Artist of the Week: Day Wave
By Kate Sustick
It is rather unusual for an aspiring musician to leave a place like Los Angeles in order to jumpstart their career. However, this week's artist of the week, Day Wave, has proven that a change in location and atmosphere can do wonders for a career. Jackson Phillips, the face of the one-man act Day Wave, started his musical career at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, studying jazz drumming. Moving back to Los Angeles after college, Phillips dropped his jazz drumming and joined the electro-pop group Carousel. After working and performing with Carousel for a few years, Phillips was inspired to go solo and began a project of his own; a one-man indie rock band known as Day Wave. With influences varying from Joy Division to the Beach Boys, Day Wave offers a new sound to the indie rock scene.
Quite literally exploding onto the scene in April 2015 after plays on Beats 1 and Sirius XM radio and over 3 million cumulative plays on Soundcloud, Day Wave released their first EP Headcase, which quickly received praise from some of the biggest names in publication such as the Los Angeles Times and Billboard. One of the most interesting parts of this artist in particular is the dedication to himself. As Phillips explains in an interview with Billboard, “This was the first time I was comfortable singing about my own life and just being more honest...I guess [before] I was more self conscious...But with this I just thought, ‘I’m 25, why do I care what people think? It’ll be easier for me this way.’” With a positive and confident disposition and a rising music scene in front of him, Day Wave is only at the start of his success in the music industry.
