Delilah

HK Magazine: What have you been up to in Hong Kong?
Amy Whitcomb: We sang at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre and a lot of people came out—there was acappella music going on for four hours straight.
Kendall Young: We’ve also done multiple workshops at secondary schools and that’s been really fun, really interactive—teaching them how to sing some of our background parts and how to build up a song and then getting to meet the kids afterwards.

HK: How did Delilah come to be?
AW: We were put together by NBC last year [for “The Sing-Off”] and we made Delilah and competed on the show. It could have been a complete disaster, but there’s definitely chemistry and something that’s definitely meant to be about this group so we continued the friendship and the music. It’s been a big part of all of our lives, I think.

HK: Were you all singing or participating in music before Delilah?
KY: We each have a lot of history just being in music—each of us has either been in acappella for years or in different genres of music, from rock to classical and Christian music. I think one reason why our sound is so different and fresh is because we have each dabbled in different genres—we can each bring something new.
Geena Glaser: We’re all from completely different walks of life.
Ingrid Andress: I think that’s one of our biggest strengths and one of our biggest weaknesses too, because we live in different places all around the US so we don’t have that time to be together [to] rehearse. We only get to rehearse when someone wants us to come and perform so they bring us altogether.
KY: I always tell the kids in the workshops to start a group with their best friends because the way you get good is just by being together all the time and memorizing each other’s voices and how they sound.
GG: Another reason why we have such a good dynamic is because the way this group was founded was very rapid. Everything on the show was within time restrictions and we had to be extremely malleable as a group and as individuals. You couldn’t let an ego or anything get in the way, you just had to do what was best for the group.

HK: Can you tell us a bit about your musical backgrounds?
AW: I started singing [in] middle school—it was around the first season of American Idol, so Kelly Clarkson is still one of my idols to this day.
Laina Walker: My grandmother is what I consider to be a musical genius and she started training me classically when I was about eight.
KY: My passion is worship music—I write worship music and lead worship in Nashville, Tennessee.

HK: Are there any singers who inspire you?
Everyone: Beyonce!
Johanna Vinson: We joke about wanting to be Beyonce, but it’s really quite serious.
GG: Just power women. A big thing about this group is that we don’t need a male bass or a male beatboxer and we can be just as good as everyone else.
AW: There’s a special message and feeling that only a group of women can bring onstage. Guys are really funny and have lots of energy but they can’t do exactly what we can do. Even though we’re not as bass or percussion-filled, we bring something special, and that’s been our goal.
JV: On the TV show we found that our strength is connecting to the audience and bringing out the heart and emotions in all of the music and making a song meaningful. We especially want to reach out to young girls and bring more respect and quality to acappella.

HK: Do you have any goals or future plans for the group?
Everyone: Stay together.
Hannah Juliano: Specifically, we want to do an album or EP. We’d love to keep touring and traveling the world if we can, singing at all different kinds of events.