New Artist Exclusive Interview [ RYNN ]

The music industry is in no shortage of new talent, and new artist RYNN is testament to that. Based out of Nashville, Tennessee, the twenty-one year old songstress has hit the ground running with her new EP, Nightfires, which dropped today, June 24th! Take an exclusive look at our interview with RYNN and give her EP Nightfires a listen!

[ Vinylmnky ]: First off, thanks for taking the time! We all love what you've done so far! So - when did you first get into making your own music and can you talk about the moment you decided to go for it, and create this EP, Nightfires?

[ RYNN ]: Thank you! For me, music started with strict classical piano lessons as a kid. I always thought it was fun to take pieces by Beethoven and Mozart and add my own flare to them, which made my piano teacher furious! I can still hear her screaming at me, “play Beethoven like Beethoven, and someday you can play Kathryn Kempthorn music like Kathryn Kempthorn music!!”

From there, I took her up on that suggestion and started making up my own little tunes on the piano, which eventually grew into writing actual songs with lyrics in early high school. I can’t pinpoint one specific moment when I decided to go for it. Instead, I think creating music was more of something that has always been in me and something I’ve been continuously working towards. I have released little things here and there back in the Myspace days, and have done a bit of writing for other people’s projects, but I don’t think the reality set in until I started officially recording Nightfires with my producer, Seth.

[ Vinylmnky ]: That's a great little story.

[ Vinylmnky ]: You’re based out of the Country Music Capital of the World, but your sound is much more of an atmospheric, synth-laden exploration into music. Can you talk about how your sound emerged?

[ RYNN ]: I went to school at Belmont University in Nashville, so that's what initially brought me to the Country Music Capital, and after being here I fell in love with the city. I have always really connected with electronic and synth based music, buying my first synth when I was around 14, and grew to love experimenting with; so this synth sound has been with me from the beginning. It was definitely hard and a little bit discouraging at first in Nashville, because the music I wanted to make was so different than what most others around me were doing. When I would work with other people, the music we were creating was good, but I knew it wasn’t true to the sound I really wanted to create. After a short and frustrating period, I put a pause on trying to write with other people and went into a long phase of writing songs by myself, in my bedroom, messing around with recording software and synths, creating and finally settling into the sound that I wanted. This turned into a good three years of writing, demoing, and producer searching. It took three tries of trying to get an official recording process going, each time it fell through for either having differences in musical taste or logistical reasons before everything finally clicked, leading us to the release of the Nightfires EP.

[ Vinylmnky ]: Wow...the rule of three, huh? So What’s the experience of writing music and lyrics like for you? How do you go about it?

[ RYNN ]: Yeah, right?! Whenever I’m listening to music, my mind is always automatically in creative mode! I’ll hear a random word in a song that jumps out to me, and that word will remind me of or lead me to a different word, and then I can’t help but suddenly start singing a new little phrase over top of that random song that I’m listening to. I’ll usually quickly jot down those lyric ideas in my phone, and then bring them home and later pair them with a track idea that I am working on. Along with this, a lot of times before I go to bed, I’ll just word vomit / type away on my computer, and sometimes I can pull a line out of that that will become the start to a song.

[ Vinylmnky ]: Right on. The track 'Linger' really stands out to us and we all love it here! Can you talk about what it means to you and the process behind the track?

[ RYNN ]: I’m so glad you like Linger, that’s sonically one of my favorites as well, and the first one that we started recording in the studio! I vividly remember writing Linger; I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom at my parents house in Ohio, super bummed, because I had just found out the guy I was crushing on was now in a relationship. We lived in different cities, but I had the absolute best time every time we were together, and he was such a gem compared to previous relationships I'd experienced. I think I fell harder in my head than what the situation was in real life, but regardless, I was heartbroken coming to terms with the facts of reality and wanted to write a super dark song with big, gritty synths to match and process my emotions in dealing with the situation.

[ Vinylmnky ]: Wow...well that leads me right into my next question. I’ve read that Nightfires was born out of the experiences in requited love. Can you elaborate?

[ RYNN ]: Yeah! Emotions have always been something that are really hard for me to personally acknowledge, express and come to terms with...which is funny considering that’s usually not the case for most songwriters I know. Throughout junior high and high school, my mom would call me her ‘ice princess’ because I was so unemotional about everything. As time passed, I realized you can’t truly love without bringing emotions into it, and although I was good at turning off and not feeling the hurt, I started to feel really numb inside.

Overall, Nightfires, is a collection of me learning how to express myself through songwriting, especially in dealing with the relationships in my life that involve love in some way. I wrote Lions first, about wanting to feel free, and able to feel things at their fullest. Islands came next from a place of looking around at different relationships in my life, questioning them, and realizing that it’s not a bad thing to want to feel loved by the people close you. The rest of the songs are also part of this process of learning that sometimes life and love involve getting hurt, but feeling and expressing the lows alongside the highs can be be a beautiful thing, and way better than feeling nothing at all.

[ Vinylmnky ]: Absolutely. So if you could define the core themes of Nightfires and your goals of it as an artist, what would they be?

[ RYNN ]: Lyrically, I think the core themes of Nightfires are about learning how to feel true freedom internally, and experience everything that comes along with love. Most of Nightfires came from moments of being awake in the middle of the night, and feeling like my brains was on fire trying to process everything I was going through in life. These late night moments would often feel like a dream in the morning, and that led to my goal of also waiting to creating a dream like sound sonically.

[ Vinylmnky ]: Where do you find your inspiration from? Any particular artists? Who are you listening to now?

[ RYNN ]: I find a lot of inspiration through everyday life, love, nature, all types of art, and other music! LIGHTS is the artist who initially got me into synth-pop, and she will always be someone who I tremendously look up to lyrically, sonically, and as an individual. When writing the EP, I was really inspired my bands such as Broods, Sylvan Esso, MØ, and Purity Ring. At this moment, I’ve had the artists Night Beds and Grimes on repeat!

[ Vinylmnky ]: Great artists - some we've even worked with! So Nightfires will be released this week - what kind of emotions are going through you with the release of your first EP?

[ RYNN ]: It’s a little bit scary, because I’ve been very selective about who I’ve shared my music with to up to this point, as you never know how people will react to it, especially since it's pretty different than the general Nashville sound I’m surrounded by. I’m so excited though, because I’ve spent the last three years working hard to craft these songs and sound that I’m really proud of. I can’t wait to actually let the world experience it!

[ Vinylmnky ]: Well thanks for sharing with us! We're confident people will like it just as much as we do! For these new listeners, what can they expect when listening to RYNN?

[ RYNN ]: When listening to RYNN, I want to take the listeners to a dreamlike world that combines the glittery and the gritty. It’s all about the vibe.

[ Vinylmnky ]: Finally, what’s next on your plate?

[ RYNN ]: I never stop writing, so definitely more music in the future. I’ve learned so much about myself and my sound through creating Nightfires, that I can feel myself already evolving and growing into the next phase of music. Along with this, I am in the process of creating a live set of Nightfires so that I can start playing shows!

[ Vinylmnky ]: That's exciting! Well once again, thanks for taking the time to be interviewed and good luck on your journey!

[ RYNN ]: Thanks for the opportunity!

Give Nightfires a Listen:

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