Lucy Anna Gray
Young female artists come and go in the music industry, but the singer Delilah is here to stay. With a sound that she describes as “Massive Attack meets Sade” and a mesmerising voice, she is fast capturing hearts. I spoke to Delilah to find out more about her music career so far and her debut album, From the Roots Up.
Originally Paloma Ayana Stoecker, Delilah started her whirlwind career from relatively humble beginnings. A college friend of the singer sent some of her recordings to a record label at the young age of seventeen and she was immediately snapped up by Atlantic Records. She described this time as “nerve racking. I think I was maybe a bit too young.” Yet even with all this pressure surrounding her, Delilah worked hard and was determined to continue.
After dedicated a lot of time to working with various writers and producers, in 2009 the young singer went on tour with the drum and bass group Chase and Status. The single Time (April 2011, Chase and Status and Plan B) peaked at number twenty one in the UK charts, a first for singer Delilah. Even with this great success she still felt like “The anonymous girl on a Chase and Status track. No-one knew what I was really about; they (C+S) were grinding to their own tune.”
Delilah’s first solo single was the incredibly successful song Go, and after being released in September 2011, it peaked at number seventeen. “This was a big surprise to me,” she said humbly, “there was little marketing, we just put it out without telling anyone. It was incredibly exciting and caught me off guard.” But this woman is no one hit wonder. She told me “With so many bands and artists in the industry it’s really tough. I’ve had to work really hard.” This hard working nature is evident in the fact that Delilah co-produced her own album. She emphasised the importance of this, saying that “I am an artist not just a singer. I could never just be given a song and told to sing it.”
None of this determination and talent went un-noticed, however. Delilah opened a number of tour dates for Grammy Award-winning artist Prince on his 2012 Australian tour in May. “He personally said ‘I want her to come to Australia’; it was an insane whirlwind. I had a complete star-struck fan moment.”
Following her tour with one of the world’s most famous singers, Delilah has just finished her second headlining tour of the year with her fantastic album From The Roots Up. Released in July this year, From the Roots Up features a mixture of her best work, including the popular singles Go and Love You So, and reflects her true talent. As well as this Delilah’s free mix-tape 2-4 AM is available for download on her website.
With her already-hectic life crammed with tours, television appearances and working on new sounds, Delilah is fast becoming popular in the public domain. Judging this previous growth in popularity, it won’t be long before she is a household name, with her album on every Ipod.
