Found in the Inbox: Victoria Reed Has “Nothing to Lose

One spring evening in Chicago’s Wicker Park, Victoria Reed shuffled a tarot deck and laid out a life. The Rive Video Promotion campaign for “Nothing to Lose” tells the story: a DePaul philosophy major deep in an existential crisis, the Death card for the present, “and it felt spot on.” Then the future card came up: The Chariot. “It’s about overcoming any previous difficulties,” Victoria explains. “It’s about triumph.”

Chariot

That reading became the title track of the debut album Chariot, released February 26, 2016: a personal collection of Americana pop produced by Jeff Hill with some of New York’s best session players. The campaign compares it to Neko Case’s Fox Confessor Brings the Flood and Jenny Lewis’s Acid Tongue.

Raised backstage

Victoria Reed was born in Detroit to a rock musician and a Playboy Bunny. Victoria’s father, Alto Reed, was Bob Seger’s longtime saxophonist, which meant a childhood backstage at the city’s biggest venues and front row at Tigers and Red Wings games while Alto played the national anthem. “I don’t think there was one moment of my life where I wasn’t thinking, Of course I’m going to be a singer someday,” Victoria says. A teen-pop detour in Miami at 14 did not stick: “I was recording my songs over the tracks that Lindsey Lohan or Mandy Moore had passed on. It wasn’t right.”

Why it was in the inbox

“Nothing to Lose” is the sound of someone who drew the right card and then did the work.

Watch the official video

Quotes and release details from Rive Video Promotion’s campaign for “Nothing to Lose.” This feature updates Exposed Vocals’ original January 2016 post.