Fab's Music Café: Derek Day, Interview

Derek Day, 24. Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA he infuses the power of Rock N' Roll N' Other Genres (R&B, Soul, Punk and Pop) as he engages with and captures the audience theatrically. He's on the lead, licky, riffy Electric Guitar to accompany his burning-lead, gritty, soulful contralto Vocals.

Paying dues and starting small, he was a self-taught street performer out in Santa Monica since he was 13, formed a number of stylistically-interchanging bands and recorded a few EP's and one full length by the first year of Community College-
A couple months after releasing his first official solo-experimental EP in Summer 2016, he took the opportunity to be the direct support for the final days of Steve Vai's 25th Anniversary tour of the Passion And Warfare album, which Day, himself, was majorly influenced by. This quick success launched a snowball for 2017 Immediately performing at NAMM, the Sundance Film Festival and by the end of May, opening up for Living Colour in Scottsdale , Arizona.

As the winds of the Day kept whistling through the music world, he was asked to open up for the MOTOR CITY MADMAN- Ted Nugent- for his “Rockin America Again” tour. And so he bought a mom-van , assembled a fresh band (Tosha Jones and Steaks Lyons) and traveled sea to shining sea playing nearly sold out theaters. Amidst that, he did a few unrelated shows , one of which was at the Lincoln Center performing with Living Colour's Vernon Reid and Corey Glover for the Chuck Berry tribute.

Right before the band drove back home to LA, Day released his latest single, FACE ME, co-written with his most inspiring friend, Debby Holiday- which includes performances from Philip Bynoe (Steve Vai/Slash), Roger Carter (John 5/Rick Springfield) and Paul Trudeau (Billy Idol/Lifehouse).

All of the buzz turned on the chief marketing department of the legendary guitar company, Fender. Derek Day is officially endorsed by Fender, and just in the right time:

In October/November, Day opened up for Living Colour in roughly 14 major southern US cities for their Shade in the USA tour. Halfway through was an opening show for Steel Panther in Ft. Lauderdale.

The crew came home by December and had several successful headliner shows In the LA gig scene and even again opening for Steel Panther at The Roxy.

Right at midnight on Jan 1 2018, Day flew to New York to write a handful of songs with Vernon Reid as they formed a friendship from the tour days. He Came back after a week to record 2 singles , play NAMM again for VocoPro, Vocal Eze and Fender and get things ready for a trip to Nairobi, Kenya for more writing and a short tour the beginning of February.

Day returned in March and was approached by up-and-coming band Classless Act to be their frontman. This hot new Rock N Roll band not only had a bit of a buzz in the LA scene but also a huge pull in South and Central America. Day accepted and so far the band has had great success, eventually opening up for Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators at the Palladium in October. That was their 6th show as a band.

“It’s a great way to exercise myself in performance art without the guitar. But rest assured, you’ll be seeing plenty new things from the Solo Project,” says Day.

And he kept his word opening for Lynch Mob in April , releasing a modern neo-rock single “Social Kitten” and toured Sweden and England in August where 2 of the shows have been at the politically charged music and arts event, The Byline Festival - headlined by Pussyriot.

One of the more interesting events was right after the euro-tour in September for a charity event thrown by ExtraordinaryFamilies and Steve Vai to help foster children throughout the USA.

52 hours of non-stop music by huge hitters , and Derek not only had his own set , but also got to perform onstage with Steve Vai himself, Vernon Reid, and Moby. The event was viewed by 850,000 people worldwide.

To bring this bio to a close , perhaps a shout out from nationwide satellite radio personality Eddie Trunk : “talented kid, very impressive and a promising , great player...”