Teen makes expressive music

Danny Stewart belts out a tune. Photos submitted

By Tom Victoria

For Danny Stewart, being an artist is an adventure. The teen musician does rap and rock.

Danny, 18, described his style.

“It's definitely versatile,” he said. “But I would put myself in the emo category, because I dabble in emo rap and emo rock. I like to mix the two like my song Lose Too Much. The chorus, it's a rock chorus, but then as soon as you get into the verse, it's a trap beat, and I'm rapping a little more.”

Danny’s stage name is Danny Adventure.

“When trying to find a name, I wanted something that would stick out,” he said. “I wanted to use my first name, but a lot of words just don't sound good with Danny. But I wanted to have a first and last name. I wanted something that sounded interesting. Originally, I had it as Danny's Adventures, but that's because I was doing other things at the time and I wanted a more happy-go-lucky kind of name.”

Danny, who relocated from Wisconsin to attend college in Ohio, eventually refined the moniker.

“After I got more serious about music, taking out the Ses and just having it as Danny Adventure sounded more edgy, but more mature,” he said. “I have a very clear persona and a very clear aesthetic.”

Danny cited his musical inspirations.

“It's definitely inspired by emo rap artists like Lil Peep, Drippin So Pretty, Brennan Savage,” he said. “People of that sphere of rap.”

Danny explained why music is a passion.

“It means a lot of things,” he said. “Growing up, I was always surrounded by music. With my mother and my sister, who was always playing her guitar, it was always an outlet that I could tap into whenever I felt some sort of emotional turmoil. It was always my getaway growing up.”

Danny said music is something a creator owns.

“In life, a lot of things aren't really yours, but with music, you build it all yourself,” he said. “Especially when you're making a brand, you build that brand all by yourself. It's your own thing. Nobody's ever made that before. That's where I find the most solace in it.”

Danny’s newest singles debuted earlier this year.

“I’ve released two singles since the start of the year, 18 Steps to Ruining my Life and Next To Me, which have both been very well received,” he said.

Danny said one of the pieces is romantic.

“Me and my girl have been together for a little over a year, since we were both in high school,” he said. “One of my latest songs Next To Me is actually the first love song I ever wrote and sang for her on my guitar. Needless to say that song means a lot to me.”

Danny explained the other tune’s meaning.

“18 Steps is a song about never trusting yourself and the decisions you make to the point where you start purposefully doing the opposite of what you think is right,” he said. “It's in an alt-rock style which is a little different to any other song I've released up to this point. The song was produced along with my close collaborator AUGUSTIN which was an amazing process working directly with him. I think on that song we truly made a unique experience in the production.”

Danny’s prior song, Emotionally Unavailable, debuted on December 6.

“It's an emo rock song for sure, but it's got a lot of pop elements to it,” he said. “There's a trap beat in there because I'm me.”

Danny is proud of that collaboration with AUGUSTIN.

“It's an emo rock song,” he said. “It's about getting into a new relationship and having to deal with what your past relationship put onto you. It's super high energy and I think that everybody's going to really like it. I'm super excited for that.”

Danny’s previous release was One Last Kiss.

“It's an ambient, emo rap song,” he said. “Trap beat throughout the beginning, and then it slows down into more of acoustic drums and then a ballad sound at the end. I think it's one of my best songs. It's fully self-produced, which most of my songs aren't, but there are a few here and there that are. It's about distance relationships. It's about the feeling of going the distance with the person that you love and mentally how that feels.”

Danny received positive feedback.

“People have been really relating with it on the Internet,” he said. “My TikToks that I've been releasing have been packaging it as this song about distance relationships. I've gotten a lot of really good feedback of people being like, I fully relate to this. That's been really cool to see.”

Danny’s prior release to One Last Kiss also did well.

“The one previous to that was a song called something else,” he said. “It was also fully self-produced. That one is very experimental. It's very ambient. It's about my relationships. It's a very personal song. That one did really well, too.”

Danny plans to keep posting social media content this year.

“My plan so far, really just continuing to push the TikTok, the Instagram, the YouTube, because right now I'm on a two-reel, two TikTok, two YouTube shorts a day as far as short-form content. I've been really pushing that because there's a huge audience there and just releasing singles.”

Danny will release more music in the coming year.

“An artist of my size, releasing singles is the best way to get traction,” he said. “I've got a ton of songs that I've been working on lined up that I'm super excited about. They're mostly in the emo rock genre.”

Danny described his music production process.

“All of my songs start out as self-produced,” he said. “I always make my own beat and then I'll sing on it and rap on it. But if I don't really like my original beat or if I think one of my close collaborators like Augustin, my closest collaborator when it comes to production, would work really well on the production, then I'll go to his place. I'll give him the acapella and we'll work together on it. In a sense, everything that I release is self-produced. It depends on the song whether there will be multiple producers or just me.”

Danny draws inspiration from his own life to make music.

“My music is very much from my own life,” he said. “I write a lot about personal experience. I would say most of my songs are about very personal experiences. I get very vulnerable on them because for me, my catalog and my music, it's almost like a journal. I can look back on the songs and I can remember where I was at that time, when I released it, when I made it. I can think back to how I was feeling at that moment, what kind of a situation I was in. And I can learn from that.”

Danny wants his music to have more depth than less introspective tunes.

“A lot of people really enjoy the way I write simply because it's very vulnerable and from my own experience,” he said. “A lot of people in my scene and my genre — I'm not throwing shade at anyone — but they tend to write a little more meaningless, which is fine. There's a time and place for that. But one of my defining features is that all my music is significant. Every song I release has a significant story behind it that I could go on and on about.”

Dating Danny carries risks as he shares a trait with such singers as Taylor Swift, but his current girlfriend has no worries.

“I don't see that ending anytime soon,” he said. “All my newer songs are about her and my past relationship. My song Julia, which is an emo rap rock song, it's very aggressive. It is about my past relationship. I do write very personally about people and that's just what they have to deal with.”

Although Danny is thinking about particular individuals in songwriting, he makes the songs relatable for everyone.

“I do leave a lot of vagueness and a lot of room for interpretation,” he said. “That's because I want my songs to be to be interpreted the way the listener wants to interpret it. I don't want it to be too specific, because I want the listener to put it into their own life, more relatable.”

Danny doesn’t want listeners to be turned off by a song due to specific intentions that don’t mesh with what meaning they give it, such as when fans were distraught to learn the Police’s 1983 song Every Breath You Take was about obsession, not love.

“I'll listen to a song and I'll put it into my own life, and I'll imagine my own life by that song,” he said. “And then sometimes, I'll find out what it's actually about. It makes the song less enjoyable for me, so I definitely like to make it very vague for people to interpret it their own way. Many people have messaged me like,  this song means so much to me because of this and this and this. I'm like, that's great. I did not mean to convey that message, but I'm glad I did for you.”

Danny savors how art can be interpreted in various ways.

“That's what I love,” he said. “Music, it's all about interpretation. That it's one song could mean so many different things for so many different people. It makes it one of the best forms of media and art.”

Danny conceives new music without picking up a pen.

“My process when it comes to making songs, I have an idea in my head,” he said. “I have whatever I want to vent about in my head. Whatever situation I'm in, whatever emotion I'm feeling, I'll bring up a loop and I'll freestyle bar for bar and then produce around that and then freestyle from that producer on that. When it comes to rap, people don't tend to write as much. It's definitely true for me. I always freestyle bar for bar, especially with the way that my music works, it's more me venting about my situation than it is a story of poetry.”

Danny also jams on a guitar.

“I love my acoustic guitar,” he said. “I use my guitar in almost every part of my music process. It’s my best friend.”

“I've had a few chances to perform my music live and it's always a great experience, especially when you have your friends there to perform along with you.”

Danny enjoys performing before a crowd.

“I've performed three times with my own music,” he said. “One in Iowa, one in North Carolina and one in Minnesota. All of these were with my friends, with my close collaborators. I'm in a rap group called Vanity, that's with Crizzy White and teddyboi. It's a three-person group and I've done two of my shows with them. I've had a few chances to perform my music live and it's always a great experience, especially when you have your friends there to perform along with you.”

Danny hopes to land more gigs in the new year.

“I would love to keep doing that in the future,” he said. “I'm always looking to get booked for shows.”

Danny lives in the Cincinnati area.

“I'm glad I was able to move here and get more connected with people who are in music,” he said. “Vanity is a rap group I’m a part of along with Crizzy White and teddyboi. It was formed after me and Crizzy’s old collective 333 was shut down. With the success of 333 Collective, we wanted to build our own closed circle group once it was over. We've released some songs here and there under the Vanity name but plan to use it as more of a brand than anything. Currently, it's only really only being used to get us booked for shows but people should be on the lookout for new music and much more with that project.”

Danny recalled hearing 1980s music when he was a tyke.

“There was a lot of music getting played around me at the time with my mom and my dad and my sister,” he said. “My dad was always playing like The Cars and Cheap Trick. I never really caught on to music until I needed it. I started getting more stress in my life. And then I started listening to not the greatest music. I was listening to 21 Pilots and Imagine Dragons. But when you're young, you need an introductory to music. It's not usually a good introductory, but it's what caught my attention.”

Over time, Danny became more focused on music.

“Ever since then, it's grown into this huge passion,” he said. “The first music that I ever heard that got me into actually making music was I was 14 and I was on SoundCloud. It was the first time I was on SoundCloud and I was hearing music that other people as young as me were making. It wasn't good music, but I saw that other people my age were making music and I was like wow, I could do that. That was super inspiring to me.”

Once Danny started, he didn’t quit.

“I was 14 when I started seriously making music,” he said. “And seriously is maybe a strong word because it was just making songs off YouTube beats on my school MacBook in my room. But I stuck with it. I was making songs every day and I just never stopped. And here we are.”

Danny said a musician should know the evolution of music from classic symphonies through the groovy ‘60s up to now.

“If you're gonna dive into a specific genre, I feel as an artist, you want to know where that came from,” he said. “Nowadays, I would say my biggest inspirations in my sound is early 2000s emo rock, which is when emo rock was really booming, early 2000 post-hardcore and Midwest emo and pop punk. That's been super inspiring to look back on that music and see more where my genre came from as well as listen to emo rap and all the newer but still influential underground rappers that started emo rap as a sound.”

Danny hopes to mix his career path with his music.

“I'm a communications major, so I'm looking to do more business, corporate stuff,” he said. “The classes I'm taking are business-related classes. I'm hoping that will help me with my music and with the business surrounding my music. I never want to stop making music. I always want to pursue it. If it becomes a career, that'd be great. But if it doesn't, it's fine. But I'll keep pursuing it until I can't anymore because it's my favorite thing. I enjoy it so much.”

Danny wouldn’t be adverse to becoming a celebrity.

“I would take it as far as it can go,” he said. “When you put so much time into something, even if it brings you to a place of maybe less security like that, just seeing that payoff is an amazing feeling. If I did take it that far, I was the one who brought me there and there's nothing more rewarding than that. A lot of money comes with that. I could send my kids to college. I could set my family up, buy my mom a house — all these things that maybe I wouldn't be able to do.”

“I also like keeping a more clean image, a more accessible pop image.”

Danny doesn’t have a magic elixir that some singers employ to keep his voice up to snuff.

“I drink a lot of water,” he said. “That's pretty much it. I don't have that strong of a voice. It tends to break very easily, so maybe I need to figure out a concoction.”

Danny works out a few times a week.

“I don't feel any pressure to stay active, stay fit for music,” he said. “I do it anyway because it's important.”

However, Danny sees it as an advantage career-wise.

“It's helped me especially image-wise because I am more fit and more perceivably attractive,” he said. “It does help as far as image and brand.” 

Danny isn’t worried about making his girlfriend jealous, though.

“My girl is my number one fan,” he said. “She knows she’s the only one on my mind. It’s all about communication in any relationship, but especially in the position I’m in.”

Danny doesn’t need to be concerned whether a particular piercing or tattoo conflicts with his image.

“I definitely thought about that because a lot of people who make music like me, they have a lot of piercings, they have a lot of tattoos because it's more this emo sound and that's very tied in with emo music,” he said. “But I'm not a fan of it personally. On me, I'm not a fan of tattoos or piercings. They're too permanent. I also like keeping a more clean image, a more accessible pop image.”

Danny wants to put the spotlight on emo music.

“Those early 2000s emo rock bands that were booming back in the day have fallen off nowadays,” he said. “And with emo rap, Juice WRLD, Lil Peep, XXXTentacion are all sadly passed away. I feel emo has very much fallen off of the mainstream. One of the main things I want to do with my music is push it back onto the mainstream. Keeping a clean aesthetic while also having very emo aesthetics like the stuff I wear is very tied into an emo aesthetic.”

“My main motivation is the people around me, my girlfriend and the artists I work with. They really push me to release those two short form videos a day and continue releasing music monthly.”

Danny and fellow musician AUGUSTIN.

Danny focuses on clothing with regards to an image.

“Naturally, I've dressed in that sort of lane to fit my music,” he said. “I would say as far as dressing and as far as how I look, it is important for my brand to keep a pop image. I don't really need tattoos or piercings to show off the image that I want to show.”

Danny wears a signature piece of clothing.

“One of the most recognizable parts of my brand is my orange coat,” he said. “I’ve used it as a way to stick out since nobody’s wearing that. I’ve always worn what came naturally to me and felt comfortable to me. I’ve been rocking an orange coat since elementary school. It’s always been a staple of me and bringing that into my music image just feels like my most genuine self.”

Danny works on his music even when he doesn’t feel up to snuff.

“My main motivation is the people around me, my girlfriend and the artists I work with,” he said. “They really push me to release those two short form videos a day and continue releasing music monthly. It's really for the people I care about and for myself because I do really enjoy music. I've put so much time into the craft itself that I know that you need to put in time every day to make it work and to achieve success off of it. I'm at a point in my life where I feel like I'll go after that no matter what even if I get a little tired. But that's just life. You gotta work through it.”

Danny dispensed advice to aspiring musicians.

“Just do it,” he said. “And don't try to be anybody you’re not. Do whatever comes natural to you and eventually you'll find a sound or an image that you want. But just do it and do it for the right reasons. Don't do it for money, don't do it for fame, do it for an outlet or for yourself.”

Danny’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dannyadventure_/