ in L.A.. Then I started working on those two cities. Then it was like I started picking up jobs in Hawaii, Phenix, Miami, Colorado. So it's like now my years spent are like a whole year I'm traveling and it paid off all that work. Treating it like a job is what paid off for me.

VO: But that doesn't mean every day is great. But when you have determination like Davis, you adjust and continue to grow.

DM: I would say like every year on January, I always started to think I need a different job. And so every January I was like, Look, I have no jobs. I need to find something else to do with my time. Like, it's  like Christmas season just ended. All the holiday parties are over New Year's Eve is over. But then as soon as it got hot again, I would just be overbooked and then I would forget and I would just repeat the cycle. But now I just feel like that's part of this career and I've just gotten used to dealing with it. Sometimes I felt like being a DJ is like being a bartender. It's like I'm just serving music. Especially when you're getting requests. But I also just love DJing. Like it's something that I feel is an art and it's like an art form or a performance. You know, like last night I had zero requests. I only played songs I wanted to play. It was all just like sometimes I was like deep tracks. I hadn't played since I lived in New York City and I had such a good time. I was like, dancing. Like that to me felt like I put on a concert, you know? And so that to me, felt like it's a marriage with my love for singing and songwriting.

VO: Davis took his dream and committed to it. That's the kind of strength we love to see. So if you're looking for amazing professional talent, you found it here at Eventeny