Donna Missal is a fast-rising pop singer who was one of the most promising artists to take a Bumbershoot stage last weekend. Though an unsigned artist without the support of a label, Missal has found a niche with her catchy songs and gorgeous harmonies.
A few hours before her set on the Starbucks Stage, Donna Missal spoke with me for an interview in the Bumbershoot.
Let’s talk a little bit about how did you get into music? How did everything come to here, I guess?
Well I’ve been singing since I was a child. My father owned a recording studio in Manhattan for a long time called Shelter Studios in the 80s. He and my mother ran and operated that studio for many years. When they decided to settle down and start having kids, they moved to the suburbs and they had my older sister and myself. My father kept his recording equipment from the studio and kept it in our basement and set up a little makeshift studio. They had a lot of kids. I’m one of six children. We’ve all grown up singing, using my dad’s studio equipment. He’s recorded us year after year, making Christmas albums for my grandparents. We’ve been doing that since I was four. I’ve been singing for a really long time.
Then I guess that transitioned into theater. When I was 10, we moved to a new town. To make some friends, I enrolled in a theater group for a local community theater and just started doing plays. I just became really passionate about it. I really discovered who I was through being on a stage. I’ve just been doing it ever since. It seems like a pretty natural progression into singing in bands. I got turned onto writing my own music and I’ve been writing my own music and playing in bands ever since. This is my very first solo venture.
Well “Keep Lying” is a jam. How did you write that?
I got together with a writer and producer in Gowanus, Brooklyn, who I had been doing some work with. I was set up with them through BMI. They do writing workshops, where they bring a bunch of local writers in to meet each other and play some music. They pair you up. We were paired up haphazardly and we just hit it off. We started making music together for the intention for getting some syncs. I was looking for a publishing deal. I was pretty intent on being a writer. The song came about just in a session where we were just having fun, talking about some influences. We were listening to some old soul records and felt inspired. The three of us sat down and wrote it over a couple of days and we recorded it.
I was in this position where I wasn’t getting any cuts on records and I really wanted to write for other artists and I really wanted to get a publishing deal, so I could quit bartending and start my career. It really just took on a life of its own after we released it. I became an artist after the fact. I have been writing for my own project ever since, but that was really the song that started it.
You haven’t put out a lot of music. That song I certainly think is a jam. “The Keeper” I really love, too.
Thank you. That I made pretty recently in a studio in Queens with a couple members of The Dap Kings, one member who was in the band previously and one member who currently plays with them. They’re a studio band for a lot of really great acts, like current soul R&B acts, like Charles Bradley and Sharon Jones and Lee Fields & the Expressions. They play a lot of really classic music and that’s their background. I got hooked up with them through my publisher. We share a publisher. They put us in the room just with the intention of making some things happen. Sometimes you hit it off and it works and sometimes not, but I happened to hit it off with these guys. We wrote a bunch of songs. I’ve got some more songs that I’ve written with those guys coming out pretty soon.
When could we hear more from you, more of your music?
I plan to put something out on September 9th.
[ed. note: She did! It took me until a few days after 9/9 to get this posted, but it’s here:]
Okay. That’s next week.
That’s next week. I’m in this spot where I’m an unsigned artist. I have support from my publisher and I’ve got a great team. I’ve got a great agent who hooked me up with this amazing show. My publisher is amazing and gets me some great writing sessions, but we don’t have a label backing a big project right now. We’re just doing things on favor base and working with what we’ve got. I’m making a record but it’s taking me some time to pull the strings to produce it and put it all together. In the meantime, it’s got all these songs that are a result of writing sessions that I’ve been doing over the last six months. The plan is to just start putting them out on a biweekly basis until we can put together a record and put out a full-length.
You talked a little bit about talking about who your influences were with some people you’ve worked with. Could you talk about maybe who you really looked up to or who you think influenced your music?
Absolutely. Growing up, my father being just such a huge fan of music and also being really involved in music, he was a session drummer. From the time I was a really little kid, he has us listening to music and then when I started developing my own sense of taste, I was really into the current R&B and pop of the time, which was Christina Aguilera and Destiny’s Child, TLC, Aaliyah. I was really inspired by those artists, which seemed to be a lot of really powerful female vocalists that I found most exciting and that I was most inspired by. Lauryn Hill is a huge influence of mine. Janis Joplin is a huge influence of mine. As of right now, I’m listening to all kinds of things. My taste is super varied. I’m really into rap lately. I love indie bands. I would say that my tastes are all over the place and I’m hoping that the music that I make is a reflection of all these different influences coming together.
Well one thing I was curious about, I’m not a Drake fan but I thought the “Hotline Bling” cover was great. I’m wondering, what made you decide you wanted to cover that song because it’s become such a noteworthy song?
I’ve always had a hard time making the decision to do a cover that I know is going to be done a lot. That one I had this sense as soon as the song came out that it was going to be a really, really covered song. Drake has some music that I really am inspired by, some not. That song, it came out and I thought if you strip away all of the production value, there’s a really great song here. There’s a message and there’s a really interesting context and there’s a great chord structure. I really feel like if we were to reinvent this, the song itself stands on its own. I just thought it would be fun. We were playing it at some shows and we just decided to record it and throw it on SoundCloud. It was just an easy, fun thing to do.
Yeah. It’s still something that people like to bring up, which I find … I think that’s great. I really would love to reach as many people as possible, so sometimes the best way to do that is to speak their language and grab onto something that’s socially really popular and make it your own. That was the plan behind that one.
I loved it. I was really surprised how much I really enjoyed it.
Oh, good.
It was the arrangement and the vocals. I like listening to Drake without having to deal with Drake.
Great. Yeah. There’s a really great song there. “Hotline Bling” is a great song.
How would you describe your live show now, like the show you’re going to play in a few hours?
Well my show is one cover that I’m playing, but otherwise it’s all original stuff that I’ve written over the last six or eight months. It’s very heavily influenced by R&B and soul. The music that I’ve been making as of late has been a lot of analog music that we’re treating as electronic. Something like “The Keeper”, we made that entirely on analog instruments and just tried to display it in a way which felt modern and forward thinking and electronic. The set has little pieces of that. I love to sing, so it’s just a lot of singing. My band is great. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.
What’s coming up after this weekend? I know you said you’re going to put some music out.
I go play Riot Fest in Chicago. Then after that, just more studio work. Finishing up some things, tying up some loose ends. I’m just going to keep putting things out. I think what’s really cool right now is being an unsigned artist, I don’t really have any rules. There’s no one really telling me what I can and cannot do as far as releasing music. I just planned to put it out on my own time and when I can and when I feel really confident about it. Yeah, I’ll just keep doing more of the same.
I know you haven’t really played a lot of shows so far. This is really early in your career.
Absolutely. These are the first steps. These are the most exciting times. I’m thrilled.
Do you have any favorite moments so far that you want to talk about in your career?
It’s all been really rewarding and really exciting. Zane Lowe from Beats 1 Radio premiered my very first single. I thought that was really exciting and made me feel like there are ways to be an independent artist that … It’s just such an exciting time to be an independent artist. You can reach people on a whole new level sans label, where you would never be able to accomplish those things five, ten years ago. Really I’m excited to just have a career right now in the current landscape of music. I think it’s something you can either dismiss and be really upset about, seeing how the internet age has taken over and streaming is everywhere. You have to go with it and do everything you can as an artist to ride that wave. I’m excited by this current climate in music. I’m just thrilled by all of it.
Yeah. I think it’s really great. I know it’s probably a lot harder to make money than it was probably 10 years ago.
Absolutely. Yeah.
I don’t know. For me it’s real exciting because there’s so much new music out there. I get e-mails from people every day saying, “You should check out this band or this singer that I’m working with.” It’s like, “Okay, this sounds great.” Here’s my new favorite band. I think your publicist used the magic words with me, which are Amy Winehouse and Lana Del Rey. I told her that’s like my secret password.
Good to know.
Right? One of the cool things starting out is there hasn’t been a lot written about you, so I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking, how did you get started?
Right. Yeah.
I don’t know. Then I Googled you and I saw you talked to Rookie and Billboard and listened to the songs you had put out.
Yeah.
There’s a lot of stuff out there that might not have been the case for an unsigned artist ten years ago.
Absolutely. How cool is that? It’s like a brand new time. I think it’s only good for artists if we’re using it and utilizing it in a positive way rather than hating on it.
Right.
Nothing you can do, so you might as well get involved and be involved and be excited.
If there’s anything that we should include also that we didn’t touch on …
I thought that your questions were great. I think you covered it all. I was glad that you asked about upcoming stuff, but yeah. I feel good.
Oh, good. Well I’m glad to hear that. I always try to make sure I ask about what’s coming up, because I want people to have a reason for reading it and for you for talking to me about … I want people to learn more than just, “Oh, well I missed her set at 4:00. What’s the point?”
