Artists in Their Bathrooms: Scarlett Deering

Bathrooms play a big metaphorical role in the life of Scarlett Deering. After dipping our toes in the bathwater of her early beginnings and big dreams, Deering dives deep into her origin story: It was her dad, a musician, who was the original inspiration for the violinist and sound engineer.

Growing up, she attended music festivals where she'd watch her parents perform. She informed her dad as early as age 3 that she would be doing the same.

In 2018, after leaving Nashville-via-Denton indie-folk band Seryn, she ended up playing violin for The Eagles alongside her father, Milo Deering.

“The biggest thing that I’ve accomplished that I have to be proud of is touring with The Eagles,” she says. But it was being able to do that with her dad, to tour together and to play next to each other onstage for a year, that made playing with The Eagles an incredibly proud experience. Deering takes a sip of her chai tea latte as we find a table at Jupiter House, a coffee shop in Downtown Denton, before heading back to her place, which has a highly saturated, maximalist bathroom and is the home of two adorable kitties. Deering is a self-proclaimed "overly feminine, cat-crazy girly-girl with a solid splash of punk rock."

Getting comfortable on a bench seat that overlooks the coffee shop and courthouse outside, Deering says she’s continued working with her dad as a producer and sound engineer at the Acoustic Kitchen, a full-service recording studio and concert venue in Dallas. “Typically, I am a hired gun,” she says of her playing either violin or fiddle in support of other bands. She plays with from 5 to 12 different bands or artists in one month along with producing music at the Acoustic Kitchen with her father. Over the years, the two have put together small live concerts and thrown artists together who would have never met otherwise.

“We built a community in Dallas,” she says.

The Deerings continue to grow this community of artists and to be the source of connection for musicians and artists alike together as a family.

However, touring, traveling, playing — those are the favorite aspects of her career.

“It doesn’t matter how many people are in the room, if everyone is singing along it’s an otherworldly experience that’s really just amazing to be a part of," she says. "I love traveling and being able to play to totally different faces every single night, you know, and getting to explore the underbelly of cities that you wouldn’t normally see if you were just traveling there for fun.”
With so much touring, moving and traveling, it's probably not surprising that Deering brings her work into the bathroom.

“Actually, literally yes ...  You know this, but most bathrooms have really interesting acoustics, so bringing a mic into a bathroom and recording strings I have 1000% done that a lot of times, but also, in the shower singing," she says. "I feel like there’s so many times that’s where I have finished a song or where I do a lot of my thinking.”

For Deering, bathrooms also serve as green room. “ ... Spending a lot of time doing makeup, getting ready, and pregaming for gigs, dancing, listing to songs, learning the songs in the shower that I’m about to play onstage, making sure I know all the parts,” she says before breaking into a laugh. “Yeah, oh my God, I’ve never realized how much the bathroom has a role.”
A lot goes into getting ready for a gig or writing a really personal song, but what is the source of that creativity?

“The times I’m most inspired are often the times where I’m forced to think really really hard or forced to face painful feelings, so driving for instance, I find a lot of inspiration when I’m driving because I am just thinking about all the troubles of life ... experiences, friends, relationships, heartbreak and nature," she says.
"Recently, I've been hiking as a way for me to force myself to disconnect from social media and just find inspiration from the Earth.”

Deering is looking for more meaningful experiences, and striving to be more present and healthy with her relationship with music and finding a better work/life balance.