Welcome to our IZEA interview series with influencers and marketers of all niches to highlight their journeys, share their insights, and inspire! Today we are talking all about influencing with Carley.
Meet Carley, a 22-year-old musician and LGTBQ+ influencer living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. She shares music, motivational, travel and lifestyle content with her 21.5K Instagram followers. She also performs at venues like the Up Next Festival. She works with brands to promote lifestyle products that align with her interests.
My name is Marette and I’m the content manager here at IZEA. Will you tell me a little about you, who you are and what you do?
“My name is Carley Bearden. I’m 22 years old. I’m an indie-pop artist here in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. My day-to-day job is social media marketing.”
How did you get started in music?
“I was about 16 years old, which is about five years ago now. And I played sports my whole life. I played high school softball — everything you could think of. But my sophomore year, going into junior year, I met some really amazing creatives. And they were into art and they were into painting and they were into singing and they were into acting. And I had never been engulfed into this world of art before.”
“I enjoyed playing guitar. I know how to play guitar by ear. So guitar and piano are what I was a big fan of, but I never really let anyone know that.”
“And I also was a major poetry nerd. I would write poetry all day, every day. It’s something that I love to do. It was my kind of escape growing up. And so one day my friend, Avery, told me that she knew that I played guitar and piano and that I like to sing. She’s like, ‘You have to have written a song before.’ And I was like, ‘Well, actually I have,’ but I had stage fright. I never sang for anyone. And Avery’s like, ‘OK, I’m gonna go in the other room and you stay right here and you play the song on guitar and you sing it.’”
“And so I did, and she came back in the room and she told me, ‘Carly, I don’t understand why you haven’t sung for people before. This is a great song. Let’s, let’s record a video and put it on Facebook.’”
“That’s a big step for me, but I wanted my family to see it, not my friends. So we posted it on Facebook. My parents saw it and everyone saw it and it was great. But the next day I woke up to a message on Facebook from a studio in Dallas. They had said, ‘Hey, we saw your song ‘Yet Again’ on Facebook. We want you to come into our studio and let’s record it for free.’”
“And that started everything for me. I went into the studio. I had no idea what I was doing. We were there for about eight hours and we recorded this whole song and I fell in love with the process of it.”
“I quit softball. That was about five years ago. And ever since then, I continued to drop music and I finally told my friends about it and I gained a solid fan base pretty quickly.”
“That fueled my fire. And here I am now, 22 years old doing the same thing.”
What are your songs about?
“I’m a big fan of love. I love love. I also hate love, but I love love. And before I had met my girlfriend, Jasmine, I had written songs about heartbreak and growing as a human being, because obviously in high school, you think you’re in love when you’re not.”
“Since I met Jasmine, I’ve written EPs and albums, and every single song is about our relationship in some sense. But I also learned to turn that original idea into life lessons.”
“I love to be the storyteller for my friends.”
Do you have any performances coming up?
“I just played Dallas Pride last week, which was amazing, but on July 30 I’m playing at the Up Next Festival in Dallas. It’s going to be my first real festival and I’m really, really excited for it.”
Do you currently work with brands as well as a creator?
“I do. There are a lot of things I do right now in order to pay the bills. I’m a server on the weekends at a sushi restaurant. I do social media marketing for businesses during the week. And then I do a lot of collaborations and brand deals with brands that I feel fit my niche.”
“It’s usually in the mental health, lifestyle, LGBTQ+ niche.”
“And so for me, it’s important every time I get these brand deals, I want to be super passionate about them because then I can make actual content and I don’t sound like a robot and the stuff that I actually use.”
“It’s a lot of fun.”
I saw that you call yourself a mental health advocate. Can you talk a little about why that’s important to you?
“My biggest thing is one, being an artist, but two, being a mental health advocate.”
“I think being a mental health advocate for me is just taking people along the journey of my life, the good and the bad, and showing people very vulnerable moments and how I get through them. And I’m hoping that that inspires people, because I’m normal.”
”I think my biggest thing is just being a voice for those people who feel stuck and feel like they don't know where to start or feel like they can't start because of societal standards. So I think just being a voice for those people who can't, especially in the LGBTQ+ community, it's awesome because I post whatever I want and I do whatever I want. And I want to be that person that can do it for them and eventually help them in the long run if I can.”
Where can people listen to your music?
“You can listen to my music on all platforms, so Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Pandora, and Amazon. I’m trying to post more YouTube videos, but I just started a Discord as well. It’s Carley Bearden Music, and it’s just like a group chat of a bunch of creatives.”
Marette Flora is IZEA’s Content Manager. She writes and edits content about influencer marketing and all the latest #TeamIZEA happenings. When she is not at work, she can be found writing her personal blog, crafting personalized gifts or exploring Chicago where she lives with her husband, two daughters, dog and plants.
