Daisey Traynham is what one might call a “triple threat.” She’s a top-notch web designer nationally recognized by GirlGeeks.com. She’s got a set of pipes that allows her to belt out sounds never expected from her petite, 5’2” frame. Oh – and she picks guitar too.
Performing solo, as part of the duo Heavenly Noise with husband Britt (aka DJ Batsauce), or a third of Smile Rays with Britt and MC/DJ Therapy, Traynham has a trademark voice that comes off both soulful and playful simultaneously. It’s one that perfectly matches the deep but free-spirited life she lives.
Traynham’s childhood was spent on the road. Raised in a Winnebago that housed her parent’s top-40 cover band, she grew up on stage, often pelting out her own unique renditions of popular ‘80s fare from Cyndi Lauper to Sister Sledge.
“Music has always been a part of my life and I’ve always had a passion for it,” she says, noting a love for acoustic guitar. “But I never for a second thought I’d do anything big with it. It was just a fun-around-the-campfire thing.”
In fact, for a fleeting moment, a film career might have been an option. When Traynham was nine, her family parked the Winnebago for a bit and took up housekeeping on a boat at a Fort Lauderdale marina. The spot served as a setting for the 1983 flick “Smokey and the Bandit Part 3.”
“One day, I was playing, catching shrimp in the marina. I was totally dirty and I saw this sign that said ‘casting office,’” Traynham recalls. “So I went in and, in my complete innocence said, ‘Hey, you guys got any parts in this movie for a cute little kid like me?’”
The call came in the next day and the scruffy little girl from across the bay was cast in a minutes-long part as the kid who blew up Buford T. Justice’s patrol car.
When she was 14, Traynham’s parents, and thus the band, split. Traynham went the rebellious route for a while, even joining the US Marine Corps, where she learned engineering for a full two months before pinching her sciatic nerve and getting the boot from Uncle Sam.
“I was supposed to see the world while they paid for my education,” she says.
Fate? Perhaps. It’s just the kind of irony that would happen again and lead to love a few years later when Traynham moved to Jacksonville. It was Tuesday night at the Voodoo Lounge in Jacksonville – which meant freestyling DJs and open mic poetry. The DJ that night was Britt Traynham.
“I had had a couple of beers and was feeling a little ballsy, so I grabbed the mic and started singing,” Traynham says. “Later, Britt handed me his phone number and said, ‘Let me know if you want to hook up and make a heavenly noise.’”
The two met soon after under the guise of making music. Then fate intervened once more.
“The next day, I lost my voice. I went totally mute for a month,” Traynham says. “So we just hung out for a while and absolutely fell in love. A couple of months down the line I said, ‘Hey, how about that music?’”
So, the two became Heavenly Noise, a self-contained musical act described as “somewhere between Janis Joplin and Run DMC.” Britt creates alternative soul, hip hop and downtempo beats at his home studio, and Daisey sings with a voice that one reviewer calls “a perfect mesh of old school and new millennium, like if Billie Holiday and Macy Gray were to collab.” In 2004, the two became Mr. and Mrs.
True to form, Traynham is itching to see more of the world. The couple recently sold or stashed the bulk of their worldly possessions in a storage unit and is living a minimalist lifestyle while they prepare for their “great escape” to Europe. The idea comes via The Smile Rays’ record deal with Berlin-based Jakarta Records.
“We’ve always been told, ‘You guys need to go to Europe. They’ll eat you up out there,’” Traynham says. “So we’re going to do that for a few months, pal around, do our music and see where the wind takes us.”
Of course, somebody’s gotta make some money. While their music business is going strong, any musician knows that the first few years typically are lean financially. Especially for those who buck the major label system in favor of the freedom that an independent label affords. This is where Traynham’s ability to balance the creative and the technical comes into play.
Through her company Firefly Multimedia, Traynham designs websites, user interfaces and CD packaging among other things. It’s a job that allows her the freedom of a “12-step commute” from her bedroom door to her desk. And it’s encouraging her latest passion – a character called “Phonobot.”
“I was just doodling on my computer one day and along comes Phonobot,” she says of the two-dimensional, galaxy cruising character on a mission to “find the funk.” Her doodling morphed into a series of storyboard stills that Traynham is considering developing into a children’s book or TV/Web TV series with a self-empowering message. She’s already selling a series of Phonobot pins on her Firefly website, plans a line of T-shirts and is researching the toy manufacturing process. Who knows? Phonobot could become the next character-driven merchandising enterprise – a positive plaything that both kids and parents will dig.
“Everybody has their own definition of what funk is,” Traynham explains. “Maybe you dress funky or maybe something smells funky. In any case, the funk is within you. You have to find your own funk inside you, be yourself and just be funky.”