Today we’d like to introduce you to Damien Rei.
Damien, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve been an artist of different types for most of my life. Traditional art, photography, and music, specifically singing, have always been at the forefront of my interests. When I was a young boy, growing up in El Paso, Texas, the very first time I saw La Bamba, I knew I wanted to be either an actor or Ritchie Valens. I wasn’t an only child, but I was a lonely one — I had a great group of friends but if I wasn’t going 1,000 miles per hour, I wanted to be left alone, so I wrote a lot and taught myself how to play the keyboard on an old thrift store buy and the drums. Later, in my early teens, I moved on to the guitar and bass. In high school, my friends and I would party with the guys from At The Drive-In and I wanted to get deeper into the local music scene. So, naturally, I joined a rock band called Radium as their bassist. We played the local scene and I made good friends with Norman Matthew of Supersoul at the time. My bandmates and I played some really good shows and released a CD which gave me my first taste of the studio environment. It’s great — I love the whole process! I moved away for college in Tempe, AZ and continued playing the guitar on an old Sears model acoustic guitar named Betty that a friend gifted me in high school. After college, I moved back home. Unfortunately, my stepfather passed away suddenly and I had others in my life pass away as well for any number of reasons. I got married, became a father, and moved to DFW. Life was rough at first, I wound up getting divorced and a while later, wound up in a new relationship. As life would have it, I had to put a lot of my art to bed for a long time — I had a partner who wasn’t the most supportive. After about 14 years, towards the end of pandemic in 2020, I caught her cheating on me and that sparked the need to express myself again. I reached out to Norman Matthew who just so happened to have moved over here as well. I told him that I wanted to record a song to try and win back the woman I had thought I loved, so I wrote of cover of Michael Buble’s “Home.” We went into the studio, recorded it, and I gave it to her — she cried when she heard it for the first time. Things didn’t work out the way I had wanted, but that was the best thing that ever happened to me. I showed Norman some samples of my singing and playing and told him that I felt it was time to play again, but I wanted to him to be straight up and tell me if I would be wasting my time or his by wanting to record more. By now, he’d already had some really good success in the music industry and had been producing for a while, so I trusted his opinion and he said I had a great sound. I showed him some songs I’d been working on and we hit the studio. I initially set out to write rock music, but what came out sounded more along the lines of alternative country. I’m not necessarily about being tied to a genre, but for whatever reason this is the one that keeps coming back. While in the studio, I had a nagging thought — who on earth would hear the name Raul, my birth name, and think, hey, that’s a great name for a country singer/songwriter? I had gone by the moniker Damien Rei for different things over the years, so I pitched it and we agreed it sounded way better. We recorded “Memories” which was the titular song of the debut single and included another called “I Won’t Let You Go” — songs about dealing with the sudden loss of a loved one and holding on to the memory of those you love, respectfully. I used that single to go through the full process of getting all of my accounts created so when I can seriously start releasing, things will go a lot smoother. Since then, I have around 10-12 songs in various stages of production — needing to be mastered, others need more instrumentation, and some are just skeletons. I’ve also been included as the lead vocalist on the song “Best Days,” written by platinum selling bassist John Moyer. I recently decided to release “Home” and have a music video that’ll be releasing with it soon.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road at all. My day job as a web developer keeps me pretty busy, so I’ll go through spells of not being able to record. I’m also a perfectionist and that’s where Norman’s experience definitely comes in. I can’t always see the forest for the trees when we’re going in a certain direction musically, so having someone remind me that I just need to trust the process helps. Another huge struggle is, although I’m an ambivert, when it comes to playing live I get really apprehensive. In truth, I’d rather spend my time writing music on my own, or with a writing partner, and then have a band play the music while I focus on just singing. Then, at one point I caught a bug that I feel affected my singing voice and have been working on regaining the strength in my singing. It’s probably already there, but I never feel like it’s enough. The funniest part of the whole journey is, although I love the whole music making process, I find it hard to listen to my own music after a while because I’m always thinking of how it could have been improved. C’est la vie!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
For now, I’m mainly a studio musician and singer/songwriter. I write what I know, what I’ve lived through or what somebody close to me has lived through. That being said, I write a lot about love and loss, apprehension, and sure, a little bit of the naughty. Ha ha! I don’t curse in any of my music because I feel like my music, for the most part, should be accessible and enjoyed by anyone — young, old, men, women. I never met either of my grandmother’s, but I’d like to think that even they would have been ok listening to it. Artistically, I’ve always loved the beauty in the decay, so when you listen to my music, sometimes it’s soft but the subject matter is hard. It’s not music for everyone and that’s fine, but there are people who it reaches and gets them to feel something. I write for myself to deal with whatever is on my mind or to tell a story to whoever will listen. I also want the audience to take from it whatever it is they can relate it to. Sometimes people will ask me, is this song about this or that or a specific person and my answer is almost always, yes. If the music strikes a chord for you one in a way that you can relate to, then the answer can never be wrong.
Aside from writing music as Damien Rei, I have a side project I am writing for that completely diverges from country music that I am going to publish as “Raul.” with the period after the name. I’m passionate about films and TV shows, so the music I’m writing is more about story telling through music itself. It doesn’t need to have words to feel the emotion of what it is. For instance, I have a concept album based on the nursery rhyme published in 1842 by the name of “Solomon Grundy.” It’s about life of Solomon Grundy, from birth to death, in 7 days. Likewise, as of now, the album will have seven songs, each representing a new day.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Oddly enough, curiosity. As long as I’m curious about sound and how I can tell a story with it, wanting to know more about myself and others, the production process from beginning to end, and trying to learn new things, that’s what will keep me moving forward. The day I lose that curiosity is the day it stops being fun and starts being a boring job and that is definitely not what I want. I may work a 9-to-5, but even with that, I love what I do and I’m good at it because after all these years, I still have the curiosity to want to know how things work and how I can use them to create something better.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/damienreimusic
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/damienreimusic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@damienreimusic
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1So6VgrrCbqfml61SE3SzM?si=93fJGzB0T3S38IURL2lnkA
