(Photo courtesy Resilia)
Back in her own bed after being on tour, Daisy Chamberlin, lead vocalist of modern post-hardcore band Resilia, shares her experience as an LGBTQ+ artist in Orlando’s music scene.
No one is more privy to the profound impact music can have on one’s life than Chamberlin herself.
Growing up with a musician father and a background in violin and piano, she started singing in middle school and was in a local band by the end of high school.
A few years later, she was packing her bags and relocating to Orlando from the Daytona area to join the first band she had ever toured with, “I Met a Yeti.”
This decision, which Chamberlin describes as having been an impulsive one, would eventually become a catalyst in her musical career. She also spent time as an employee of Watermark Out News.
While fronting “I Met a Yeti,” Chamberlin’s manager at the time connected her with Resilia, who didn’t have a lead singer, for a one-off vocal feature.
After the song had been out for about a month, she loved the chemistry enough to ask if she could join the band permanently — and ended up becoming the band’s full-time vocalist.
Along with singing, Chamberlin writes music for the band in collaboration with Resilia’s five other members, John Benoit, Gray Trainer and Owen Robinson on guitar, Ethan Cate on bass guitar and Grant Dickerson on drums.
She says their songs are inspired by a healthy sampling of formative post-hardcore bands like Hail the Sun, A lot Like Birds, Hrvrd and PM Today.
“I think the major connecting thread is it’s kind of like noodley ambitious guitar stuff over really overplaying drums and very high, soaring, clean vocals and sometimes, depending on the band, kind of the back and forth, whiny, clean vocals over more distorted, harsh vocals,” Chamberlin says.
When it comes to creating music, Chamberlin says her identity as a trans and bisexual woman also gives her a unique perspective that has woven itself into her music.
“Not that there aren’t plenty of other wonderful trans people that also have a very similar perspective to mine, but I think at least in terms of vocalists and sorts of core music, there’s few of us,” Chamberlin shares. “I think it’s affected everything from the music that I consume and influences me to other art that I consume and ideas and concepts that influence my lyric writing, my perspective on music and what I’m hoping to achieve with art.”
Resilia often writes with the LGBTQ+ community in mind, Chamberlin says, as she’s noticed that many people at their shows and listeners of the post-hardcore genre tend to be queer individuals themselves.
During their past tour, Chamberlin says she even started to make more jokes specific to the LGBTQ+ community, in between the band’s set, about experiences that one might have as a transgender individual.
“I have the history of people coming to me and explaining to me their identity and their queerness and how our music has impacted that or how representation has positively influenced that,” Chamberlin says. “There’s even a particular song that was almost on the last album, that the writing was influenced a little bit by the fact that we knew how the music would be interpreted by the queer community.”
The band has performed and toured since 2022, debuting at Chain Reaction in Anaheim, California opening for Makari, and has gone on to play cities throughout the country including Chicago, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston.
Resilia released their debut EP in 2023, revealing their personalized take on the progressive post-hardcore sound.
Carving out a distinct space in this scene, word of mouth has led to more than five million streams across digital platforms and a partnership with Kill Iconic and Equal Vision Records, who released the band’s debut showcase, “By A Thread.” The new album was recorded at VuDu studios with producer Mike Watts.
In getting to really know their fans, Chamberlin says she prefers to play at smaller venues like Will’s Pub, especially within Orlando’s music scene, which she says tends to be more saturated with hardcore or indie-leaning bands.
“Nothing beats a more intimate venue, a more community-based venue where it’s not just the lights beating down on you and you just see a sea of heads,” Chamberlin says. “I think being in a smaller room and actually talking to people and actually getting drinks with people, you know, talking with people at the merch table, is a more remarkable experience.”
Playing music in a sub-genre that has continued to evolve and resurge since the ‘80s, Chamberlin says she has a feeling that today’s wave of nostalgia for the early 2000s will incite even more growth for newer post-hardcore bands, like Resilia.
“I’m maybe a little optimistic in this, but I do hope that there will be a little bit of a renaissance of this genre in the next couple of years,” Chamberlin says. “I think one of my goals, personally, is to make sure that what we’re doing sticks around throughout that and is present.”
This fall, Resilia will be on tour again with a stop in Tampa at New World Brewery on Nov. 15. The tour includes over 20 stops and kicks off Oct. 30.
Resilia’s first full-length album, “By a Thread,” is now available via Equal Vision Records on all streaming services, and vinyl and CD versions of the album can be found on Resilia.Bandcamp.com.
Want even more arts and entertainment? Check out Watermark Out News’ Fall Arts Guide below.
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