Dani Satin has always enjoyed the intimate nature of folk singer-songwriter shows, where the lyrics really have the space and time to resonate with listeners.
“I think music is just this powerful vessel of connection and healing and processing emotions and feeling more understood or understanding other people,” says the Oakland musician. “With these more intimate, quiet live shows, I really loved to see how I was able to connect with folks, see people get emotional or uplifted or whatever it might be.”
So, the longtime folk-pop vocalist wasn’t really sure what to expect when she decided to plug in and form her own blues-soul-rock outfit last year.
“I guess, maybe subconsciously, I half-thought that (the lyrical connection) would sort of change or go away when playing these more energetic live shows,” says the 26-year-old Satin. “But it’s been really interesting to see people still connecting to the lyrics and feeling really understood or just being able to heal in community. I feel like it all translates, no matter what show or how many people are listening.”
Music fans will get to experience the talented vocalist’s new outfit — cleverly dubbed Dani Satin and the Velvet — when it performs March 2 at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. Satin and company share the bill with headliner Kendra Morris and Elbows. Showtime is 7:30 p.m. and tickets are $18 (ages 18 and over). Go to noisepop.com.
The show is part of the massive Noise Pop Festival, which hosts dozens of concerts at numerous Bay Area venues Feb. 22-March 3. Visit noisepop.com for details.
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Raised in the SoCal city of San Dimas (part of Los Angeles County), Satin formed a passion for music at an early age.
“I’ve been singing as long as I can remember — always loved it,” she says. “I’ve done all kinds of choirs, bands, different kinds of music groups, a cappella — all of the above.
“As soon as I started performing, I just realized I loved it. Nothing really brought me as much joy and peace and connection with other people.”
She took up the piano around age 10 and also began writing songs, as part of a way to process a tragic time in her life.
“My brother died when I was 15 and that is kind of when I really dove into songwriting,” Satin says. “Because, especially at 15, the people around you don’t often know how to talk about those kinds of things. I just turned to music.”
Yet, Satin wasn’t fully ready to commit to music as departed San Dimas for college at UC Berkeley in 2015. She actually majored in science there, while minoring in music.
“I wasn’t really sure exactly what I wanted to do,” Satin reflects.
Singer-songwriter Dani Satin plays guitar at her apartment in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2024. Her band Dani and the Velvet will be playing the Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco supporting Kendra Morris during the Noise Pop Festival on March 2. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
Not long after graduating, however, Satin landed a job in the music industry — only not as a performer, but rather working for Berkeley-based concert promoter Another Planet Entertainment, which puts on the annual Outside Lands festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and hosts shows at the Fox Theater in Oakland, the Greek Theatre at UC Berkley and many other venues.
She says that experience allowed her to “see all these other sides of the industry and see behind the curtain a little bit.”
“I loved that so much,” says Satin, who still works as a marketing manager for Another Planet. “I feel like working there only increased my desire for being on the stage more because I was being exposed to so many different kinds of music, so many different types of live shows.”
It also encouraged her to try something other than the folk singer-songwriter role.
“It just put a fire in my belly to make the band thing happen, because it was something I had always wanted and hadn’t done in a while with this original set of music,” she says.
So, about eight or nine months ago, she put together Dani Satin and the Velvet and began playing some shows, including a pair of relatively high-profile opening act gigs at the Independent in San Francisco.
.She’s joined in the group by bassist Eric Melendez, guitarist Monroe Vallejo, keyboardist/backing vocalist Isabelle Kimura and drummer Loui Barcelo.
“I feel like everybody brings their own background, their own flavor and their own passions,” she says. “So, I feel like a lot of these songs — which I had just written with me and a guitar, sort of a folk singer-songwriter vibe — have transformed into more of these indie-rock, blues, soul (numbers).”
The plan is to first focus on recording and releasing a few songs, so that there is some material for people to listen to online, and then keep right on playing Bay Area dates. Satin hopes to have a full-length album out by the end of the year and then hit the road sometime in 2025.
She also plans to write some new songs, which she says should help her process the grief of yet another loss in the family — her father, who recently died at the age of 64.
“He was my greatest supporter,” Satin says of her father, who was a comedy writer and worked in TV. “He himself gave up everything to pursue a creative career. So I am just grateful to have that inspiration and I am trying to carry that with me as I dive into this scary path of pursuing music.”
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