Based in Vancouver, BC, twin brothers Carson and Nolan Bassett and their longtime friend Aidan Andrews make up the band daysormay. Over the past year, the 3-piece has gained an impressive following, jumping from just under 3000 followers on Instagram in August 2019 to their current 12,000 followers. While a large part of their recent exposure can be related to their gig as an opening act for artist Tessa Violet’s 2019 tour, their talent and devotion to their supporters are the real champions of their success. 

For many people across the world, COVID-19 put a halt to all projects and plans, but daysormay didn’t let the pandemic stop them from making music and connecting with their supporters. The group added four songs to their discography over the many months of lockdown: “Role Model”, “Running”, “Running (acoustic)”, and “Holding My Tongue”, and plan on releasing their second EP in 2021. One of the four, a re-recording of their 2018 track “Role Model” with added vocals by Tessa Violet, recently surpassed one million streams on Spotify. 

Along with releasing new music, daysormay strived to stay connected with their supporters through live streams on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch. Even if they weren’t able to play shows and meet them, daysormay kept the family of supporters they had grown intact. 

Their most recently released song, “Holding My Tongue”, is a powerful one. Originally written in 2014 after Andrews watched a video of the murder of Eric Garner by the NYPD, “Holding My Tongue” is one of daysormay’s heaviest tracks and it still rings true today. The lyrics exude frustration as calmly and cooly as is possible when speaking about such a painful topic, while the instrumental highlights the bold and blatant anger within the song. Insistent drums and a steady bass line drive the song forward, begging you to listen to what the lyrics have to say. The line “eyes under wool, it’s hard to see, death on the sidewalks, ‘I can’t breathe’” is almost impossibly relevant to today’s Black Lives Matter Movement, despite being written six years prior. Lyrics like “the longer this goes on there will be nowhere to go,” “words without action just move air,” and “nothing’ll ever change if we’re just standing by, waiting for the right time” urge listeners to see the tragedies that are occurring right in front of them and do more to stop them.

Following the release of “Holding My Tongue,” the band dropped both an official, lyric-focused, music video and a dynamic live performance of the song in the same studio. In late November, they live-streamed their one night only Holding My Tongue Tour, or HMTour, on YouTube from Monarch Studios in Vancouver. There were no tickets needed, but donations were welcomed as all proceeds were to be donated to Tiny House Warriors and Hogan’s Alley Society. By playing fourteen songs, including a fan-favorite cover of Teenage Dirtbag by Wheatus, daysormay filled the concert-shaped hole that COVID-19 left in fans’ hearts. Many of the band’s new fans discovered them during quarantine, and subsequently haven’t had the pleasure of seeing them perform live, so this hour-long live stream was appreciated. Together, viewers of the show raised nearly $500 for the two charities.

When I decided to center my blog around independent artists and how to support them, I had daysormay in mind. Watching their journey over the past year and a half and supporting them in any way I could opened my eyes to how important listener support truly is to independent artists. Whether it’s pre-saving a song, buying merch, or promoting a music video in a Zoom class chat, it helps. It’s crazy, to say the least, to see how quickly daysormay has grown in such little time, and that growth only makes me more excited to be there when they grow even bigger.