Just entering her teens, powerhouse singer Veda amassed a quarter-billion views on TikTok in less than six months by performing duets of popular songs with her dad, Saliva frontman Bobby Amaru, and is now parlaying that viral success into a solo career.

While the pair covered everyone from Carrie Underwood to Slipnot to Sia and Thirty Seconds To Mars, Veda is more drawn to pop-rock.  “I feel like that's really me,” she says of a stylistic vocal range in the vein of Amy Lee, Olivia Rodrigo and Avril Lavigne. 

Signed to Judge & Jury Records, founded by producer Howard Benson and Three Days Grace’s Neil Sanderson, Veda’s original songs are carefully selected to touch on topics that appeal to any age. There’s the ballad “Low Light,” about finding the meaning in life; the beat-based pop-rock cut “Talk To Me” about struggles at home and the vulnerable “Breakdown,” an important lyric about seeking emotional support.

The first single, “Wannabe Me,” Veda co-wrote. It’s about acceptance and not chasing popularity. “Do I really have to try so hard?” she sings. “Do I have to beg for your attention? Do I have to have it figured out of who I am and what I’m about?”

“I'd say, being 12, I've been going through new things; it's not the same as when I was more little,” Veda says. “Howard asked me if I liked the lyrics and what we could change up, and we brainstormed. I like to be there and to help out.” 

As dad explains, “We  had conversations. I wanted her to own the lyrics and really connect with them, since it is her music and people’s first introduction to her original songs. I think we picked some great ones.”

Veda liked the spotlight as a child. Her dad recalls her dressing up and putting on “little concerts” at home. He has the videos to prove it. “She was a little star,” he says.

He would try to get her to write a song with him, and she would jot down random lyrics and they’d sing together. But, sometimes he’d ask and she’d say, “No.” He never pushed it. She was only six or seven.

Veda says it was only a couple of years ago that she knew she could sing and felt comfortable. She performed Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” at a talent show in her hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. That’s when they start “getting serious” — she was 11. 

One of Bobby’s friends was popular on Tik Tok and kept encouraging him to create videos for Saliva, but he didn’t have time. Then the band’s guitar player passed away in March 2023 of a brain hemorrhage. “I just wanted to focus more on family and want to work with Veda,” he says.

“One night, we had already worked on a couple of covers that were recorded. I said, “Let's just do this Thirty Seconds To Mars song and film it and throw it up on TikTok and see what happens,’” he recalls. 

“I threw that up and never thought about it. The next day her brother, who is 16 now, said, ‘Dad, the video has 300,000 views on it.’ I'm like, ‘Holy crap.’ We had hundreds of messages and comments and likes. I just told her, “Let's embrace it.’ So, we just kept making more and that's how it built.”

Their duets got props from John Cooper (Skillet), Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park), Lacey Sturm (Flyleaf), and Jared Leto (Thirty Seconds to Mars), who reached out to express support for the father-daughter team, even asking them to cover more of their songs.

As users must be age 13 and up to have a Tik Tok account, all their videos were posted on Bobby’s account, which now has over 2 million followers.  Their cover of Evanescence’s “Bring Me Back to Life” has 75 million views alone.

“It's crazy. I feel so grateful,” Veda says.

Recording her own music, with Howard producing, she says, “I've learned so much. I've gotten much better at singing and working in the studio. “I've always looked up to my dad with music and always went to concerts.  I knew that music was what I was really good at and that’s what I want to do.”