Today we’d like to introduce you to Bethany Warner.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in a musical family – my mom, dad, sister and I have been singing together for as long as I can remember. We used to sing quartet Christian music (and when we’re all home, we still do) at our church. One of my most telling stories is that my pre-school teacher would ask my mother sometimes, “Hey, is Bethany okay? She wasn’t singing today.” So, it’s really been a part of me from the very beginning.
Growing up, I sang in any choir I could find. I started to write my own songs around the age of 13. I kept writing music all throughout high-school, just me and my piano. When I graduated, my parents gave me my first DAW, FL Studio, as my graduation gift. (DAW = digital audio workstation. It’s the type program that producers use to create tracks for the music we hear.) It was the next step in my writing: being able to create the pop sounds and synths beyond just the piano. Looking back, that step was unknowingly one of the biggest I took towards my future, I think.
For college, I went to Baylor University for classical music. Opera. Every day, I’d go sing arias and study my music theory, only to get to my dorm room and be producing, writing, and recording pop songs in my dorm room until I went to sleep. I’d wake up the next day and repeat, and then I did that for a whole year. In October of my first semester, I went to my first real opera and cried through the whole thing. In that moment, I knew I couldn’t stay in Waco if I wanted to make pop music. So, I sat down with my voice teacher, the brightest gem of a human, Dr. Umstead, and we researched different colleges for me. We stumbled across Belmont University in Nashville. Long story short, I spent the next two beautiful years of college there studying commercial voice. During that time, I rebranded from Bethany Ann to Deza to hyper-focus who I am as a pop-artist, and to separate my art from my personal identity. During those three years, I wrote and produced over 100 songs, I landed my first song in an indie film, and I even started producing songs for other artists!
Buuut, that all brings us here – I just dropped out of my sweet Belmont. I was just recently accepted into Limpi, Lillehammer Institute of Music Production and Industries, a school in Lillehammer, Norway. I am one out of 48 students who will be spending a year in their intensive, hands-on program. I can’t be more excited for this next chapter.
Great, 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?
Of course not! Hahaha.
God has blessed me immensely with this insane path. If I had gotten everything the way I wanted the first time, I would’ve ended up at Berklee as a freshman. I would’ve never gotten the level of incredible training I got or the personal growth I made at Baylor. And even during my time at Baylor, I was so depressed, I couldn’t see straight. It was deep and dark but praise God for the people I had around me. If I hadn’t made it through that year, I would’ve never found Belmont – which I almost had to drop out of due to financial reasons, but God provided. And if I would’ve never found Belmont, I would’ve never dropped out to move 5,000 miles across the world to study in Lillehammer. Three colleges in 4 years? I would have never planned this out myself.
Even beyond the physical path, the emotional roller coaster is… insane. Creating from your inner world, quietly, privately, and then presenting it very openly, is difficult. Don’t get me wrong, the chaos is part of the thrill, but it can also be painful. It’s one of the big reasons I rebranded as Deza and not by my birth name. I needed a separation of self and art, which almost sounds like a contradiction in itself, but it was so necessary for my mental health.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
So, I’m what I call a “poetic pop” artist. I love melding poetry and pop, focusing on the lyrical integrity of my music but still giving that fresh, pop sound. I’ve always been in love with written word and poetry, and it’s so important to me to have lyrics that have substance and story. Not to say fun lyrics are out of the question – I just do my best to use them purposefully.
I think one of the things that sets me apart is that I produce my own music. It really gives me a level of creative control that many artists don’t have. It enables me to move at my speed, release at my pace, and to write music in an entirely different way. Not to mention the fact that there are so few female producers in the game right now! I’m eager to continue building that side of my career in Lillehammer next year.
I think I’m most proud of the fact my company is all me. I am the public relations, I am the creative director, I am the sole writer, the producer, the artist, I’m the social media manager… I really love doing it all (with an insane amount of emotional and general support from those around me, especially Ryann Schopfer.) I’m excited for the day I get to build a team, but I know I’ll look back on these days and be really proud of everything I was able to accomplish by just grinding every day.
Well, I actually just released my latest single, Mixed Signals, one of my favorites to date.
What were you like growing up?
Oh, man, hahaha. I should have my family answer this question for me.
Well, growing up, I was always a bit of a firecracker. I work really hard at what I do, and I was no different growing up. I know what I want, and I’ll hustle until I get there.
On the other side of my hustle, I’ve always been extremely emotional, and I’ve always been externally processing that emotion in some form of music. In Kindergarten, I used to flip my little plastic side over in the backyard, stand on it, and sing to the entire neighborhood. In elementary, I’d play a Barbie game on my computer, where you’d make melodies out of a pastel piano. You could record them and play them back, and I remember sitting there, listening to my melodies, bringing myself to tears. It’s hilarious to think about, this tiny little girl crying in front of her computer because of a little melody. But that’s who I was! And who I still am, really. I love writing the kind of stuff that brings me to tears – there’s such a spark of divinity in it.
I think for me just continually growing and watching this all bloom, personally and professionally, is the most rewarding thing.
Contact Info:
- Email: thisisdeza@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisisdeza/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thisisdeza
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/thisisdeza
Image Credit:
Faith Michele Photos, Haley Durham
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