The 27-year-old Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and Berklee School of Music graduate has played violin since she was 4. Her parents played in a band and played locally when she was young. Though her younger sister doesn’t work as a full-time musician, she plays music, too. “It’s kind of hard to be in our family and not be musical,” Deering says with a laugh.
Though she’s a substitute player for the tour (she will not be with the group for their stop in Arlington at AT&T Stadium on June 23), Deering is grateful for the experience and opportunity playing stadiums and arenas with a legendary group. “There are no words that can truly express what I'm feeling, but ‘overwhelming gratitude and heart-stirring excitement’ comes close,” she wrote on Facebook.
Deering will join the group on a run of dates between March 12–17, and later, March 19–26 and July 26–28.
The current version of the Eagles includes co-founder Don Henley and longtime members Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit, joined by Vince Gill and Deacon Frey (the son of deceased co-founder Glenn Frey). For all of the dates, the country-rock pioneers will be joined by a small section of string players. Deering’s father, Milo, who also plays with Don Henley’s backing band, will play viola.
The timing of this opportunity has been great for Deering. She had been living in Nashville while she was a member of Seryn. That band had moved from the DFW area to the Country Music Capital in hopes of touring and recording full-time. The idea was, be based in a city that was a day’s drive to most of the country and has had a thriving music scene of its own. But things didn’t work out for the band.
“Honestly, I was really unhappy there,” she says. “I tried to make it work.”“You can make a living here playing music if you work really hard at it, which is not the case in many other cities."
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Nashville is a town that a number of DFW artists have moved to over the years with mixed results. “It’s very overcrowded, and there’s not a lot of diversity in the music scene there,” Deering says. “Unless you fit in this one or two or three little bubbles, it’s difficult to make money. It’s not the friendliest scene, which is strange because you’d think Nashville would be a friendly place.”
After Seryn broke up, she made a solo album, There is a Moon. Deering decided to move back to Dallas late last year. “It’s wild how, being back after only a couple of months, I’ve played more shows having just moved back than I did in six months in Nashville,” she says.
She’s working with Zane Williams, along with Tyler Curtis Rougeux of Whiskey Folk Ramblers, in a band called Crooked Bones. It’s a relief to just play music in the DFW area and not have to starve. “You can make a living here playing music if you work really hard at it, which is not the case in many other cities,” she says.
