INTERVIEWING FRED RYDER
Where do you find inspiration?
“Oh, just about doing stuff just, like, throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. I make a lot of trash and then eventually, you know, you sift out a bit of gold through it.”
Freds journey into music began just after lockdown- with a completely different intention at the beginning of the pandemic to the end of it. His initial goal was to move on and study Physical Health, but when his situation changed and it wasn’t something he was able to pursue, he decided to go down the music route instead. This was purely because he knew how to play the drums and enjoyed doing it. However, getting onto a music course was, to him, a blessing in disguise.
Describing his music as heavy, experimental and probably not for everyone, Fred finds a lot of inspiration from other people like Virtual Riot and has done since his start in music, A big moment for him was actually getting to meet Virtual Riot- something that happened by chance in the street, when he and his friend were supposed to be seeing him later that day, but got to the venue three hours early!
Poison, Fred’s most recent release, was something he had been working on for a while, and knew he wanted to release. This year however, he has put together more than he ordinarily would, and in the first four months of the year has essentially created an EPs worth of songs. This is as a result of going to university, there was a lot going on but he wasn’t doing overly much those first few months, instead coming back to it more at the start of this year. He also has plans to release more music soon, some of it already having been in the works for 6 months.
His goal is to be self-sufficient by the time he leaves University, with an income from his music. Feeling now like he is somewhat getting into the industry, is one of his proudest moments of his career so far, and is an impressive feat, given how early he is in his career.
Live performances see the audience engage with Fred every second he is on stage. The energy he brings is always matched by everyone seeing him, no matter the size of the venue. When asked how he achieves this, his response was quite simply: “we’re just kind of having fun up there” adding “there's a lot of DJs who just focus and get the next track up and they kind of just look at the decks the whole time and that’s it”. Furthering this relationship with the audience, he wants them to be inspired, leaving after seeing him and thinking ‘I wasn't expecting that’, in a similar way to how he felt after seeing Virtual Riot.
Similar to surprising the audience, he has commented he is open to exploring new genres: “I'm sticking to drum and bass and dubstep at the moment. I'm not sure where I'd want to go with it, but I'm definitely interested in exploring new genres. I'm open to the idea of it, absolutely anything. It could be country, it could be jazz or classical. Anything. I'm absolutely open to anything.”
To see where he goes next, you can find him on Instagram: @the_fred_ryder
This was written to be assessed as part of my Journalism course. This was in Semester 1 of Level 6 and was for the Undergraduate Major Project, where I created a (primarily) music magazine, aimed at Gen Z. Below is the page design for this article.
