Quick Life Story

Born and raised in the East County of San Diego, Dakota started off the way a lot of artists did, at his church! His first performance was with the children’s choir at five years old where he immediately fell in love with singing. He took that taste and continued on to try every performance outlet the church had to offer, including the adult choir, youth theatre, and eventually the church orchestra. Simultaneously his parents began taking him to piano lessons and, despite the weekly objections, was fed music theory. With this basis in piano, he began to teach himself whatever he had around. The orchestra taught him mallet percussion and drums, while he taught himself guitar on the side during his breaks at Coronado School of Performing Arts! He was accepted into the musical theatre department his freshman year of high School and studied some facet of Theatre every day. But at his lunch breaks he would go jam with the guys in the music department! He developed a need to be in a rock band and joined his first one at 16 years old where he got his first shot at songwriting and composing.

He was accepted into San Diego State University out of High School and continued studying Theatre, fully intending to pursue acting as his main profession. But after his high school band fell apart (surprised?), he created his own band in 2012 during his freshman year and is happy to say that band is still going strong today (Check out “The Naked i” tab for that)! He graduated SDSU in 2016 with a BA in Theatre-Performance, but by then he was in three working bands, performing solo, and playing in the orchestra pit for Theatres around town. It was clear his heart was in music and he dove head first into the music business here in San Diego, but continues to act whenever he can!