Dillon Vado and Amy D: 'Who Am I?'

The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team. In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.

Multi-instrumentalist Dillon Vado and vocalist Amy D both hail from San José and said their music has been described as somewhere between “existential thrillers and Disney Princess pop power ballads.”

Vado moved to Oakland around 10 years ago to study at the California Jazz Conservatory, and D moved there in 2021 looking for new creative experiences. The two decided to form a songwriting partnership shortly after meeting up. Amy D made her solo singing debut with the release of her audio CD Like You in 2019.

Vado and D’s newest song is called “Who Am I?” and was originally crafted without any lyrics by Vado. Vado says he wrote the song when it became clear to him that the pandemic was going to last for longer than a few weeks.

“[The song] was very much this questioning, like, I’m a performing musician and who am I without all my gigs and my bands and these things that I think I define my life by? Where am I without all of that?” said Vado. He learned that he “had a real beautiful experience” reconnecting with his love for sound.

D initially had challenges setting lyrics to the fully through-composed song. “It’s almost like a crossword puzzle or something that already has a life of its own and you’re trying to apply a story to it,” said D. “The songs that I’ve written that feel so personal to me, someone will come up to me after the show and they tell me, ‘Wow, that really related to this experience in my life.’ So oftentimes the more personal I get, the more universal the message is received by the audience.”

Dillon Vado and Amy D will be performing live at Keys Jazz Bistro in San Francisco on Friday, June 2, at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.