Exposed Vocals: So tell us your story. Where did you grow up? What made you decide to become an artist? Well, I grew up in South Texas, moving from the small town of Beeville to the slightly larger town of Corpus Christi around 9. It was a great place to grow up, with great morals and good ideals. I started singing at an early age in church choirs and at school, and grew up singing with my Grandfather. Every holiday he’d pull out his guitar and the whole family would sing old country, gospel, and holiday songs together. He had a beautiful voice and his talent saved his life during WWII, but that’s a story for another time.
Exposed Vocals: Since everyone was a start-up once, can you give any smaller or local bands or artists looking to get gigs and airplay some tips? Well, to be honest, I still consider myself a start-up! Ha! I’m hustling pretty hard to make sure my music is heard, and the weight of that stays mostly on the artists shoulders. I think the idea here is to realize early that it is a marathon, not a sprint, and plan accordingly. Just continue making your music, keep putting it out, keep performing, eventually your tenacity and persistence will win out. Other than that, all I can say is – ASK! If you never ask you’ll never receive, ask friends for help, and other friends to share your social media, ask the owner of a bar if you can play their, that kind of confidence in yourself will show through; in your music, and in the business.
Exposed Vocals: Do you ever make mistakes during performances? How do you handle that? All the time! But that’s the nature of the beast with live shows. Thankfully I had quite a background in Musical Theatre and Opera, where the show keeps going even if you lose a line, or sing a note off key. The important thing there is to get back on the horse and make the rest of the show even better! Power through; don’t let one misstep throw you off your game. You’re human, and the audience knows that. Use that moment and engage them, make them laugh, the more they see you the more they’ll engage with you, and at the end of the day isn’t that what we all live for? The energy that’s tossed back and forth between the audience to the performer.
Exposed Vocals: Do you tour? Anything interesting happen on tour that you think our readers would enjoy hearing about? I’ve toured a LOT in earlier versions of my career, especially in the musical theatre and opera world. However, I haven’t toured yet with this music. That’s the plan once the album comes out is to go on a west coast tour, and then maybe hop on a bigger tour after that. Truth be told, plenty of interesting things happen on tour, but the vast majority is travel; on a bus, on a plane, in a van, you’re stuck reading or watching Netflix for large chunks of time with the same people who end up being like your family. Sometimes you love them and sometimes you hate them, but for better or worse, they’re yours.
Exposed Vocals: Any planned studio upgrades? What are you working with now? Nothing planned for my own personal studio at the moment. I do plan getting a better home mic so that I can record snippets of song in a better way, as the inspiration comes, but mostly I love the studio I work in now, and other than contributing the snack bar, and the polaroid wall, nothing too large planned yet.
Exposed Vocals: How do you find ways to promote your music? What works best for you? I’ve been really lucky, I have incredible fans! My fans have really helped me to showcase my music. I’ve used a lot of social media marketing and a few strategically places interviews, but the truth is, my fans help the most. I’ve also been doing a big push on the other platforms, on youtube and soundcloud, just to see if I can widen that reach, but the world revolves around social media these days, and if you can lock in a solid core audience there, then you’ve got a great start.
Exposed Vocals: If you could perform anywhere and with any artists (Dead or Alive) where and who would it be with? Why? Woah, this is a super hard question, because I have such a wide breadth of music that love and listen to, and there have been countless musicians before me who are incredible ins so many different ways. I have to cheat, and say a couple different people and why: David Bowie – He was magnetic and I think we would have harmonized amazingly Ella Fitzgerald – She was the greatest interpreter of song there ever was, what I could have learned! Johnny Cash – He was just unstoppable, a freight train in music. Bette Midler – She was a consummate entertainer and knows how to take the audience on a journey. Dolly Parton – No one can draw an audience in like Dolly, she can turn a phrase into an odyssey. I guess there are a few places I’d like to perform and I’ve been really lucky this far in my career to play in incredible places, But I would be honored to perform with any of these people on any stage there is. Although, I certainly would love performing at Carnegie Hall, or maybe Lincoln Center.
Exposed Vocals: So, what’s next? Any new upcoming projects that you want to talk about? Well, the album comes out June 23rd, it’s available for presale on iTunes now, and then my 2ndmusic video comes out shortly thereafter in July. I’ve got a show coming up in Los Angeles in August, I’ve got a few covers coming out in the next few months, I’m doing a duet with a friend on his forthcoming EP, and I’ve been in talks with a few Producers about remixing a couple of my tracks, so yeah, there’s a lot of plates spinning at the moment. Make sure to stay up to day with me by following my socials @reidleemusic on IG & Titter facebook.com/reidleemusic
Exposed Vocals: If you weren’t making music, what would you be doing? I’d probably be in some type of service industry. I love helping people, and have consistently thought about going into one of the healing arts, or medicine to some capacity. Though truth be told I also love organizing things, so it’s very possible I could be some kind of expert closet organizer or something.
Exposed Vocals: What should fans look forward to in the next year or so?Well, in the next year they should definitely look out for a small tour, for the upcoming album drop, for live shows that are happening, and more than anything all the music I’ll be putting out! Check out my website and sign up for the newsletter! https://www.reidlee.com/contact/
Exposed Vocals: Any Shout-outs? You have to do shoutouts! I’d like to start with my Amazing PR team Ariel and Molly, thanks for getting me this interview! But then I’d like to say thank you to all the people that have helped make this dream happen, to the fans, to the people who donated to the album, to my closest friends who have had to put up with me learning the business of music for the last year, to my Social Media Guru Cameron at Mercury Venus Digita who never stops helping me when I don’t understand something on social media, and most of all to my Mom & Dad, without them none of this would be happening, thank you so much for your belief in me; because, as we all know, belief makes things real.
Original Link Here: https://exposedvocals.com/features/catching-reid-lee/
