Virginia To Vegas

Derik John Baker crafts melodic indie pop laced with electronic flourishes under the stage name Virginia to Vegas. The Canadian singer-songwriter first drew notice through the 2014 release “We Are Stars,” which led to his full-length debut Utopian in 2016. Subsequent projects such as the 2020 set Don’t Wake Me, I’m Dreaming and the breezy single “Malibu” from 2021 kept accumulating streams.

Baker entered the world in Virginia in 1990 and spent his formative years in Guelph, Ontario, where a teenage fascination with music took hold. Following high school he enrolled at Ontario’s Sheridan College to pursue studies in Travel and Tourism, meanwhile uploading original tracks online under his Virginia to Vegas alias. Those uploads eventually reached Wax Records executive Jamie Appleby, who offered a deal and put out the debut single “We Are Stars.” The track climbed into the Top 20 on the Canadian singles chart and opened the door for the Vol. 1 EP. Additional singles arrived in 2015 with “Our Story” and “Somebody’s Watching Me,” the latter built around a sample of Rockwell’s 1984 recording of the same title.

Baker delivered his first complete album as Virginia to Vegas, Utopian, in 2016; “Lights Out” appeared among its tracks. A follow-up EP titled Hartland St. surfaced in 2019 and featured the streaming hit “Just Friends.” During 2020 he released the EPs A Constant State of Improvement and Don’t Wake Me, I’m Dreaming, the second of which yielded the hit “Palm Springs (The Way You Made Me Feel).” In 2021 he collaborated with Swedish duo NOTD on the road trip-ready single “Malibu.”