Meet Davis Mallory

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Davis Mallory. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Davis, really appreciate you joining us to talk about a really relevant, albeit unfortunate topic – layoffs and getting fired. Can you talk to us about your experience and how you overcame being let go?
I moved to Nashville, TN in 2013 after working for 2 years in New York at Capital Records dance music label Astralwerks. I chose Nashville as I wanted to focus on songwriting, having spent several years behind the scenes – as a music journalist covering other artist’s music and at a label marketing other artists – I wanted to finally focus on creating music myself.

Though in typical fashion when moving to Nashville I looked for a full-time job to support me financially while I pursued songwriting during the weeknights and weekend hours.

I landed a sales job for a company that built websites for artists and was out having coffee meetings with artists and their managers and labels. I held this job for the better part of 3 months when I was suddenly and surprisingly laid off as the hiring manager did not know that I was pursuing songwriting and felt there was a conflict of interest with my closeness with artist managers and pursing this passion.

I was devastated at the time – knowing many people in Nashville with full-time jobs at Publishing companies and Labels – who also wrote songs at night – I felt I was justified in pursing both – but it was not my decision to make and in February 2015 I was laid off.

This would be my last full=time job.

Rewinding the story some, when I lived in New York working for a label known for internationally famous DJs (David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia) I attended many DJ sets and for Christmas 2012 was gifted DJ classes at a school in New York called Dubspot. I spent the first 3 months of 2013 learning to mix and scratch on the weekends and my first DJ job was the grand opening for Red Mango frozen yogurt company in Manhattan, followed by a popular nightclub Pacha.

When moving to Nashville I found the music scene to be entirely different than New York. In New York there were DJs everywhere – restaurants, night clubs – and famous ones constantly coming to play a show – Nashville had a different live music scene – more of the cover-song singers singing up and down broadway – but I searched for a DJ scene here and found that one thriving industry was the Wedding, School Dance and Corporate Event DJs. I set out to work as an employee DJ for several of the established Nashville DJ companies and learned the ropes and tricks of the trade for DJing weddings, school dances and similar events.

When let go of my full-time job in 2015, I chose for the first time to try to fully work as a DJ and sent out emails to as many venues, schools, wedding planners and event coordinators as I could find during my 9-5 hours. This ultimately led to a healthy amount of weddings, school dances, and similar jobs that I was able to support myself for a year as a full-time DJ.

There was always a month or two in the year (January-February) when I had very few DJ jobs and may have to pick up a small part-time job briefly to cover – or I would just learn to budget better. Ultimately though ever since 2015 I have been a full-time DJ and through this outbound work contacting wedding planners and venues in cities outside of Nashville, I now perform regularly in Hawaii, Los Angeles, Colorado, Miami, Arizona, Utah and one-off jobs across the US – while also having a thriving career as a singer-songwriter. My original music has amassed over 11 Million streams with songs heard in TV shows on Netflix, Hulu, MTV, coverage in national outlets including People Magazine, US Weekly, Huffington Post, Billboard and support from the world’s largest DJs (some I used to work for) – including Tiesto, Hardwell, Don Diablo, Morgan Page, Cedric Gervais.

I consider the layoff a blessing in disguise as it forced me to pursue my passion and talent completely, instead of splitting the time and energy between two jobs.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I am a singer-songwriter based in Nashville, TN – my mother is of Swedish ancestry and as a result I frequently make trips to Stockholm, Sweden to write music – over the past year I have been writing at Ten Music Group (label/publisher for famed Swedish artists Icona Pop, Zara Larsson, Benjamin Ingrosso) working on a full length album.

May 5, 2023 I released the first 3 songs from this project in an EP called American Boy. Songs “Unlike Myself” “So Much Warmer Now” and “American Boy” are included in this project. I returned summer 2023 to continue writing more music for the project and am in the planning stages of releasing the 10 songs written at Ten Music Group.

I also began working for Nexus Dance Radio in 2022 as a Radio Host – working at Miami Music Week and Amsterdam Dance Event interviewing artists and DJ/Producers about their career. I love promoting others work and feel it is a passion of mine to ask them the types of questions I wish to be asked as an artist myself, promoting their creative ventures.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I think having a work ethic is very important in success. Doing what you say you will do – and designating time every day to accomplish your goals – being a creative is important but having business sense is also equally valuable.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
I am always up for collaborating with others – especially in creative ventures – such as music videos, songwriting, producing music! I love to work with others whose creative style I feel matches with mine 🙂

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Images are owned by Davis Mallory

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