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Young Ritual on OCD, Substack, and the influence of Kings of Leon

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This week I sit down with Dylan Grantham, who released music under the name Young Ritual. Dylan and I talk about his OCD, not rushing his music, and the trend away from short form content and towards platforms like Substack.   Dylan's unique childhood set the stage for a life in music, even if it looks a bit different than his family envisioned. Hope you enjoy my conversation with the immensely talented, Dylan Grantham.

Songs featured in this episode:

Float

You

Julianna

Wild Child

I Could Never

Famous


Introduction music Blood Sugar Blues by former First Spin guest, Drew White.

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Thanks for listening—see you next week.

SPEAKER_05

Welcome to another episode of first of the podcast up and coming artists of four days. So you can say I know that my guest this week is Dylan Grantham, you're a songwriter from Mexican now living and working in Nashville. Dylan and I talked about his battle with OCT, growing up in a Christian band with its family, pursuing stardom and country music as a kid, and why he hates football brands. Here's a snippet of his brand new song float, and then my conversation with Dylan Grantham of young rituals. So Dylan Grantham releases music under the name Young Ritual. Uh welcome to First Bin. Thank you so much for doing this, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. Your Spotify bio references the fact that you watch too many regular season NBA games. I imagine that probably also means you watch a lot of playoff games too. So we're about 24 hours or so away from game seven of the Western Conference Finals. I w do you have a prediction?

SPEAKER_01

Um I'm like the only person out of my friends that isn't an OKC hater. Like I really like Shea Gildas Alexander. I think that team is good. So I think that they're going to win. It wouldn't like drive me nuts, but like all my friends are playing for the Spurs because they're already sick of the Thunder.

SPEAKER_05

The entire internet is like anti-OKC right now. Like the memes is just, yeah, it's kind of relentless.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, maybe at some point it will turn for me. But like I get like the foul baiting stuff is annoying, but I also think it's kind of like the league's problem. Like, if you don't want that, like have it refit different, you know.

SPEAKER_05

And that's been happening for years, right? Like Kobe did that, Michael did that, you know. Like maybe it's gotten a little bit worse over time, and players have gotten better at it, but it's not like it's a new thing for sure. Everybody seems super jazzed about the Knicks um making it back to the finals for the first time in like, you know, whatever 25 years or something.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. That one's tough for me because I'm a Pistons fan, and uh the Knicks are kind of like I didn't have any hard opinions on the Knicks, and then we played them last year in the playoffs, and I just kind of they kind of became a hate team for me. So I'm not a hater of the Thunder, but I am like a low-key Knicks hater. So maybe that's also influencing my like OKC or San Antonio, please. Like, I'm not I'm not really here for the Knicks thing, but good for the people in New York. You know, I don't have any issue with the fans, but that team for me that's last year.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, no, I get it. I get it for sure. The big question is whether or not Trump's gonna actually go to one of the games. It seems like a real bad idea for him to do that, but I guess you never know.

SPEAKER_01

I'm just curious, like, what Knicks player is going to do. Like, so as a Detroit sports fan, we kind of have this running bit that like we have a curse. Because every time that Trump has like been at like a Detroit sports game or like been related to it, like things have gone downhill for us. Like the Tigers did like the Trump dance because he was at the Yankees game and then their whole season went down. And then the Lions, same thing. He went to a like Lions commanders game and he did a little thing, and then their whole season went down. So I don't know. It might not be good for them in general to have him there, but I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I didn't I didn't know about that with the Detroit teams. It's interesting. Um, I mean I've there's probably there's probably something to that. Uh something, something more abroad, yeah. Maybe um so, anyways, enough about basketball. We could talk about that all day. Uh, where did the name Young Ritual come from?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, funny enough, so I was in an indie band with my cousins like throughout high school. Um, and at some point life just kind of started to shift where they were a few years older than me. So different jobs, different career, like different trajectory. And I feel like I was writing a lot more than we were working on stuff, so I was just looking for like a solo output for that. Um, and like around that time I started to I didn't know what it was at the time, but I knew something was strange, and I kind of started to realize I had pretty intense OCD. Um, so it was kind of like a few months of me being like, why am I, you know, afraid to touch that, or why am I like washing my hands for five minutes and like repetition, and like it kind of became an avenue for me to write about those experiences and just like how I was processing it. And I always use the word ritual a lot because you have these rituals and these coping mechanisms and stuff that you do, and they all kind of just flow into the next thing. You think they'll make you feel better, but they make you feel worse. Um, and that word just stuck around. So I knew I wanted that in there because it just initially this is just a project for me to write like really personal and you know, hopefully do that thing that the artist that meant a lot to me did, which is you know, speak so honestly about something that you can see yourself in it. Um I'm not really sure where I got young from. I probably just was looking for something that fit with that. I just but a ritual I remember very like vividly being like this is a really personal thing for me. I want to take this head on, like this word's like lingering around, like let's just throw it in there.

SPEAKER_05

So, what has that process been like like since you've uh officially got diagnosed with OCD? Like, what what is the what is the treatment for that? How do you manage that in your day-to-day life?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's so strange because I was probably 18, 19 years old when now looking back, I've had it my whole life, but that was when I kind of hit a block and I felt like my whole life was kind of stalling, and I had all of these I mean it it got bad enough to a point that I was like I can't sleep in my bed tonight, like you know, and I remember like sleeping on like the hardwood floor in like my family's living room and being like, Okay, this is a problem. Um, but the I went to therapy and that has been such a great help to just understand that you know, as much as people in your life will be supportive of you and can give you good advice, nothing is gonna ever top what a professional that deals with that all the time can do. Yep. And the funny thing with OCD is like you're kind of taught to just not not avoid the thing that's making you anxious. So it's like this really intense exposure therapy of okay, I have to do this thing that is gonna like gnaw and on me and my anxiety is gonna really peak. But if I do it enough times and nothing bad happens, then maybe I can like break down that wall. And that was like the big thing for me was just putting my I've always been an ambitious person and always like, okay, give me a challenge, I can do a challenge, just need to apply myself to something. Um, so it really was kind of like a crash course on coping mechanisms. And most of that was, all right, you can't stop the thought from happening. It's just what do you do when the thought is there? Do you recognize it and spiral, or do you recognize it and say, Okay, the likelihood of that is super low, but you're in an you know, intrusive thought. I get those. And if I don't act on it, you're not gonna become like a big monster. I'm just gonna be able to eventually set you aside.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_01

And that's been massive. I mean, that was like 10-ish years ago, and I'm here living and breathing, so it's working out okay.

SPEAKER_05

It's almost like it sounds meditative in a way, right? And the like the way that I've always understood true meditation to be like you can't just actually turn your thoughts off. The key is learning how to acknowledge a thought and just allow it to float by, right? And it sounds like ultimately like it's similar in you know, managing OCD, just like the thought's gonna happen. It's just managing it as it goes by or just allowing it to float by.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I actually in the last like few years I've gotten into mindfulness and meditation stuff as well. I didn't when I first was being introduced to that line of thinking. But now that I do that, not just as a OCD, you know, check-in, but just in general, it makes me feel better and gets me more in tune with how I am feeling and what my body is feeling. Um, I notice the ways that, oh, that is kind of attached to something I've already been doing. It's just a more still deep dive into it instead of doing it on the go. Like I think I had kind of built that foundation a little bit just by that work with OCD.

SPEAKER_05

So you've been playing music basically your whole life, it sounds like you grew up in a very musical family, you said. What what was that like?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so my family had like a Christian band type thing that was like a family band, and it was whenever someone was old enough and had like some talent, they would work them into the group.

SPEAKER_05

The Vaughn, the Vaughn brothers or something like that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So that was like my grandparents and like my mom and her sister and all of her kids, like just everyone like played a role. So my grandpa taught me some guitar. I got like my first electric guitar, which funny enough is like literally this guitar, I still play this guitar, and it's like the very first guitar that I ever got.

SPEAKER_05

But um, I learned an American telecaster.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, the most standard like bare bones American telly. I think it was like $800 at the time.

SPEAKER_05

You mean like you mean like this one?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, the oh, this is they're like brothers.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I just like switched out the pig guard. Yeah, but otherwise they're identical. How funny. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like a 2000. It's a great guitar.

SPEAKER_05

It's a great guitar.

SPEAKER_01

It's like the thing I feel most at home with. Like, I still tour with it and stuff. Like at this point, it's sentimental value, so I do live a little bit of fear that something's gonna happen to it, but I'm so at home on it that nothing else quite feels like that's my tool, that's my hammer.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, you know it just if if I it the comfortability uh level of it, I'm sure, is just because you've been playing it for what going on 20 plus years. Yeah, yeah. How old are you?

SPEAKER_01

I'm 30.

SPEAKER_05

You're 30, okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01

So literally, probably I've probably been playing that guitar for 21 years. Yeah, it's kind of scary, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

So it sounds like you got some some cool opportunities with this uh with the family band.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Like a good way to cut my teeth and get comfortable in front of people. Um, I was also homeschooled, so my family kind of built time in for me to work on that stuff that maybe I otherwise wouldn't have had if I did public school, but like they recognized like my interest and early talent in that. And then I got interested in country music, like classic country music, and my family is that that's like their number one love. So they had like the big stars in their eyes. And we're like, we can take him to Nashville, he's so good, we'll make him a star. But then I was like, me and that guitar are being carted around Nashville and playing in wax museums and dinner theaters.

SPEAKER_05

No kidding. What at what age was this happening?

SPEAKER_01

Probably 10 to 12, maybe. Wow. Yeah, like a two or three year span.

SPEAKER_05

So now that you're now that you're a ways away from that, what what is that how what how do you reflect on that? What does that time period feel like now?

SPEAKER_01

It's strange because I'm so thankful for it in the fact that I did get a head start. I think a lot of like a lot of my friends that were in bands didn't start playing until high school. And I was like, oh, I've already been playing by like, I don't know, seven years by the point that you're like, you know, 16. Um But I also look back on it and I see the things that like were maybe a little too much pressure on me. There was always kind of this idea that, okay, if I get this figured out and I get successful, like my mom can retire. And, you know, maybe that's not the most healthy thing for a 10-year-old to be thinking is I can get rich soon, my family will be more comfortable. And they were not like pressuring that on me, but there definitely was, you know, in my mind, you know, oh, I could be successful, you know, and do these things. Um, I was like pretty interested in that until I saw Death Count for Cutie when I was like 12. And then I was like, sorry guys, I got a I got a whole thing now. I want to be in a band and it's way different. Sorry.

SPEAKER_05

And were they were they supportive of that direction?

SPEAKER_01

I think they were a little confused because in their mind we're building towards this thing. I remember having a there was like a meeting with, and who knows? Now that I'm a bit older, I have no clue how legit this was. But there was like a meeting with a manager in Nashville that they had set up, and like you have to go do it, and I just did not want to do it. Right down at the my core, this is not the direction, it's not right for me. We went all the way to Nashville, and I just the day of the meeting, I just I'm not gonna do it. I can't do it. This is just not the direction for me, and I think that was hard for them because that was kind of maybe the last thing that okay, we're not doing this thing together anymore.

SPEAKER_05

And this was after the Death Cap show, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and I had like kind of started playing with my cousins already, so I was starting to have my own thing, but I just wanted my own thing. I didn't want to have my family so invested in it. I just wanted time to grow and and make mistakes and do whatever. Um so I think that was kind of the last maybe nail in the coffin for them of okay, if we can't get him to go to this, he's probably gonna do his own thing.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I guess I guess we're not retiring early after all.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Um, so but then at some point you uh because you were growing up in Michigan and at this point, right? And then at some point you moved to Nashville on your own. What when when, why, how did that happen?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's kind of funny because I really didn't think I would end up in Nashville again. No uh no qualms with it per se, but I went a lot as a kid, and then my cousin, my oldest cousin, lived in East Nashville. We visited him a couple times when I was like 18, 19. Okay, Nashville's cool, but it didn't really seem like my spot. And I have a friend who I think, yeah, you know about Jason Michigander, Jason and Speaker, and all that. That's like my best friend.

SPEAKER_04

Oh, cool, okay.

SPEAKER_01

He moved to Nashville a year before I ended up moving here, and he was very much, hey, this is a great place, like you should think about it, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he I had just broken up with my girlfriend of like three years, so I was a little, you know, figuring out what my next step was. And he said, Let me just book you a writing trip. I'll schedule these these rights for you. You can stay with me. All you have to pay for is your plane. And I said, Okay. And I did that, and the whole time he was just trying to sell me on moving to Nashville. Like we go to a cafe, like this Cafe Dose in town, and he'd be like, Pretty good. You like that? Like, that's pretty good. Um, I was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I love Michigan, I'm staying here. And then there were a couple friends of mine who one was uh a drummer and artist, a videographer, one was a photographer. And they just texted me in maybe April of 2022 and said, Hey, we're all moving to Nashville. We're gonna get a four-room house. We think you'd be the perfect fourth roommate, take two weeks and decide if you want to do it. And nothing was keeping me, so I just went for it. I've been here since. So that's it'll be four years this year. So that must mean I like it well enough. I guess so, yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah. So um what are your what do your days look like? You know, because you know the the young ritual stuff I I think is great, but you haven't put anything out in a couple years. I know you've got some stuff on the horizon. Um, and the one song you sent me is great. Thank you for sending that. That's awesome. Um it's coming out uh June 2nd, right? But yeah, so what what do your days look like?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, I am a working musician in the way of I have a day job when I'm here, and then I go off and I play guitar for other artists as well. Um, I took a little time in between releases because I honestly I went really hard in 24. I released like a full five-song thing. And I think there's maybe one other thing in between, but I spent most of last year with the goal of I'm gonna write a lot, I'm gonna co-write more, because I hadn't done a lot of that and I wanted to do that, and I wanted to start filling up the um catalog of songs to then start pushing up the next year, um, which kind of started to happen, but I started to have some weird health stuff where I just started having like vestibular migraines, I guess is what it is now, but like a chronic enough condition that I got centered for like an MRI and everything to make sure I didn't have a brain tumor.

SPEAKER_02

Which thankfully not.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, like everything came back clear, like it's just a chronic migraine condition. I spent a good chunk of that last year too, like writing, but also just kind of trying to try different medications and all this stuff and figure out where I was at. These songs actually were recorded like um releasing uh like the next couple months. They were recorded like right at the start of that process. Um, so I remember feeling pretty blah in the studio, but like still trucking through. And then I was gonna maybe release them last year, and then I just decided I need to like take a little time to get like myself right. If I can't say nothing else is yeah, right working.

SPEAKER_05

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Have you have you found a a medication or a treatment regimen that's working for you?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's weird. I definitely feel better. Um, I am still kind of in a little like dosage figuring out situation with the med that I'm on. But it's been helpful and like I definitely feel like a lot of this year has been kind of coming out of my shell a bit again and be like, okay, I'm feeling better. I kind of understand what I'm looking out for when I feel like something might be coming on and how to avoid it. So I feel like it's become a lot easier to get back to being, I don't know, more outwardly productive because I know my body now instead of being like, okay, what the hell is going on? And why do I have to get this MRI? It's like, okay, I'm good. This is just like what it is, and like you figure it out, right? Like that's life. You just learn to adjust and figure out like life once things change, the script changes.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, but I mean chronic migraines are just like debilitating. I have, you know, I have a colleague who who suffers from chronic migraines and and some other friends, and yeah, my mom gets a lot of them. I thankfully I would say I get maybe four a year. Um, but like those four days, I'm done. Like I like if it's two o'clock in the afternoon, like I gotta go to I'm I'm in bed. Like it's just completely debilitating. So the idea with chronic is like greater than 15 uh a month or something, right?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I I mean basically I feel some component of it like every day. It's like not like an episodic thing. It's like um like vestibular and like your vestibular system is just like your vision and your balance. those things. So like I will always feel a little bit of like pressure. Um but it depends on if it's how I need to lay down or keep going. And I luckily don't experience like any um like migraines and aura and things that people have like visual disturbances. So I'm like, okay, I'm never gonna have like I'm I can't see out of my left eye or something. It's more so just a word out feeling and then a return to it. So I do I again there's no like fortunate but I do feel fortunate that like I can feel it and like push through it. Like it's not gonna prevent me from playing shows or from you know showing up for my people or going to work. Like it's just sometimes that extra hill to climb to get there. Yeah. Knowing that you can do that also makes it a hell of a lot, you know it's empowering in a way to be like okay this is what I have I'm figuring it out.

SPEAKER_03

I may not feel great but like I know what the bottom is so I know how to I know how to go about my day and like still be like the person I want to be and do the things I want to do.

SPEAKER_01

I'm not worried that I'm going to you know aggravate something in a way that you know makes it not manageable like it is manageable.

SPEAKER_05

I mean that's a it's an incredible perspective to have on it. A lot of people do not have that that positive spin on you know any chronic issue. So I think that's that says a lot about uh you know you as a person that you're able to have that positive perspective on it. I think that's really cool. Can we please have fun? which I think did not get nearly the accolades that it deserved I thought that that was one of the best albums of was that 24? Yeah 24 yeah I I think that's just that's the best thing they've done since Only by the night in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah they've had a little bit of a return to form because the record before this one I can see the cover. I can't think of the name of like if you yeah something like that. Some longer title. That was a cool record too is it's a little more garage rock. I thought that can we please have fun was so good. And we live in East Nashville here and Grimy's is like our record shop that is always doing signings and stuff so I actually went to the record signing for that. It was like the first time as an adult that I have felt a little uh starstruck. Oh my gosh. This has been my favorite band since I was like 14 years old.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

You know like everything that I do is like directly influenced by this band. But yeah I that was like a front to back record for me. Like I think that record is so freaking good.

SPEAKER_05

I got to see them open for U2 on the Vertigo tour when I think at that point they only had Youth and Young Manhood out, maybe not even that yet um and talk about like true garage rock I mean it was it was those early days was just a lot of fast noise. I remember my parents being like what the fuck is this? And I was like no no this trust me trust me this is very good. And sure enough a couple years later they started putting you know use somebody and sex on fire and like they gained a lot of popularity and I I felt very validated in that moment.

SPEAKER_01

Well they looked nuts in that era too like eventually they got like a little more Hollywood and you know they got their haircut and you know their their like designer clothes but like the first couple of records they looked nuts. They sounded nuts and they looked nuts.

SPEAKER_05

I mean they were also just drinking so heavily probably using other substances and they were getting in fights with each other all the time and stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Didn't didn't one of them break their arm like in a fist fight with another member of the I was supposed to see that I've seen them like three times and I was supposed to see them uh on the tour that they ended up canceling like all of it or maybe a little less or a little more than half of it because I think Caleb went into rehab or something because they had like a really big falling out. Like that was the tour they got shit on by the birds.

SPEAKER_05

Oh I do remember it was like uh our show was like two shows after that or something was the bird shitting just kind of like the final was it just like the final nail in the coffin for that tour they were already straddling and they're just like you know what we got shit on tonight this is it got yeah literally we literally got shit on yeah they're all just like drunk and angry and then pigeons I mean honestly I I sympathize with that at least yeah because you've played a lot of shows right yeah yeah so do you have any crazy you know like what's the craziest thing that's happened at a show I mean I played a lot of bad shows back home that I think about often like I remember playing this show once I I used to just think of any way I could promote like a show.

SPEAKER_01

Like I'm just trying to be creative. I remember one year I was like alright I booked a show it's a day out for my birthday so I'll just promote it like it's my birthday party and I was like hey guys like if you want to do something nice for me come to my show. Opening for some band that I had never heard of some local music guy in Flint was like hey do you want to opt in the show? They're from Austin. Oh yeah. Swear to God like seven eight people in there just super booy rock club empty and I got through my set I was like I painted my nails I'd never done that before like I fucking up my guitar parts because like I was trying to claw hammer like my strings and the nail paint was like chipping and getting caught on it. I played like shit and I was like oh my god what a nightmare like the seven people here all love me and they just saw me fuck it up. So this other band started playing and they said we heard that we got a birthday boy here tonight. Oh no yes it's already awkward as hell I walk up there they hand me uh a tambourine but it's like a tambourine that goes on your foot you tap your foot and it does the tambourine thing okay one other percussive thing and they're like play this thing with us and they just start playing and I have to like set in and I'm like too young and like awkward to not like too young and awkward to not just say like I'm good thank you guys so much. Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_05

I think I like still wake up in a cool sweat some nights thinking about standing up between those people with my goddamn foot tambourine when you win young your song Wild Child was really the one that just grabbed me and I you know I think you were promoting it on TikTok and it came across my feed and I was like oh yeah this is this this has got to be a hit. This I'm just late to this. And then I realized that I had already at some point along the way saved your song you and so I went back and listened to that again and I was like oh yeah okay this guy's like this guy's got some great stuff. So I listened to your whole pretty much your whole catalog today. Those two are still I think probably my favorites but there's another one Juliana that song has a real like Tom Petty sound to me which I think is very cool. And then your song I could never which is a the thing I take from it is it's the other side of there are so many songs by female artists about guys coming to their birthday and getting too drunk or too stoned or just not showing up when they were supposed to and the way I hear this song is almost kind of like the other side of that perspective.

SPEAKER_01

Talk to me about writing that song so that song was actually written with uh my buddy Aaron and my buddy Connor. They both play in Michigander and they're like homies from Michigan. We had never wrote a song together. Why have we not like done this? We just got together one day and did that. I like the idea of writing there's so many like pieces of art whether it be music or movie that like lionizes like a guy's bad behavior he's so tortured you know and he's like kind of an asshole but like he's so cool he's mysterious. I like the idea of kind of writing this in like a pretty much no sway to it at all. This is just a bad person like it's like hey sorry that I read all this up and then there's a line in I think in the second verse you caught me in a decent year started waking up before the sun and I love that that's kind of like hey you know I'm doing pretty good. I I'm not sleeping in too late like all these tiny little things. Yeah I I loved uh I just love the idea of flipping that on its head and being like let's just write something that is this is just a sleaze bag.

SPEAKER_05

It's not cool it's not mysterious it's just like I just screwed this up and like lay it out there you know yeah because I think you know all all of us to a certain extent have moments of our life where we realize you know that we just completely shit the bed on something and kind of have to live with it you have another song famous uh that is very cool there's like a music there's a music video that goes along with that that I also really dig it's you just kind of walking skipping shadow boxing down the street with a microphone yeah in the city of Detroit so that was gonna be my question is what where were you in Nashville? Were you in Michigan you were in Detroit?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah yeah my buddy Matthew has done a lot of my uh video work over the years lives in Detroit uh and we always had the best time working on stuff because he's he just has a crazy eye he always has cool ideas but we will just go anywhere and get the vibe of it that is literally just down his streak where he lives people like out there like doing work on a house and stuff and like waving when we went by just like a loud Bluetooth speaker rolling down the street and him like running trying to give me enough microphone cable you know to not trip and keep pace with me on day in Detroit.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah it looked like a blast it looked like an absolute blast and then uh you're holding up a sign at certain points throughout the video that says make me famous on it. Did you have anybody like honk or anybody you know wave at you from the sign?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah like the funny thing is like I looking back on it like getting in the zone and doing it is actually kind of terrifying. Because just running out with strangers with a sign and some 60s coveralls they probably thought I was nuts but like Or maybe they thought we were cool because they were like hey there are these people out there doing this bravely but I really loved that concept of like like I wrote that so haphazardly too like it's kind of messy and it's not really written that well like so much of being an artist right now does feel like I'm trying to go viral.

SPEAKER_05

I have to have my moment because that's how like I'll make money at this and I just thought it was like such a fun way to poke fun at that too of like here's my song I'm out here in the middle of the street make me famous like this is all I want you know and Detroit is a great setting for it but yeah yeah certainly you know I living I live in West Hollywood and so I can't go to the grocery store without seeing somebody filming a TikTok or something you know it just it's so normal I don't even really notice it anymore because it's just like everybody's just trying to make content everywhere all the time. What is your relationship with that at this point with just like this constant need to be pumping out content I mean obviously you took some time off for your health and to write and stuff but I've heard that you know the experts whoever that is say that you should be putting out new music like every six to eight weeks like like that's not realistic for most people. Yeah. But also and then you're and then you're expected to post all these TikToks and shit on top of that.

SPEAKER_01

So I don't know talk to me about how you feel about all that I think that I I think at one point in my artistic life I thought there was a formula and this is what you do. And there are pieces that you have to do to to at least build your thing in some capacity. Like you need to be you need to be a decent music business person. Like you need to know you know what is how much money you would need to make to be able to pay your people and you need to know like how to make the best merch at the you know price that you can handle and fall in a good profit. Like you need to figure these things out. Um but I used to think there was more of a I think the algorithm and the social media stuff started convincing people that this is the you write the song you have to make at least I remember someone saying one time every audio you have to make at least 40 videos with that audio and that's how you'll know if it's getting traction with someone. But also you need to be releasing something every six weeks. I've heard that many times six to eight weeks um and in all reality I see now so many people doing it differently and kind of figuring out their way. I think it's just figuring out what works for you. Um I will never say that the content side of music is what I like the most what I like the most is playing live what I like the most is making music. But the content stuff doesn't drive me nuts. It's just I hate the times where you are spending more time on the content than you are the music, you know, because that's not the most rewarding piece of it.

SPEAKER_05

I'm noticing what anecdotally at least appears to be some pushback on the whole culture. Like there's a lot of interesting things happening in in music and especially independent music on Substack um which I'm still trying to figure out my way around Substack I have one I've posted a couple things but I still don't fully understand it. Is it Twitter? Is it like you know like what is it? I don't know are you familiar with Substack much?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah I've done it a little bit uh I've s I know artists that use it as like another form of what they're doing to talk about their music. I just started writing on it because I I love writing and I thought it was like really cool to do something online that was I just could be whatever I want it to be. If I want to you know write something that's a little more poetic and short I can do that. I want to take something and say hey if you're anybody that like knows me or cares about me, here's just an update on what my life has been like the last few months. Like I found something really rewarding in that because so much of the short real TikTok content thing is you have 20 seconds and it's just like how do you introduce yourself and a bit of this song and have the lyrics and everything is so concise. I love having just an open empty page that I can make it as long as whatever I wanted to talk about to and even just doing that and just having the time to sit and revise and say uh that's probably a little more fat than you know leave me like take it down. All that felt so good. It was just like a really good um scratch of like the writing itch. Especially writing for the sake of writing not you know selling anybody on anything just hey this is about me and how I'm feeling today if you want to just like tap into another human and see what they're up to. Here it is.

SPEAKER_05

Well yeah and I think it it's kind of scratching an itch that a lot of people are having for I think people are are are starting to get burnt out of this short form content. You know like it it's addicting and we all do it to a certain extent but I think a lot of people are recognizing like oh I don't feel good after doing this. I miss actually sitting down and reading a full piece and like ingesting it and thinking about it and spending time with it. I mean I I imagine this is not a uh unique experience where I'll have scrolled through let's say Instagram and there'll be something that I'll be like oh you know what I should save that and so I'll scroll back up and I as I'm scrolling back up I'm be like oh God I saw all of these videos in the last two minutes like I don't remember like now that I see them like I remember them but like if you would ask me you know to tell you about the last 10 videos I saw on TikTok on TikTok or Instagram I wouldn't I wouldn't be able to tell you about these. So I think Substack is kind of uh maybe scratching that itch a little bit that people are wanting um longer form stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Well do you remember the moment where we thought that TikTok was going away it was like oh there's been a couple moments yeah yeah I feel like that all of like at least my friends were kind of like this opens up this whole new door to you know longer form content and stuff like we're not gonna have this particularly predatory algorithm really like TikTok is so uh good at picking up every little thing like if you just spend a half a second longer on a video you see stuff on your feet and you're like I don't even remember like engaging with that and everyone's like man this is gonna be crazy like we're gonna go back analog and then it was like back in the day and now we're like smack dabbing between the two things like we do hunger for the longer form thing and I mean look at even something like uh Noah Khan just released that new album like 20 and something tracks on that thing which that's awesome to be like okay there could be an album that people are digesting because they're so hungry of this thing that this artist is doing that like 20 songs is not too many songs for people's attention span. But then also like TikTok is as far as I can see like relatively as healthy as it was before we're just like smack dab in between give me the short form content that makes me feel gross but also I want this like thing that is a little rehabilitating to me.

SPEAKER_05

Which almost puts even more onus on the artist right to not only be producing the short form content to introduce people to the music but then once we find something we like we want a lot of it and like I don't know how are how are you supposed to navigate all of that? You know no longer are the days where people would put out an album every you know couple years and right I you know although I guess that's what Noah did, right? Like it took him a long time between Stick Season and the Great Divide and people were ready for it.

SPEAKER_01

So I think that what I am kind of figuring out for myself and the comfort that I have is quality over the quantity. Like I want to release a quantity that I'm proud of and that I'm getting better and I'm you know continuing to like build up every leg of the table that I'm making. So like I don't feel pressured to just have something out. Like I feel uh an ambition and a love of putting out things that I think are good things and that I would hope that someone else would connect to. It's like I want to make a lot of those things because I like making those things. Not because I think that consistency is everything. Consistency's important like obviously if I didn't want to uh make music my living I would do it in a much different way. Like maybe I would write and record these songs and never release them if it was just you know for fun. But like finding that middle ground of I'm so proud of this thing. Like that's how I feel about Float That songs coming out on the 2nd of June. Um I'm just really proud of it. Because when I wrote it I was like this is one of my favorite songs that I've written in a long time. I probably wrote that right at the tail end of twenty four and I listen to it now and I'm like I still love this song. Like that feeling And that's amazing. Yeah like that feeling you can't just get from anywhere else. Like I made this thing I think this is a good thing. A year or so later I still think this is a good thing.

SPEAKER_05

I've read a number of places recently too where and it makes sense when you think about it like it's more important to have a hundred like really true fans than a thousand casual fans right because this like listening to the music on Spotify isn't gonna, you know, unless you're Drake or Taylor Swift, like you're not getting any money from Spotify. Right. Right. So like you want those people that are going to buy the march that are going to buy tickets to the show that are so if you have a thousand people that are like you know yeah I like that but I'm not gonna invest in it versus a hundred people that are truly going to invest in it. And I think a lot of that does come from making sure that you're putting out quality stuff right if you're just churning out the first thing you know just to get something out you're maybe going to get a thousand casual fans because you can write a catchy tune but it's gonna be harder to have those hundred like dedicated fans who are really passionate about what you're doing because they can tell the authenticity of the music that you're putting out.

SPEAKER_01

And also you know what drives you you know at the end of the day if your drive is I want to go viral is I want to be famous, I want people to like you know want access to me then maybe you go about it a different way. But the rewarding part of music for me and my closest friends that are artists is like making that thing being proud of that thing and then getting to share that thing. Like if I am gonna work as hard on this as I do, if I'm gonna give as much as my my time and my money my energy to it then I would hope that it's rewarding in itself and that I like the thing that I'm putting that towards. Because if there's not a an attachment to the thing itself, if it's just this thing is a means to get me here it's an empty it's an empty thing at the end of it, you know?

SPEAKER_05

Right. And you're not gonna listen to it a year and a half later and be proud of it. Right.

SPEAKER_01

If you like plugged it into Suno. What was that thing with the guy from Suno who was like people don't like making music anymore and it's like who the hell are you talking to I feel like it's getting more popular.

SPEAKER_05

I I feel like Guitar Center is doing better business now than they were 10 years ago. Yeah um I'm seeing all kinds of videos of of you know young kids 10 11 12 years old like learning guitar because you know everybody's we're getting sick of of just being inside on these devices all the time. So um I'm I'm cautiously optimistic for the future of music. Um and uh one of those reasons is you man I think the stuff that you're putting out is great. I think the stuff the song that you've got coming out in uh June is great.

SPEAKER_00

I know you've got one trailing right behind it that I'm excited to hear the last section of the podcast is called Final Spin.

SPEAKER_05

It's just rapid fire questions uh first thing that comes to your mind if you could share a stage with any artist living or dead who would it be I'm gonna go dead and I would say that it would probably be John Bryan.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

W what was the first album you owned that was just yours I got um the good Charlotte CD that had lifestyles of origin famous on it we all had that CD.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah yeah that shit rocked um they're making a biopic about your life who's playing the lead role see it's hard because I don't feel like I have a lot of like celebrity look alike things so I don't have like that thing.

SPEAKER_01

Um I we're gonna zag we're gonna just say that we're gonna AI the absolute living hell out of him and we're gonna let Al Pacino do it we're not touching his voice present day voice we're gonna AI present day voice everything else that's incredible I would pay to see that movie. Is there an artist or a band that you love that people would be surprised by I think because I make indie rock and it's like on the Americana side there's like definitely the killer season influence the country stuff. I think people probably don't realize that like what I listen to most is a lot of rap and pop. Like I Kendrick Lamar is like always uh like my most listened to artist and then also like I listen to a lot of like Robin and I love Muna and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03

So I feel like that's my like step away stuff.

SPEAKER_01

But yeah not nothing I make sounds like that.

SPEAKER_05

Right. That's I mean that's fun though and I I think you know this comes up uh quite frequently on the podcast like people don't seem to be putting themselves as listeners into boxes the way that I think people used to like people used to be like oh no I I'm a rock music fan or oh I'm a country music fan. Now people just listen to everything and I think that's great. And that's part of what this podcast is like I promote you know I don't care what kind of music you do if I think it's good like let's chat and let me help you promote your music. The final question is who is an artist with less than a hundred thousand monthly listeners on Spotify that you think people should be listening to yeah I'm gonna shout out uh my buddy Jake Lamond Jake also plays in Michigander he just released a song called Haunted like maybe two, three weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01

Jake is one of my not just like my favorite songwriters I know but like one of my favorite songwriters.

SPEAKER_05

How do you spell his last name?

SPEAKER_01

Lamond L-E-M-O-N-D. Okay cool I'm excited to go yeah he's the homie we're playing in Alaska next week um Michigan has these two shows in Alaska I'm opening one of them and Jake is opening the other and because it's like like skeleton crew we're both playing in each other's bands it's just this very fun like mingling of everything. So listening to a lot of Jake Long recently when's that show in Alaska I think the 5th and the 6th of June oh yeah it's coming up it's like yeah and it's like two 10 hour flights like in a round trip to get there. Yeah I was like oh Alaska is pretty far away it's up there.

SPEAKER_05

It is up there and over there. Yeah I've never been to Alaska I'm I'm jealous that'll be cool. Have you been?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah I'm excited. No no I mean that's why I had no clue even to travel but we're playing this uh little town called Oak Alaska okay that they do this concert series every year and like apparently it's just the coolest thing and we'd heard about it and asked if we could do it and they're like yeah for sure.

SPEAKER_05

That's awesome. Cool dude thank you again so much for doing this I really appreciate it. I'm excited for more music and uh hopefully I'll get to see Young Ritual uh perform live soon. Oh yeah I appreciate you make sure to check out Young Ritual's brand new song Float and there's more music on the way to keep up with Young Ritual's codes and more info follow him on Instagram and TikTok at YoungRitualmusic while you're there go ahead and follow the first pin socials at firstpin pod also I put out a playlist every week of 20 songs to help you get through the week. This week is called Firstpin week of 6726 and you can guarantee there will be some Young Ritual on there this week. You can find it on Spotify and Apple Music somebody asked me recently to put it on title um but it was like a user 89776 so I don't know if it was real. If there are people out there that want me to put them on title I will do that. Um but I want it to be a real person asking me for sure. So anyways that's all for this week thank you so much for listening and you know what? Send this to your mom.

SPEAKER_03

I think she's gonna like it.