Frederick M. Brown/Getty ImagesHow many artists can say they won their first Grammy before they did their first headlining tour? Daya can. The 18-year-old singer scored a trophy last weekend for Best Dance Recording, for her Chainsmokers collabo “Don’t Let Me Down.” On Saturday night, she’ll kick off her tour in Philadelphia.
So what can fans expect? “I’m gonna play instruments, for sure,” she tells ABC Radio. “I think that’s been important to me from the beginning, ’cause that’s what I grew up doing. And also we’ll have lights, we’ll have production…This is the first time that I get to design my show.”
Fans also will see that Daya’s now a seasoned professional, which certainly wasn’t the case when she released her debut single, “Hide Away,” in 2015.
“This all happened when I was still a junior in high school,” she says. “So I literally just flew from prom to L.A. the next day, and was just kinda thrown into this business…I had no clue how to perform.”
“I had always performed behind the piano, or behind a guitar or something like that,” she adds. “So performing solo…was so new to me. I had to learn how to move on stage and…interact with the crowd.”
And how did she learn? By doing.
“You can have people try to teach you, or you can take as many classes as you want,” Daya says. “But I think it’s up to you in the end to put the practice in, and just keep practicing it and doing it over and over and over again…that’s what’s helped me a lot.”
Daya’s tour, in support of her debut album Sit Still, Look Pretty, wraps up March 30 in her home town of Pittsburgh, at the same venue where she used to attend concerts when she was just a fan.
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