Rising Stars: Meet Mikayla Raney and Angel Avila

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mikayla Raney and Angel Avila.

Hi Mikayla and Angel, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Mikayla: In terms of our background with music and how we got started, we both have slightly different stories.

Angel: I first started playing music when I was 19, I initially picked up the bass. I was really inspired by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Flea specifically. He inspired a whole generation of bass players, really. I then joined a band in college, we performed a few times and I loved it. But I couldn’t continue it. You know, life got in the way. I graduated from college and started my career. But once things started settling down, I decided to switch over to guitar because I thought the guitar would be more fun to play solo in my free time. Playing the bass you kind of need to play with other people and I didn’t have the schedule for that. So, I started learning the guitar on my own, watching video tutorials, and learning what I could through the internet. I was getting to a point where I was really finding my way on the guitar but wasn’t considering myself a guitar player. I kind of kept my guitar playing to myself. I hadn’t performed outside of small family gatherings or hanging out in my living room. But then Mikayla and I met and we set up a couple of Jam sessions and realized we sounded pretty decent together.

Mikayla: I’ve been involved with music since I can remember. I was always that kid singing random songs or begging my mom to videotape me doing some kind of silly performance. In school, I did the typical band and choir geek route all throughout middle and high school. Through high school, I was always involved in singing in some way, either in choir competitions, singing in my friends’ bands when they needed female vocals, or performing in theater shows my school would put on. But like with Angel, when I went to college all of that kind of changed. Life got in the way. I started really diving into my studies and I wasn’t able to perform or play around with music much anymore outside of singing in my car or random karaoke nights with friends. I did a few theater shows here and there but nothing like what I used to. I really started to miss it. So, when things started slowing down with school Angel and I met and started playing together and found we really enjoyed it.

We met and started playing music at the start of the Pandemic so we really kept most of our playing private. We didn’t really perform outside of Angel’s living room! So, when things started opening back up, we started playing open mics in the local area, mainly the late Rula Bula in Tempe (which is sadly now closed) and Sozo’s Coffee House in Chandler. And it took off from there. We started reaching out to local breweries and pubs, got a few gigs and have really been enjoying playing in the phoenix area.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Mikayla: It has not always been a smooth road to get to where we are now.

Angel: Yeah, you know, as artists, you deal with a lot of rejection at times and humbling moments. A couple of years after college, I tried out as a bass player for a band that was playing some pretty major gigs around the valley and I remember totally bombing the audition. I just wasn’t prepared to play at their caliber and it really humbled me. I felt really down about it and it took me back a bit. But looking back on it, it really was a learning experience in disguise. You know, getting rejected made me want to get better at my craft that much more. And I did. It really helped me a lot then when I switched to guitar. I was able to really challenge myself and hone in on my craft before reaching out to other artists to collaborate. So, when me and Mikayla met, I felt prepared to contribute something of value.

Mikayla: I’ve had to deal with my own rejections too. I actually wanted to go into music when I went to college and I just simply wasn’t prepared for what it took. I grew up in a small town in Michigan where they had some fine arts programs, mainly band and choir, but they didn’t really have arts programs that prepared students to study the arts in college. I was always a good singer at my high school and was successful at some state choir competitions, but it was kind of the big fish small pond scenario. Once I went to college and moved into a bigger pond, my voice wasn’t as impressive because there were so many talented people. I wasn’t prepared for that and wasn’t able to get into the one program that I wanted and ultimately, I decided to switch study paths and pursue something else as my career. That brought me back a little bit. Feeling that rejection from the admissions. Not being able to follow what I thought was my dream. But, like Angel said, it’s a learning opportunity and I started getting more serious about my sound. I started playing around with my sound and finding my own personal style so that I could stick out on my own a little bit better. So, when I graduated college and started trying to get back into singing in public again, I was more prepared.

Angel: And, you know, the rejection didn’t stop once we formed our duo. Once we did some open mics we started reaching out to local businesses and were initially turned down. We were just a name and we didn’t really have anything to show businesses what we sounded like. We didn’t have any recordings of us playing together and our social media was almost non-existent. So, we took those initial rejections in stride and got to work. We added a bit more to our social media so people could learn what our sound is like and started reaching out to other places with actual material of us playing so they could see our style and we were more successful and able to book some shows.

Mikayla: I think another obstacle we’ve had to overcome is learning how to work together as a duo when both of us have very different styles when it comes to creating and picking what music to perform. When we first started playing together, I wanted to sing all these country artists, and Angel wasn’t the biggest fan of country. And on the flip side, Angel really wanted to do songs by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and while they’re a great band, they just weren’t the style of music I was used to singing. So, we’ve had to really learn how to work together and find how our differences in style and music tastes can come together to create our own music style as a duo.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Angel: It’s funny, our careers are actually completely unrelated to our music! I’m a software engineer and Mikayla is a speech-language pathologist. We just love to play music because it’s a real passion of ours. I think that’s what sets us apart too. Since we love music so much, we just have such a great time doing it. We want to share the music and the feel-good vibes with others.

Mikayla: Yeah, I think that’s one thing that we’re proud of as a duo too. Bringing good vibes wherever we play. We really do just love music and want to share it with others. My favorite thing is when we’re out playing a gig at a local brewery and the kids come up and dance near our set up or even adults come up and dance. Music moves us and it’s really fun to see our music move other people. You can feel the energy in the room lift. It’s a great feeling.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Mikayla: That’s such a hard question because there have been many lessons learned along the way.

Angel: The most important lesson I think I’ve learned is to not give up. You know, take challenges and obstacles as an opportunity for growth. We talked earlier about rejection. It stings and it’s uncomfortable and humbling. We’ve both experienced rejection as individual artists and as a musical group and if we closed off ourselves to that rejection and stayed in our humble little corners instead of taking that as an opportunity for growth, we would never be where we are now. We probably wouldn’t have met and started collaborating together. Or, we would have just stayed playing in my living room after receiving those first rounds of rejections from businesses.

Mikayla: Yeah, I think taking challenges and obstacles as opportunities for growth has been an important lesson for both of us. But I also feel a just as important lesson that I’ve learned is to let things take their course and to not sweat the small stuff. I know that sounds corny, but it’s true. I use to always be concerned about the littlest things when it would come to making music. Even down to the types of songs I would sing. I was so worried about whether I was picking the right song for the right audience and singing it the right way, which was always how some famous recording artist would sing it. I was using all this external validation to prove to myself and others that my voice was “valuable” when really I just needed to sing what I felt and how I felt. Once I started looking more inward instead of outward, the music just felt much more authentic and everything started to fall into place. So, I’ve learned not to worry so much about whether you’re making what you “should” be making and focus more on what you want to make. In my experience, it makes for more success and people vibe more with the music that you’re putting out.

Contact Info:

• Email: off.apollo.duo@gmail.com
• Instagram: @offapolloduo