Music / Feature
Singer, songwriter, producer and instrumentalist: Introducing Danny Chaska
At only 19 years old, Danny has already gotten a head start with his music career. Entering his second year of his undergraduate degree this September, Danny has released a number of singles and has also dropped his first full length album in 2021, Vicetown, with Hal Shallo.
Moving to Bristol from his hometown of Oxford, dBs Institute was an obvious choice for Danny who is self-taught with a range of different instruments; “I was playing drums since I was really young, same as guitar. And then from guitar, I picked up a little bit of bass.”
As well as being a talented musician, he also enjoys producing tracks and writing his own songs. “It began as a collaborative thing with a guy that I grew up with which came out a while ago. Everything since then has been done in Bristol,” he tells Bristol24/7.
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“Most of the stuff I’ve made has been just in my room and unfortunatley the acoustics aren’t great. But that’s why dBs is so sick because of the set up they have, I can just go in there and use a £2000 microphone and a acoustically treated room.”
As well as top of the range facilities and gear, dBs has also been a good opportunity to meet new people and try new things. “Implicit [Bristol-based rapper] and I recently did a thing called Buskers Banquet which pairs food and music around different venues in Bristol which was really cool,” Danny tells us.
Danny’s a multi-talented artist currently studying at dBs
Since juggling college and performing, Danny has a catalogue of work at home, ready and waiting to be released; “As a producer, I’ve got a stupid amount of beats that I should be releasing or give them to different artists. But it’s just hard to find like who to give them to? It’s kind of tough to find what to do with them, essentially.”
Releasing music into the world, or any kind of art, is a risk, especially when you don’t know who people are going to react to it. However, with the release of his debut album last year, Danny says that everyone has been really supportive so far.
“Everyone’s really supportive, especially in Bristol they love it. We started with the Buskers Banquet in Bristol, but hopefully we’ll put on our own show soon, we might organize one this year but we’ve got a few London gigs coming up.”
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Despite still being at the beginning of his music career, Danny does have some career goals in mind he aims to reach in the near future; “I’m always hopefully to get an email or a text asking me to perform at a festival, I definitely want to do that,” he tells Bristol24/7.
“Probably more short term, I’ll like to try and get my numbers up, in terms of releases, like maybe go up to 100k monthly steams or something like that.”
With so much going on around Bristol and as an artist himself, we have to know – what’s his favourite night out in Bristol? “Probably the open mic nights. We go to The Old Duke on King Street, we drink quite a lot and it can go on quite late. It’s good.”
You can check out Danny’s music on Spotify and keep up to date with his work via his Instagram: @dannychaska
All photos: Courtesy of Danny Chaska
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