In some ways, Dasha Logan is like one of the artistes who have inspired her: Christina Aguilera. Like the American pop sensation, Dasha is a petite lass with a big voice, and equally big dreams. And like Aguilera, Dasha has been singing since she was a child.
That’s hardly surprising, considering that she was born into a musical family — her grandmother (yet another of her inspirations) sang and more famously, her late father Loganathan Arumugam was co-vocalist in the 1980s pop outfit The Alleycats. She describes her dad as “her ultimate inspiration, influence and mentor”.
The 22-year-old has an infectious energy about her. She practically bounded into the makeshift hair and makeup space at Mandarin Oriental Hotel KL’s Pacifica, all ready to get into the thick of things. But both stations were busy, so we sat her down for the interview instead, during which she flitted from one thought to another like a pianist playing in staccato.
Dasha is dressed casually in a black knit top, pants and flats. She says that is how she usually dresses. “Off stage, I wear the most chin chai clothes with slippers, no makeup and my hair’s always a mess,” she laughs. So, no, she does not keep up with the latest trends and relies on her friends to style and dress her.
But like a chameleon, she changes into a totally different person when she performs. “I usually go for the classic look. I wear dresses, very feminine, and I like bareback dresses. My appearance on stage is very different — I’m a lot more confident and calm.”
It’s impossible to not like Dasha. She instantly endears herself to us with her down-to-earth, nonchalant demeanour and easygoing nature. Her sparkling personality comes with a fun and spunky attitude that says “I’m game for anything”. It’s also refreshing to find that this young girl does not take herself too seriously.
What were her major musical influences growing up? “When I was a lot younger, I always wanted to be one of those princesses in the Disney cartoons,” she gushes. “They always had the nicest voice! I always wanted to sing for Disney. That lasted a really long time, until I was 14, then it became a lot of Top 40 stuff: 911, Backstreet Boys and Spice Girls. Only when I was 16 did I branch out, and that was usually from what I would see my dad perform: Carly Simon, Carole King, Deep Purple.
There was also a lot of Christina Aguilera — how do you sing like that? — and Alicia Keys. Now, it’s John Mayer and jazz singer Esperanza Spalding.”
Dasha sings mainly jazz, although it’s not a genre she grew up listening to. That happened when she started singing at a Brazilian restaurant in Penang at 17. She performed jazz numbers as well as Spanish and Portuguese songs. “That led me to really enjoy singing jazz and from there it grew,” she says. “I met a lot of musicians who helped me incorporate different genres with jazz, funk, soul and R&B, and slowly, I’m beginning to understand myself. I’m still developing my style.”
And that essentially describes the phase the young vocalist is in right now — experimenting with different styles and genres, but with a foot firmly in jazz.
“I still see myself as very new, very fresh, sort of clueless. I’m still learning — there’s so much to learn! I’m so lucky I have such good musicians to guide me through it and for being patient with me.”
She says she is working very closely with saxophonist and songwriter Adil Johan and composer/producer/arranger Daniel Veerapen.
Dasha’s vocal talent and charismatic stage presence have made audiences and industry people sit up and take notice, both in her hometown of Penang and here in KL, to which she moved in January to take up an internship at a local magazine (Dasha is a mass communications graduate).
She performs mostly with the Adil Johan Quartet, singing Adil’s original compositions and jazz standards at venues like No Black Tie and Alexis. Her internship having just ended, Dasha is focusing solely on her music, working with Veerapen and Adil to come up with new arrangements of jazz standards, classics and current hits to perform at live shows.
Songwriting is also an area that Dasha has ventured into, and she freely admits to needing plenty of help from her musician friends due to a lack of music education on her part. Her poems, and fragments of melodies and sounds that she comes up with, are crafted into complete songs with help from Veerapen, Adil and his band, and her brother.
There is, however, one song that she has written and performed, a song with “a very R&B groove to it, and simple lyrics”.
“When I performed my original song, just that once, there was a singer there called Denise Mininfield. She came up to me and said, ‘Of all the songs you sang tonight, that was the only song I felt. Who was it by?’ I told her I wrote it. She said, ‘Obviously you did. You know that song; it’s your song. You felt it, and I felt it — I felt your pain.’”
Tapping into her emotional core to perform was something her late father encouraged her to do. “Three years ago, I broke up with my first and only boyfriend. My dad was still around and his daughter was experiencing heartache and all for the first time. He didn’t know how to comfort me. I thought he was going to say something to make me feel better but he said, ‘Sweetheart, now you can sing songs about heartache and understand it — it’ll mean something to you.’ That was the most important thing I learnt, to use my emotions to express myself.”
This small-town girl has dreams to go far in her career, but when asked to define what those are specifically, she says, “My brother just asked me what my long-term goal was. I couldn’t answer but said I have a vision: I see lights, flashes and a stage, and it’s just big. That’s all. It’s a vision; I don’t even know where this place is.”
A sharper focus will likely come with age. Whatever it is, this young lass is off to a good start and she has a luminous future ahead.
This article appeared in Options, the lifestyle pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue Issue 801, Apr 12-18, 2010