Latest / The Scene Projects / Reeya Banerjee - Exploring Music, Community, and Culture

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Reeya Banerjee - Exploring Music, Community, and Culture · The Scene Projects

• 0:17
  Welcome in to another exciting episode of the scene.
• 0:19
  I'm your host, Bubba Starts.
• 0:21
  And with me today, singer, songwriter, and really great person, Ria Bengiri.
• 0:26
  Welcome to the show, Ria.
• 0:28
  Hi.
• 0:28
  How are you?
• 0:30
  I think I said your name wrong, but that's okay.
• 0:32
  We're just gonna roll.
• 0:32
  Oh, Banerjee.
• 0:33
  That's Banerjee.
• 0:34
  That's right.
• 0:36
  I got caught up in our conversation preshow.
• 0:38
  I forgot what I was supposed to be doing for my job.
• 0:40
  That's okay.
• 0:41
  All good.
• 0:41
  All good.
• 0:42
  It it happens.
• 0:43
  No.
• 0:44
  Well yeah.
• 0:45
  And we talked a little bit about it just coming off my tour.
• 0:47
  My brain's a little a little fried at the moment.
• 0:50
  But Understood.
• 0:51
  No excuses.
• 0:52
  Ria, welcome to the show.
• 0:54
  So happy to finally make this happen.
• 0:56
  We've been trying to connect for months now, it it seems like, but, we're getting it done now,
• 1:01
  and I'm so grateful to be here with you.
• 1:03
  Off the top of the show, I'd just like to give you the floor.
• 1:06
  Give us a little bit of your backstory, and then we'll pick it up with all the touring and
• 1:10
  album, promo that you're doing now.
• 1:13
  Yeah.
• 1:14
  Okay.
• 1:14
  So, yeah, let me let me, wow.
• 1:17
  Where do I begin?
• 1:18
  What's my elevator pitch?
• 1:18
  I don't even remember.
• 1:19
  It's funny.
• 1:20
  I I you know, speaking of of, brain being fried last year.
• 1:24
  So my my second album, This Place came out in August.
• 1:29
  And, basically, all of last year was just I was in nonstop, unlabeled independent artist promo
• 1:36
  mode.
• 1:36
  So social media posting and, you know, coordinating rehearsals for my band and getting
• 1:43
  ready for an album release show.
• 1:45
  And, you know, I was working with a publicist and doing, you know, interviews and getting
• 1:49
  little, you know, placements at, you know, Tastemaker blogs and stuff like that and, you
• 1:54
  know, doing podcasts.
• 1:55
  And so I I, I feel like I feel like that's that's been my life for the last year, which
• 2:03
  which has was very, very educational, but it was also just kind of like, also, I really love
• 2:08
  my music.
• 2:08
  So let's talk about my music.
• 2:11
  I am a friend of mine describes my music, and I like this I like this description.
• 2:18
  It's nineties kid music for grown ups.
• 2:21
  I'm very, very influenced by kind of nineties alt indie music off the top of my head thinking
• 2:29
  about things like thinking about artists like Green Day, Alanis Morissette, Red Hot Chili
• 2:34
  Peppers, Matchbox twenty.
• 2:39
  Who who else were we we were talking about recently?
• 2:41
  The killers.
• 2:43
  Basically, a lot of the music that I grew up listening to on top 40 when I was a kid, I was
• 2:51
  just a bit too young for the grunge era.
• 2:55
  So I'm not really like the I'm not, I love Nirvana, but I I wasn't really, you know, I
• 3:01
  wasn't really an MTV, watcher when Nirvana was doing their thing, but definitely Foo Fighters.
• 3:07
  And so this this record I put out, this place, is produced by my friend Luke Folger.
• 3:12
  He's my age.
• 3:13
  He's actually he's he's he's literally almost literally my age.
• 3:15
  He's a a week younger than me.
• 3:18
  This is our second album together.
• 3:20
  So that's kind of our our two, like, musical touchstones common touchstones that we were
• 3:24
  inspired by when we write together.
• 3:26
  He's a composer.
• 3:29
  I am a lyricist, and, you know, he sometimes he helps me refine some of my lyrics because I
• 3:37
  tend to be a bit wordy, which you which you might already have realized by listening to me
• 3:42
  talk all this time.
• 3:45
  So that's that's I mean, that's kinda what brings me here.
• 3:49
  It's my second album.
• 3:50
  It is basically, it's it's nine songs, kind of very autobiographical.
• 3:55
  It's about, nine places I have lived in my life, and but not necessarily like, hey.
• 4:04
  I lived in Washington DC.
• 4:05
  Here's a song about the Washington Monument, or I grew up in San Francisco.
• 4:08
  Here's a song about the Golden Gate Bridge.
• 4:10
  It's more of every single song is about a core memory or a story that I remember from when I
• 4:17
  lived there and how how that impacted me, kind of like the the the market left on me and sort
• 4:24
  of what I brought forward with me when I moved to the next place.
• 4:27
  I've moved around a lot in my life, at least in the in in my young adulthood.
• 4:33
  And then I settled in the New York, in the Hudson Valley for twenty years.
• 4:39
  And and so the kind of the back half of the album was a little bit more about, you know,
• 4:43
  just kind of my adventures in that part of, of New York.
• 4:49
  Prior to that, my first album came out in 2022.
• 4:51
  It's called the way up.
• 4:53
  It was very much a planting a flag kind of album.
• 4:56
  It's great.
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  I I love some of the old material.
• 4:58
  I look back on it now, and I'm kind of like, oh, I don't know if I really relate to that
• 5:01
  song so much anymore.
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  But I feel like that's an occupational hazard that happens with a lot of musicians.
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  That was also Luke Folger produced that one and and that one with me as well.
• 5:15
  And so, that was, came out in 2022.
• 5:20
  Just it was released right in January 22, in the dead of winter, right in the middle of the,
• 5:27
  when the Omicron variant of COVID was out.
• 5:30
  So it was a very weird time to release an album.
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  But, you know, it was received pretty well.
• 5:36
  I was, you know, pretty enthusiastic about it.
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  Things, you know, it kind of made me feel like, alright.
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  I know what I'm doing.
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  Or if no.
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  Let me take that back.
• 5:46
  I don't necessarily know what I'm doing, but people are liking what I'm doing, and I'm
• 5:50
  liking what I'm doing.
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  So I'm just gonna keep doing it.
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  So that's kind of what what leads me to where I am now.
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  The new album has been out, like I said, since August.
• 5:59
  I have been, ever since the album came out, I've been just doing a lot of, you know,
• 6:05
  hustling to get shows and, you know, as many opportunities to play out as possible.
• 6:11
  It's it's part of why you and I had had trouble nailing down a a date to to get together for
• 6:17
  this, podcast because I've just been sort of on the move constantly scheduling rehearsals and
• 6:23
  and trying to get, you know, into talks with with people and venue owners and get on
• 6:29
  people's radars and leverage networking when I can and, you know, try to get into to rooms.
• 6:35
  One of the I'm I'm sure I'm sure you've talked to other independent musicians out out here.
• 6:41
  You know, one of the biggest challenges is when you're an independent artist and you're, you
• 6:46
  know, getting started.
• 6:49
  And then I I when I say getting started, I'm not new to the game.
• 6:52
  Obviously, my last album was was just in August.
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  But and I'd I'd done an album before that, but there was a pretty long break between my two
• 7:01
  albums.
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  So for all intents and purposes, sometimes it feels like I'm a little brand new to the scene
• 7:05
  here in New York again.
• 7:07
  And so trying to trying to get yourself back into these rooms where I you know, like, I used
• 7:12
  to know the I used to know the booker at the bitter end, but he's gone now.
• 7:15
  And whoever works there now is like, who are you?
• 7:18
  You know?
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  And so trying to to to get my way back into playing these cool rooms and, you know, getting
• 7:24
  back into into the scene, has interesting challenge.
• 7:29
  And I have plenty of positive and negative things to say about that experience.
• 7:33
  Just just the experience of being you know, going to a booker and saying, wanna do a show
• 7:40
  and having them ask you questions like how many social media followers you have and how many
• 7:43
  Spotify streams you have.
• 7:44
  And I was like, well, I can tell you, but I don't know if my, you know, thousands of
• 7:48
  Instagram followers are gonna buy a ticket if half of them are based in Australia or
• 7:52
  something that.
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  You know?
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  So that's like yeah.
• 7:55
  That's the puzzle of how how do you convert a social media follower to a person who will buy
• 7:59
  a ticket?
• 8:00
  I don't really know.
• 8:02
  So
• 8:03
  Yeah.
• 8:04
  Well or you don't have very many, and, I realize that it's part of the game, but it's
• 8:09
  not an end all be all.
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  And and a lot of people and especially now, I feel like the next five years are gonna be
• 8:15
  really interesting because people are pulling away from social media.
• 8:20
  And, you know, to kinda date this interview a little bit, you know, a massive lawsuit that
• 8:25
  was just settled in favor of the plaintiffs against YouTube and Meta.
• 8:29
  Social media is going to change.
• 8:30
  Right?
• 8:30
  So Yeah.
• 8:31
  What what we've all been trying to learn for the last, you know, ten, fifteen years of how
• 8:36
  do we operate in this space now is about to all go out the window anyway.
• 8:42
  And, you know, you mentioned a long break in between your out you released an album for your
• 8:47
  like, to me, that's not a long break.
• 8:48
  I think just our sense of time anymore is so distorted that, you know, especially with, you
• 8:55
  know, Spotify kinda demanding that artists release a single every other day, in perpetuity
• 9:02
  That's exactly it.
• 9:03
  Which is just insanity.
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  Where where what time do you have to be inspired if you're releasing music that often?
• 9:09
  And I think, you know, in years past especially early on in the seventies, you know, for a band
• 9:15
  to you know, you make the album, you go out there, you tour it for a year, you go back the
• 9:20
  studio, it maybe takes another year to do that.
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  So you're releasing an album maybe every two, three years anyway.
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  So I think as far as that goes, you're right on time.
• 9:27
  You're you're right on time.
• 9:28
  You've moved, you know, seven times in the last four years as well, so that can be tough.
• 9:34
  I think the concept for this place is so cool.
• 9:38
  As someone who has moved around a lot, I've been stable in our house here in rural South
• 9:43
  Dakota now as long as I've been anywhere, you know, even in childhood.
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  Right?
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  Like, my family moved from moved three or four times around the Chicago area before moving out
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  to South Dakota, you know, and then building a house and obviously having that family home
• 9:59
  there, but I've always been a vagabond.
• 10:01
  Right?
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  I never want to I never had anywhere that I wanted to put down roots.
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  So Yeah.
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  I really think that's an interesting concept for someone like myself who has moved around a
• 10:11
  lot, but not necessarily about, like, oh, this is the couch that I crashed on in in Oregon.
• 10:17
  You know, this is it's about those core memories.
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  So I think it's a really fun a really fun concept for an album and a way to kinda honor,
• 10:29
  those roots and honor that past.
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  And and we talked a little bit off camera before about, you know, maybe you got a little
• 10:34
  bit of a late start to your artist career.
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  Right?
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  Releasing your first album in your late thirties, but you're not gonna write this kinda
• 10:43
  deep concept about all the places that you've been in your twenties.
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  Right?
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  Like, that's not that's not the things that you're you're thinking about.
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  So I think it's really interesting, you know, both the late start and the, you know, the
• 11:00
  concept of the album itself and really just getting started now or, you know, the last six
• 11:06
  months or so in promoting the album in this new batch of music and really this new version of
• 11:12
  Ria.
• 11:13
  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
• 11:16
  No.
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  That's a really good way of putting it.
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  I mean, I mean, it's true.
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  I I wouldn't I wouldn't have even thought to write an album like this in my twenties.
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  It just wouldn't have been just the the the the idea of, I mean, even saying that it calling it
• 11:30
  a concept I'm I'm not saying it's a concept album.
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  It's not like I made Sgt.
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  Pepper.
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  You know?
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  But it's, you know, like, just to have, like, a, you know, a a, you know, a a an album that
• 11:40
  has this sort of, like, container idea and be like, you know, this is as opposed to just,
• 11:44
  like, here's a bunch of random songs that I've pulled out of somewhere.
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  You know, I I I I had this idea for for the album, and I wanted to keep it focused in that
• 11:54
  way.
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  And I think and it's funny.
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  It the reason why I ended up writing or wanting to do this album was because, like, as I
• 12:00
  mentioned off camera, we went through a period of time, me and my family, where we were so I
• 12:05
  moved around a lot as a kid.
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  I actually did live for three years in the Chicago area.
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  I was in Evanston for a while and then Glenview Glenview.
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  And then that's one of a few places I lived as a kid.
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  And then, you know, for and a lot of that was sort of, like, you know, childhood upheaval,
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  and it wasn't great.
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  And I didn't really like all the moving around that we did, and it was, you know, a struggle
• 12:30
  for me as a kid.
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  And then, you know, I ended up in the Hudson Valley.
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  I came out here for school and then never left.
• 12:36
  And then I you know, this is kind of where I planted roots, you know, not even necessarily
• 12:41
  intending to.
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  It was just I I came out here, and I went to school, and I got a job.
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  And then twenty years had gone by.
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  And then after the pandemic, we were forced to relocate because we'd lost our jobs during
• 12:54
  lockdown, and we couldn't find jobs in your homes.
• 12:56
  We had to relocate.
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  And so that was, like, the first time that I had been put in a position to choose to to once
• 13:03
  again, to choose to pack everything up and move and and and start over again.
• 13:08
  And that's kind of what got my gears turning when I was talking with Luke about, like, what
• 13:11
  do we want the next album to be out?
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  I was like, was just thinking about moving.
• 13:14
  And not only I was like, it's like, honestly, I'm thinking about how much moving is gonna
• 13:18
  suck, but because moving sucks.
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  But, you know, it's I was like, it reminds me of all all the times in my childhood where,
• 13:25
  like, something, you know, like, for a job or for something, you know, for for some reason,
• 13:29
  you know, like, our family had to pick up and move somewhere else and and and, you know, and
• 13:33
  kind of the emotions of, you know, that go along with that, not just of, like, of leaving
• 13:38
  things behind, but of, like, you know, the the the stories that you leave behind when you
• 13:42
  leave one place for another and and what that place how that place marked you.
• 13:46
  So that's kind of what got my years turning.
• 13:48
  And then we we wrote the album.
• 13:51
  We tracked it in, we tracked everything by 2023.
• 13:58
  And we at that point, we had relocated upstate, just outside of Albany.
• 14:03
  And then after that, we moved down to Chattanooga for a year because my partner got
• 14:09
  he got a job down in Chattanooga.
• 14:11
  And then, after a year living there, we were, like, mixing the album remotely.
• 14:18
  And then after a year living there, just it was just I I miss a lot about Chattanooga.
• 14:24
  It's a very, very cool city.
• 14:26
  I'm a runner, in in addition to being, an a musician and, a a bookkeeper.
• 14:35
  But, and Chattanooga is a really it's like a runner's paradise.
• 14:38
  It's a beautiful, beautiful place to to to live if you if you're really into running lots of
• 14:42
  beautiful trails and stuff like that.
• 14:44
  But twenty years in New York moving down to the South, that's a lot of culture shock.
• 14:49
  That's just it's a it's a huge, huge difference.
• 14:52
  So
• 14:52
  It's a different speed altogether.
• 14:55
  Exactly.
• 14:56
  Exactly.
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  I, you know, I I miss it, but it wasn't the right fit for us.
• 15:00
  So we we ended up coming back.
• 15:01
  Now we're in we're in New Jersey about an hour away from where we were living when we were in
• 15:05
  the Hudson Valley.
• 15:06
  So it's funny.
• 15:07
  I say, you know, oh, yeah.
• 15:08
  You know, like, I I had this childhood of a lot of moving in on people and and and and, you
• 15:13
  know, not being able to plant roots, and then I kinda planted roots accidentally because I got
• 15:17
  to New York, and I got went to college and then I stayed and then I was you know, we were
• 15:22
  forced to move and I started thinking about an album about upheavals and then I was like and
• 15:27
  then we and then I went and had, you know, three more upheavals in the process.
• 15:31
  Like, during the time period it took for us to, like, put the album out into the world.
• 15:36
  Like, I moved three three more times, which is insane.
• 15:39
  No more moving.
• 15:40
  I did I know I did you you can't see.
• 15:42
  I did mention because we were talking about my cat climbing into boxes.
• 15:45
  We are in the process of moving now, but not moving.
• 15:49
  It's not a big move, just moving from one dwelling to another, which also sucks, but is
• 15:55
  significantly less terrible than
• 15:57
  Yeah.
• 15:57
  It's slightly less sucky than having to move to another state entirely and Exactly.
• 16:02
  Uproot your entire life.
• 16:04
  It's definitely a lot less, impactful, to just kind of moving from one dwelling to the next,
• 16:12
  rather than your your entire life being kinda dumped out on the floor.
• 16:18
  Yes.
• 16:19
  Yeah.
• 16:19
  Very much so.
• 16:21
  Yeah.
• 16:22
  So that's, yeah.
• 16:24
  That's that's that's kinda where I am, and I'm so, yeah, we're we're we're planning to move
• 16:28
  from one dwelling to another, and I'm out on the road doing some shows.
• 16:32
  And mostly in the in the Tri State area, we've got shows in we've we've played we we played
• 16:39
  Brooklyn at the February.
• 16:40
  We're gonna do another show in New York City, April 9.
• 16:44
  April, we're going out to Nashville to do a show, which we're we're super excited about,
• 16:49
  and then we're gonna do some more New York City, Philly, Boston.
• 16:56
  I was in DC last week actually doing a show, and we've got a show coming up in the Hudson
• 17:04
  Valley in August as well.
• 17:06
  I lived in the Hudson Valley for twenty years.
• 17:08
  I'm friends with and I you know, like, in my before I started writing original music, I was
• 17:13
  doing the whole bar band thing, as a bass player.
• 17:16
  So I, you know, I know a lot of venues up there.
• 17:18
  And so there's there's a lot of venue owners where I can just call and be like, hey.
• 17:21
  I'm I wanna do a show, and they'll be like, well, tell us when.
• 17:25
  We'll stick you on the calendar.
• 17:26
  So it's kinda it's a it it's nice to have, it's nice to have a little anchor, spot like that,
• 17:33
  where you where kind of everybody knows who you are, and I know that people will come out and
• 17:37
  see me.
• 17:37
  But you also don't wanna lean on that too much.
• 17:39
  I don't wanna be doing a show in the Hudson Valley every week, and everyone's like, her
• 17:42
  again.
• 17:43
  How many times are I gonna listen to that song?
• 17:46
  So
• 17:47
  It's kind of a double edged sword, though, too because you need that repetition, for people to
• 17:52
  come out.
• 17:53
  And, you know, in South Dakota, especially on the western part of the state where where I
• 17:58
  grew up, that, because it's so far from everything.
• 18:02
  Right?
• 18:02
  You're five hours from Denver.
• 18:03
  You're five hours just from the other side of the state that there's a lot of gigs locally,
• 18:09
  but people don't necessarily travel very far for shows.
• 18:12
  So you can play in a twenty, thirty mile radius, playing a ton of shows, but not
• 18:18
  necessarily playing for the same people.
• 18:20
  The same people.
• 18:21
  And I imagine that, you know, a a place like New York and around the Hudson Valley and out
• 18:26
  there could be much of the same way.
• 18:29
  People just don't travel very far anymore, you know, the two of us notwithstanding.
• 18:35
  No.
• 18:35
  That's true.
• 18:36
  That's very true.
• 18:36
  I mean, it's it's, you know, there's always, whenever I do a show in the city, and this is
• 18:43
  to any of my, Hudson Valley friends listening to this, not to put you on blast.
• 18:47
  Every time I do a show in the city, my friends in the Hudson Valley are like, oh, we'll take
• 18:51
  the train down and come see you.
• 18:52
  They never do.
• 18:53
  And it's fine.
• 18:54
  I get it.
• 18:54
  I get it.
• 18:55
  It's a it's a pain in the ass to get on the train and, you know, it's a whole thing, and
• 18:58
  you gotta buy your ticket and see if it's an hour on the train or whatever.
• 19:01
  Get it.
• 19:01
  But it's funny because everyone everyone always will say, you know, oh, of course, we'll come
• 19:05
  see you.
• 19:05
  And then like you said, you know, the the impetus to actually get up and buy the ticket
• 19:10
  and get in the car and make the driver get get on the train and and and make the trek to to to
• 19:16
  to come see the show doesn't always happen.
• 19:18
  It's the Hudson Valley is is the Hudson Valley is interesting because it's large, but it's,
• 19:27
  very sort of segmented.
• 19:29
  And so the place where I lived for twenty years, like, I'm very I was very saturated in
• 19:33
  the music scene there, which is why, you know, there's, like, a few core venues in, you know,
• 19:39
  the the Beacon and Newburgh area where I I could get a show very easily and people would
• 19:44
  come, but also where I wanna be careful.
• 19:46
  I don't wanna be, like, doing a residency, and then, you know, everyone at a certain point is
• 19:52
  gonna be like, okay.
• 19:53
  Well, we've heard you do this show seven times at this point.
• 19:56
  We're diminishing returns.
• 19:59
  There are points north, like, further north in in in the Hudson Valley where there are a lot
• 20:04
  of really cool venues, but the Hudson Valley is very it tends to be dominated by kind of more
• 20:11
  of a, like, an indie folk sort of scene.
• 20:15
  A lot of a lot of people who a lot of people who love Bob Dylan and a lot of people who
• 20:21
  think that they might be the second coming of Bob Dylan.
• 20:24
  There's a that's that tends to be the demographic of a lot of the singer songwriters,
• 20:28
  in a lot of the Hudson Valley.
• 20:30
  No shade to Bob Dylan, obviously.
• 20:32
  Love him.
• 20:33
  But it's you know, when you're a when you're, like, a full, you know, like, a full band like
• 20:38
  mine, I'm a you know, it's a five piece band, you know, drums, bass, two guitars, and and me.
• 20:45
  You know?
• 20:45
  And we're doing, like, full on, you know, like, a a a rock show.
• 20:48
  And so there's a lot of venues in the Hudson Valley that are just too small for, for for
• 20:54
  what I do.
• 20:55
  You know, we'd end up blowing the blowing the ceiling off of some of these places, which
• 20:59
  would be very rock and roll, but also probably not very appreciated by the, by the venue
• 21:03
  owner.
• 21:04
  So, oh, there he is.
• 21:06
  Hello, Norman.
• 21:07
  Just checking.
• 21:07
  Your boss is in the building.
• 21:09
  Yep.
• 21:09
  Yep.
• 21:10
  He's just he's just supervising.
• 21:11
  He wants to see what I'm up to.
• 21:13
  Yeah.
• 21:14
  Actually
• 21:14
  It's to me, and not to cut you off there
• 21:17
  That's funny.
• 21:18
  Yeah.
• 21:18
  That how similar that regional scenes can be across the country?
• 21:26
  Because I think what you're telling me about the Hudson Valley, you could, you know, really,
• 21:32
  apply to a lot of more rural areas in the Midwest as well.
• 21:36
  Yeah.
• 21:36
  You know, you have these small pockets, that that you can play, have a lot of gigs.
• 21:41
  You know, out here, we have you know, the summertime becomes huge.
• 21:45
  You got fairs and festivals and everything that you can do.
• 21:48
  A lot of bars have outdoor stages and are doing a lot of music outside.
• 21:53
  And then the wintertime comes and, like, nobody's doing anything, and you almost have no
• 21:57
  choice but to travel to do that.
• 22:00
  So I'm curious kinda, like, what the, is it more seasonal in that area where it's maybe
• 22:07
  busier in the summer?
• 22:08
  Or maybe it's busier in the winter because people are, you know, vacationing more away
• 22:12
  from there.
• 22:14
  I'm curious because I haven't spent a lot of time out east.
• 22:17
  Let me say you know, if in my experience, spring and summer are always, you know, busier,
• 22:24
  easier to get shows, and and people are more, you know, likely to come out.
• 22:28
  Because, again, same thing.
• 22:29
  You got a lot of venues that have outdoor spaces.
• 22:32
  There's also just, you know, fest again, festivals, lots of outdoor, you know, just
• 22:36
  opportunities to play outdoors.
• 22:38
  In the Hudson Valley in particular, because we're we're by the river, there's a lot of
• 22:42
  really cool riverfront, you know, fest music festivals that come up, people just love being
• 22:46
  outside and, you know, and and playing music outside when the weather is beautiful and
• 22:51
  you've got, like, you know, the the you know, just just just being out in the world and
• 22:55
  getting to play music.
• 22:56
  That's a really, really fun experience.
• 22:59
  So I it it is easier to get people to come out in spring and summer and fall to a certain
• 23:06
  extent, although that's you know, just because of the way because of the way climate change
• 23:12
  has been happening, fall sometimes only lasts a week long, and then we get plunged into bitter
• 23:19
  cold winter.
• 23:19
  You know?
• 23:20
  And, I mean, and you're in South Dakota, so you know you know what cold is like.
• 23:25
  So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna explain cold to you.
• 23:29
  You you you have way cold colder winters than what I have here in in the New York area.
• 23:34
  But, you know, we we had, the in January and February, we had, like, two blizzards here back
• 23:43
  to back, which is uncommon.
• 23:44
  That's not really a thing that happens that often.
• 23:47
  And then, you know, December is just we did a show back in December in Brooklyn, and it was
• 23:55
  just not very it was not very, like, highly attended at all.
• 24:03
  It was like, we showed up there.
• 24:04
  It was like, we were playing to the bartenders, the band's significant others who all show up
• 24:11
  because they have to.
• 24:14
  Not not not that they don't not that they don't love us, but, you know you know, and then, you
• 24:18
  know, like, regulars in the neighborhood who would come to that venue.
• 24:21
  And it was just you know, because it was like it's it's cold.
• 24:23
  It was like a cold, and it was sort of raining.
• 24:26
  And, you know, it's one of those nice new
• 24:28
  don't live in the city.
• 24:30
  Right?
• 24:30
  Like, you don't have any built in advantages to go into the city and to do it and like we just
• 24:36
  talked about that people don't travel very far.
• 24:38
  It's not like you live in the apartment down the street from the venue and and all your
• 24:43
  friends are around there.
• 24:45
  Like, there there's definitely, you know, in in essence, you're touring into one of the biggest
• 24:51
  markets on the planet even though it's a short train ride or drive into the city for you.
• 24:57
  Yeah.
• 24:57
  You might as well be from another planet.
• 24:59
  I I would think for people inside of the city, they're like, oh, you're like, you don't even
• 25:03
  know what it's like.
• 25:04
  You know?
• 25:05
  Yeah.
• 25:05
  I mean, it's it's it's it's a little bit like that.
• 25:07
  It's get it's it's it's it's as I've as I kind of get, you know, my toehold more in into,
• 25:13
  like, you know, getting into these rooms in the city, it's becoming a little bit less, you
• 25:19
  know, less like I'm a you know, and and, you know, someone parachuting in from the outside.
• 25:24
  Yeah.
• 25:24
  You might as well be from South Dakota, I feel like, if you're not, you know, in the city or
• 25:29
  on the block almost.
• 25:30
  Because I know what it's like.
• 25:31
  I lived in LA.
• 25:32
  Right?
• 25:32
  And and they were like, whatever you know, if it's East of the Sierra Nevada, it's like, it
• 25:38
  doesn't exist.
• 25:39
  Right?
• 25:39
  And you're
• 25:39
  like, there's a whole
• 25:41
  country out there.
• 25:42
  Right?
• 25:42
  Like
• 25:42
  Yeah.
• 25:43
  The joke.
• 25:44
  The The joke.
• 25:45
  Of people that live over there, but trying to explain it to Californians is a whole different
• 25:51
  thing.
• 25:51
  I don't I don't have to explain that to you, a native Californian yourself.
• 25:55
  Yeah.
• 25:56
  Know.
• 25:56
  But I I see a lot of similarities between, you know, the city.
• 26:00
  It's it's just a tough nut to crack.
• 26:02
  Right?
• 26:03
  Yes.
• 26:03
  Unless you are achieving some kind of national, you know, superstardom, then it can be really
• 26:09
  tough to break into these scenes.
• 26:12
  And even I had a friend on Spencer Brill who's got a band, and he lives in Brooklyn.
• 26:17
  And even for them, it's hard to pull people out to their shows and playing locally.
• 26:21
  So it's just a challenge right now.
• 26:23
  As everyone is more comfortable being at home than going out for whatever reason, I mean,
• 26:29
  it's not getting any cheaper to go out and and to have those experiences.
• 26:33
  That's very good.
• 26:34
  I have to say that maybe as musicians and, you know, just creators in general that maybe
• 26:42
  there's something more we can be doing to up that experience.
• 26:46
  Right?
• 26:47
  So that people think they're, you know, they're getting more out of it.
• 26:50
  And maybe the impetus is on us even though we didn't necessarily change the world to to bring
• 26:56
  all this to fruition.
• 26:58
  Maybe it is a little bit on us to change that culture a little bit.
• 27:01
  And to me, it's always been about community at shows.
• 27:04
  It's who you're going to meet.
• 27:05
  It's not necessarily about the band.
• 27:06
  It's like, oh, well, who else likes this band and is coming out to enjoy this?
• 27:11
  That's exact I mean, that's how I that's how I even you know, before I even, you know, picked
• 27:15
  up an instrument and started playing in any of the the the bar bands that I did play in in my,
• 27:21
  you know, like, late twenties, early thirties, A lot of it was just you go out to see a show
• 27:25
  and you get to meet people and you're like, you know, and you make friends and you, you know,
• 27:28
  like, just and you and, like, you go out to see a show and already you know that you're gonna
• 27:33
  have stuff in common with everybody else in the room because they're into music and they're or
• 27:37
  maybe they're into this specific band.
• 27:39
  They're you know, like and so already you've got common ground.
• 27:41
  That's just the the the biggest thing for me with music in addition to just really loving
• 27:47
  playing music and writing music and thinking about music is the the people, the the the like
• 27:54
  you said, the community.
• 27:55
  That's almost like a a fam everybody everybody in my life who I consider a close friend is
• 28:03
  somebody that I have met because of music in my adulthood.
• 28:08
  I if I if I if I look at the list of the people who I spend the most time with, you know, on a
• 28:13
  friend to friend basis, just like, hey.
• 28:16
  Let's all you know, let's go grab dinner.
• 28:17
  Let's have a drink.
• 28:18
  Let's you know, I'll come over, watch a movie or whatever.
• 28:21
  Every single one of those people is somebody I met because of some music connection.
• 28:25
  Either we've played together in a band, we met at a show, we've collaborated on something.
• 28:32
  You know, they they they've, you know, they they came to see me when I was, you know,
• 28:38
  playing bar bands or whatever, and we struck up a conversation over beers after the fact or
• 28:42
  whatever.
• 28:43
  Every single meaningful adult friendship in my life has been because of music.
• 28:48
  And so that's and that's that's a huge that's one of the reasons why I I one of the one of
• 28:54
  the huge things that keeps me going, not just, again, not just because of of the love of the
• 28:59
  the craft and and and forming and writing and stuff like that.
• 29:03
  But being able to, like you said, you know, if the impetus is on us to to to create an
• 29:07
  experience, you know, if I can you know, if I'm playing out enough and I've got people who are,
• 29:12
  you know, into me and regularly will come out and see me play, if there if there's a if
• 29:17
  there's a group of of people who can find each other and make their own found family kind of
• 29:22
  the way I have my own found family through music because they're coming out and seeing,
• 29:26
  you know, seeing me play or seeing other musicians I know play.
• 29:29
  That's kind of, you know, part of the you know, it's it's it's almost like building a little
• 29:33
  world, you know, kind of trying to trying to to facilitate that.
• 29:38
  It's tricky.
• 29:39
  I have I have a friend who's in a band who, she she toured overseas in in Europe, and she said
• 29:46
  that audiences in, she toured in Spain last October.
• 29:50
  And she said audiences there are just very, very, very enthusiastic about live music in a
• 29:56
  way that they're they aren't in The United States.
• 29:58
  And she was like, there's probably any number of sociological, you know, studies we could do
• 30:05
  as to why it is that, you know, audiences in The United States are a little bit more
• 30:09
  reticent to come out to see live music.
• 30:13
  And, you know, she's like, the audience is in Spain, she was like, they'll jump up.
• 30:18
  They'll get close to the stage, and they'll jump up and down.
• 30:20
  They'll sing along, and they'll, you know, grab you and hug you and kiss you after the set.
• 30:24
  And she's like, it's a little overwhelming.
• 30:26
  You know?
• 30:26
  And she's like, you know, imagine that happening in New York City.
• 30:29
  That would never happen in New York City.
• 30:31
  New York is still very people will come to your show, but they're still a little too cool for
• 30:34
  school.
• 30:35
  They'll stand stand in the back, and they'll be like, yeah.
• 30:37
  That was good.
• 30:37
  Alright.
• 30:38
  Cool.
• 30:38
  They're not gonna hug you and kiss you, after a a a set, and that's just a cultural, you know,
• 30:44
  just a just a cultural vibe thing.
• 30:46
  But, you know, it's it's it's interesting.
• 30:49
  I think the live music culture in The United States is an odd one.
• 30:54
  I mean, and then what you're saying too, the fact that it's there are regional differences,
• 30:59
  obviously, like you're saying.
• 30:59
  But I think, you know, from what you're describing about, you know you know, what
• 31:02
  you've seen in South Dakota, there are similarities as well in terms of, like, trying
• 31:06
  to, you know, trying to get the people to get up out of their house in the car coming to see
• 31:12
  a show.
• 31:13
  Like, what exactly is the trick to get them to make that decision?
• 31:17
  And I would love to figure out that trick and make it happen because then I will duplicate it
• 31:23
  all the time.
• 31:25
  But I wonder why we even have to be thinking about that because I was I'm when I think about
• 31:29
  it, I'm kinda like, why wouldn't people wanna come out and see a show?
• 31:31
  I would
• 31:31
  would And and, honestly, that was a big impetus for me starting the scene projects because new
• 31:37
  artist discovery and providing a platform where people can get to know the human being.
• 31:42
  Right?
• 31:43
  Because music has been devalued, to the point where I don't know why any of us are doing this
• 31:49
  to try and make a living at this point.
• 31:51
  Right?
• 31:52
  That you you've taken away what made it special, right, is that we are the
• 31:58
  storytellers.
• 31:59
  We are the culture builders.
• 32:00
  And because the industry, just sucked all the creators dry for so long and told the consumer
• 32:10
  that, no.
• 32:11
  You're only, you know, only these few people are really worth listening to.
• 32:15
  And those are the people that we're gonna continue to shove down your throat all the
• 32:18
  time.
• 32:18
  You know, Rolling Stone went super political in the last twenty years.
• 32:22
  I used to read Rolling Stone every month.
• 32:25
  Right?
• 32:25
  Like, that that was my go to.
• 32:27
  And, you know, with that changing and there wasn't any new media that came in to kind of
• 32:33
  change that.
• 32:35
  Yeah.
• 32:36
  That's that's why I really jumped in, you know, with both feet into the podcast and the
• 32:41
  platform that we're growing now because as a musician myself, I was just like, what?
• 32:45
  There's just there's no way for me outside of my small world to grow a base outside of that.
• 32:53
  Right?
• 32:54
  And it's it's taken you know, it took me a year to figure out what the hell we were doing,
• 32:58
  probably two.
• 32:59
  I feel like now I have a much better idea of who and what we are and what we're building.
• 33:04
  Mhmm.
• 33:05
  But it's we're few and far between.
• 33:07
  There aren't a lot of platforms like us that are doing this and supporting other artists.
• 33:13
  I mean, I've interviewed over 500 artists in the last two years and have put their stuff out
• 33:18
  there and, you know, have had these interviews and allowing people to come into that.
• 33:24
  But, yeah, I have to grow my own following.
• 33:26
  I I am constantly you know, everybody else is worried about growing their own following.
• 33:30
  And what we're really trying to build now is that community of, hey.
• 33:34
  Like, let's all pool together in this, and the scene projects are not my thing.
• 33:39
  It's our thing.
• 33:40
  Right?
• 33:41
  And trying to kind of convey that message to our artists, which I think is really starting
• 33:46
  to catch on now.
• 33:47
  Right?
• 33:47
  The Facebook groups that we have being, you know, a thousand or several thousand, you know,
• 33:53
  strong now that people are starting to understand.
• 33:56
  But even that, I have to go out on the road, and I have to shake some hands and and press
• 34:00
  some flesh to really drive that home.
• 34:03
  Now, you know, you talked about one of your shows not being well attended.
• 34:07
  None of the shows on this 5,500 mile tour that we did were very well attended minus, you know,
• 34:14
  a a few outliers.
• 34:15
  It was mostly just the musicians, but that was really the that was the point.
• 34:20
  It was that, hey.
• 34:21
  Let's just get together.
• 34:22
  Let you guys, you know, introduce yourself to me and me to you and and kinda tell you about
• 34:27
  my larger vision that I have for this and the work that we're gonna continue to put in.
• 34:33
  And and we hope to make it out to, you know, the East Coast and really, dip into that scene.
• 34:38
  That would be great.
• 34:40
  Well, it's just it's hard to get to.
• 34:43
  Right?
• 34:43
  And then it's tough I know.
• 34:44
  I without having friends, but that's why I stay networking the way that I do online with as
• 34:50
  many artists as possible is to grow that network, to grow that base of community.
• 34:55
  And I just don't think enough artists are out doing that.
• 34:58
  They're not connecting with other bands and growing that.
• 35:01
  You're worried about, you know, reaching out to these fans who it's just it's a tough sell.
• 35:07
  Right?
• 35:07
  When when there's any number of things that you could do and maybe that's, you know, something
• 35:12
  that the scene projects grows into is something like a nuggs.net, right, that are, you know,
• 35:17
  broadcasting the shows for you and regardless of the size of them broadcasting that out
• 35:24
  there.
• 35:24
  I don't know.
• 35:24
  I I don't know what this experience, you know, now we're having, you know, AR and XR and
• 35:30
  immersive and all of these different things that are coming to fruition that, maybe that is
• 35:35
  our life moving forward, that we are just the ones who we're gonna go attend it in person.
• 35:40
  If you wanna be there, great.
• 35:42
  If not, you can watch it on the TV.
• 35:44
  Right?
• 35:45
  Right.
• 35:45
  If that's how people want to consume that, so be it.
• 35:49
  But you're missing out on it.
• 35:50
  You're missing out on that actual, like, in the building.
• 35:53
  In the building.
• 35:54
  Yeah.
• 35:54
  And maybe it's just a matter of talking to the young kids.
• 35:57
  Right?
• 35:57
  And I think I think really what it comes down to is it's actually more of a generation x was
• 36:04
  one of the smallest ones, and I think I I guess they'd probably classify us as millennials, I
• 36:08
  guess.
• 36:08
  I don't feel like a millennial.
• 36:10
  I feel like our generation I'll be 40 in May as well.
• 36:13
  So if you kinda feel like we're falling that same line I
• 36:16
  I just turned 41 last week.
• 36:17
  So, yeah, we're right we're right.
• 36:19
  A lost generation almost.
• 36:20
  Right?
• 36:21
  You're in between I
• 36:21
  I totally agree with you.
• 36:23
  I totally agree with you.
• 36:24
  Where we we grew up with one foot.
• 36:27
  We were all analog growing up, and then this digital era kinda fell on top of us in the late
• 36:32
  nineties and through the February that we're the only people that remember, like, no.
• 36:37
  People used to, like, go out to shows all the time.
• 36:38
  Like, used to be massive and and small shows and and crowded theaters.
• 36:44
  And this was a life, and this was a reality.
• 36:47
  And maybe it's up to us to educate these kids now, right, this younger generation of 20.
• 36:53
  Now they're like, no.
• 36:54
  Like, it's okay.
• 36:54
  I know you all grew up and you went through a pandemic at a very early age, and you think
• 37:00
  that it's not okay to, like, communicate with people face to face or you don't even know how
• 37:03
  to because you've grown up with one of these in your hand Agree.
• 37:08
  That we need to educate them on, like, how to be human.
• 37:11
  Right.
• 37:13
  No.
• 37:13
  That's a very, very fair point.
• 37:15
  That's a very fair point.
• 37:16
  I mean, I I think about the the the, you know, the friends I knew who had kids who were in
• 37:22
  school who were, like, in high school who had, like, just started high school when the
• 37:26
  pandemic happened.
• 37:26
  And I was just like, what a horrible time to be, you know, in a situation where you're
• 37:33
  forced to not be around other human beings because so much just basic person to person
• 37:39
  human to human socialization skills you learn, like, at that age, in school, around your
• 37:44
  peers, and everyone's just, like, you know, so used to communicating over screens and over
• 37:50
  text now.
• 37:51
  So yeah.
• 37:51
  No.
• 37:51
  I mean, I think that that's a a very fair point.
• 37:53
  I think there's a lot of a lot of young people who I don't wanna be one of those people who's
• 37:59
  like, oh, the young people, because I feel like everyone did that to us when we were kids.
• 38:03
  Right?
• 38:03
  You know?
• 38:04
  Like but but But
• 38:06
  But I just don't think that they've been given a fair shake.
• 38:09
  And No.
• 38:09
  I I told that's, yeah, that's that's that's the thing.
• 38:11
  It's like they didn't they they they weren't given a fair shake, and and, I mean, and
• 38:15
  they're kind of, you know, they're they're all kind of figuring it out as they go along too.
• 38:20
  I mean, you know, I I can't imagine what it must be like to be somebody young who were was
• 38:25
  in high school during the pandemic trying to start their first job now, you know, like, what
• 38:30
  what that experience is like.
• 38:32
  You know?
• 38:33
  Just it's it's just it's it it that was a a a messed up time just to
• 38:38
  Yeah.
• 38:38
  Well and I think all of us that grew up with parents that were maybe a a little too,
• 38:44
  carefree and then let us do an experience maybe a little too much that a lot of us grew up as
• 38:50
  helicopter parents and a little more controlling of the environments that our kids
• 38:54
  are going out into.
• 38:56
  And, you know, I I think it maybe is I'm not old enough to know if this is one of those kind
• 39:01
  of a a wave, a generational wave that kinda happens to where it's it's, you know, clamped
• 39:06
  down a little bit more and then that gets to be too much and the kids break out.
• 39:09
  I mean, in essence, I think a lot of the grunge era is is that.
• 39:14
  Right?
• 39:14
  That Gen X moment where they were like, look.
• 39:17
  We're breaking out of these chains that have kind of been put on us by everything trying to
• 39:22
  clamp down.
• 39:22
  And I feel like we're we're on the verge of another one of those.
• 39:26
  And I think it's our generation and artists that are of our age that are gonna be speaking
• 39:31
  to this younger generation now and trying to connect with them.
• 39:36
  And, unfortunately, for us, the only place that we can connect with them is on the social media
• 39:41
  platforms, and that target is moving all the time.
• 39:44
  And it's just Yeah.
• 39:45
  It's really hard to keep up with.
• 39:46
  I just wanna make I just wanna make art or do podcasts and and put it out there and
• 39:50
  eventually it catches on.
• 39:52
  Maybe Joe Rogan gives us a call and we're able to go on there and have that big, you know,
• 39:56
  moment in the sun.
• 39:58
  But in the meantime, we're planting all of these seeds with all these amazing artists.
• 40:03
  And and, Mike, you you spoke about, you know, all of your friends came from know, you all
• 40:08
  your current friends came from music.
• 40:10
  And in the same way, all of my friends have come from this podcast.
• 40:13
  Now most of them are in music.
• 40:15
  Yeah.
• 40:15
  But I recycled my entire contact list in the last two years, I would say, mostly for the
• 40:22
  better.
• 40:22
  And not that I don't appreciate friends that I've had for the previous twenty years, but I
• 40:27
  was ready for a reset.
• 40:28
  I was ready to grow and to become who I was put here to be.
• 40:32
  And and I feel like in a lot of ways, I feel like maybe a lot of people that feel our a that
• 40:38
  are our age feel the same way.
• 40:40
  I can tell.
• 40:41
  We're we're not necessarily late to the party.
• 40:43
  It's just like, hey.
• 40:44
  We're we're here now, and the doors haven't been opened to us to express ourselves and to
• 40:50
  tell our story.
• 40:51
  And that's why it's so important that we we do so now.
• 40:55
  I absolutely agree with you.
• 40:56
  I think that's it.
• 40:57
  I think that's it.
• 40:58
  And I I I mean, again, especially for for those of us in in our age bracket, I think that
• 41:03
  that's that's that's the situation.
• 41:06
  So, yeah, this is a I feel like it is I've I've I've been telling people, you know, with all
• 41:11
  the the cool stuff that's kind of landed in my lap in the last couple of years, I've I was
• 41:14
  like, if if ever there's a seize the moment moment, it's now.
• 41:19
  You know?
• 41:19
  So I'm I'm I'm I'm grabbing it because I don't, you know, I don't know when stuff like this is
• 41:25
  gonna land in my lap again, and it certainly took a long time for it to land in my lap to
• 41:28
  begin with.
• 41:29
  And now it's here, so I'm just I'm going I'm going hard.
• 41:31
  So
• 41:33
  Awesome.
• 41:33
  Well, speaking of season the moment, I why don't you go ahead and plug everything here?
• 41:38
  I'll let you get out of here today.
• 41:39
  I'm definitely gonna have you back on an episode of Love Noise.
• 41:42
  That'd great.
• 41:42
  Yeah.
• 41:43
  Here coming up soon so we can listen to the music as well and share that with everybody.
• 41:48
  And, obviously, we got plenty to talk about between the two of us.
• 41:52
  So I'm gonna let you go ahead and kinda plug where everyone can find the music, and I'll let
• 41:56
  you get out of here today.
• 41:57
  Sure.
• 41:58
  So I'm on all of the streaming platforms you can think of, Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music,
• 42:04
  etcetera, etcetera.
• 42:05
  I'm on Bandcamp, as well if you wanna go there and buy the music directly and have some of
• 42:10
  that money come at me, because that 13¢ a month from Spotify isn't paying my bills that as fast
• 42:17
  as I would like it to.
• 42:18
  And, let's see.
• 42:22
  I'm I'm currently doing a bunch of shows, right now.
• 42:25
  I mean, this is, I'll I'll date us right now to date.
• 42:28
  We're it's it's March 26 right now.
• 42:30
  On April 9, I'm playing a show in New York City at the Delancey.
• 42:34
  On April 25, I'm gonna be in Nashville at Cannery Hall.
• 42:39
  June 4, I'm going to be back in New York City at Berlin Under A.
• 42:46
  Nope.
• 42:47
  Sorry.
• 42:47
  We're doing Boston first.
• 42:48
  Cambridge Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cantab lounge, and then Berlin under a in New York a
• 42:53
  day later.
• 42:53
  That's gonna be a crazy two days.
• 42:55
  Gonna be in Philly a week later.
• 42:57
  Still don't remember.
• 42:58
  I I still don't know what the name of the venue is, in Philly on June 12.
• 43:03
  Probably have a show in the Hudson Valley somewhere in May.
• 43:05
  Haven't gotten an official date hammered, down yet.
• 43:09
  And I think we're gonna be hitting Asbury Park sometime in July and Beacon, New York, Hudson
• 43:15
  Valley in August.
• 43:16
  That's kind of what I've got on the docket.
• 43:17
  So lots of playing out, which I'm excited about.
• 43:20
  That's kind of the the funnest part.
• 43:22
  I mean, I don't know.
• 43:23
  I love all of it, but the actual getting out there and doing shows.
• 43:27
  Even if you're only playing to the bartenders and their girlfriends, it's still it's still
• 43:31
  fun.
• 43:32
  I couldn't agree more.
• 43:34
  Well, Ria, thank you so much for being on the show today, taking some time for me.
• 43:38
  I'm glad we finally got to do this, and thank you for being part of the scene.
• 43:42
  Of course.
• 43:43
  Thank you for having me.
• 43:44
  I love this.
• 43:44
  This is great.
• 43:45
  We'll catch up soon.
• 43:47
  Have a great day.
• 43:48
  Alright.
• 43:49
  Bye.