Tori Gideon packs joy and meaning into her debut album!
When actress Tori Gideon found she was aging out of roles, she embraced another way to spread joy by moving into music with her first album, Meant 2B.
Debut single “Glitter Punk 1985” is a power-pop ballad dripping with nostalgia for a time when cellphones didn’t distract kids. The video pays homage to big hair and Back to the Future.
Like all 10 songs on the album, every bit comes from Gideon—born 28 years after 1985.
“Obviously, I’m a 12-year-old kid, so I wasn’t around then,” she says. “But I connect with it mainly just because I love that time.”
She’s thrilled by stories of that screen-free era, such as “how my dad broke almost every single bone he has.” David and Kristen Gideon’s daughter began acting at 4. She appeared in two movies, An Angelic Christmas and Angel Mine, but she’s now too old for cute child roles and too young for high school and up.
Still, her acting coach, Erik Lingvall of Catapult Acting Studios in Brookhaven, taught her a valuable lesson, she says: “start creating now and not to wait for an opportunity to come.”
Singing was a natural choice. She’s the family DJ in the car with tastes ranging from before-her-time Bon Jovi and Avril Lavigne to contemporary Billie Eilish and Justin Bieber. And she appreciates that, unlike acting, she can make up her own characters with music.
She felt added urgency to pursue her dreams after a young family friend died from cancer last year.
Star producer Jan Smith took Gideon as a client at her studios in Chamblee, where she is polishing her album and planning a follow-up, Voyage. Inspired by Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song,” it’s a concept album about traveling among worlds.
Aiming to “spread light, joy, peace and love,” the Alpharetta resident donates proceeds to charities. “Glitter Punk” benefits the National Pediatric Cancer Foundation, and her second single, “Jericho’s Wall,” supports Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, where she once received treatment for a traumatic brain injury.
The light also comes from her songs’ messages. While “Glitter Punk” is a call to go outside and have fun, “Jericho’s Walls” advocates mental health.
“We’re kids, so no one expects it, but there’s a lot of stress and anxiety in the world all from lies—that you aren’t good enough, you aren’t beautiful, you’re a liar,” Gideon says. “If you break down the walls by telling yourself the truth, then the walls come down, and you no longer have stress and anxiety.”
She breaks up such grownup insights with giggles about a seventh-grader’s joys, from failed attempts at making slime and building cardboard toys for 10-year-old sister Dove to making movies featuring turtle Trixie and dog Sunny.
Because of her age, she performs publicly only on special occasions, such as the Fulton County Relay for Life in April, but she wants to be the youngest girl to sing at Madison Square Garden and is determined to start touring when she turns 15.
Meanwhile, any minor sacrifices are worth it, the Fideles Christian School student says. “It’s like someone saying, ‘You can have a diamond, but you can’t have this plastic ring.’ I would obviously take the diamond. I don’t care about the plastic ring. This is my dream, and this is what I love.”
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