Vera Sola

Danielle Aykroyd (born November 18, 1989), known professionally as Vera Sola, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and recording artist. She studied poetry under Jorie Graham at Harvard University. She performed, produced, and arranged everything on her debut album Shades, which was self-released on November 9, 2018.

Biography Vera Sola was born Danielle Aykroyd to actor Dan Aykroyd and actress Donna Dixon, on November 18, 1989, in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from Saint Ann's School and then from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in literature. After college, she worked on the radio and as a voice actor. She still does commercial voice-overs and narration for television and film.

Sola is reticent about her family, and distanced herself from her recognizable name to establish a career in music on her own. She has said that, though she is proud of her lineage, she never liked her name much. The stage name came about as what she calls a "pretentious, sort of scathing inside joke with myself, albeit with a silver lining of sincerity."

Music career Sola did not consider taking up music seriously until a longtime friend, songwriter Elvis Perkins, encouraged her to join his touring band. She toured and recorded with Perkins throughout and after his I Aubade album cycle, and credits him with bringing her onstage.

Music blog The Line of Best Fit gave the album a 9/10, writing: "Such is the virtuosity and accomplishment of her playing, Shades is bound with the tight-knit swagger of a group of road wearied sessions players. It’s hard to believe it is the work of just one person." The Sunday Times called her "an undeniably singular talent" and called 'Shades' an essential new release.

French Music magazine Magic gave it a 6/6 and named it the number 2 record of the year calling it an "absolute masterpiece".

Live performance Sola's stage presence has been called hypnotic, "captivating; almost hallucinatory". Her 2018 performance at the Le Guess Who? festival in the Netherlands received rave reviews. Greek blog ClockSound wrote: "Her personal, theatrical and modern take on Americana and turn of the century (20s, not 21s) music has me hooked from the moment I walked into the Hertz...Her lyricism and the influence poetry have had on this strongly reminds me of—and this is coming from a very big fan—Leonard Cohen."

A live-performance review in Loud and Quiet magazine calls her "a Westworld android gone rogue; a living anachronism, capable of both run-of-the-mill stage banter and of occupying the characters of her songs with full force, moving as if possessed by them as she performs."

Sola has performed with many different musicians and instruments. She usually plays the guitar, with a unique finger-picking style.

She toured the United States opening for Sixto Rodriguez, subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man.

Sola performed at the Bombay Beach Biennale in 2019, a three-day festival of art, music, and lectures in the Southern California desert.

Discography Studio albums Shades (2018) Peacemaker (2024) Ghostmaker (2024 EP)

Filmography + Film performances Year Title Role 1991 Nothing but Trouble porch person 1993 Coneheads 3-year-old Connie