Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Danny Ritz. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Danny, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

My understanding of craft, of “learning the thing,” is fundamentally connected to trust. Trust in the advice of mentors, which I’ve been incredibly lucky to have throughout my life. Trust in your ability to show up over time, to persist, to survive the insecurity of not being good at something, to let change form over time. Trust too in your ability to allow the music to speak through you. Like a river turning itself into a canyon, it’ll happen if you stick around long enough to see it fruit. I think that notion of ‘allowing’ is a hard one to wrap my head around — to actively pursue something that you don’t control, to let the voice in your heart speak over the voice in your head. It’s hard because it seems so counter-intuitive — being in this thing involves desire on a fundamental level, this is something you have to want badly, so marrying that desire with allowing the voice to speak through you is a delicate balance. It’s incredibly thrilling, though — that release of when you’re able to just express something so purely. There is really no other joy like it in the world, at least that I’ve felt. All kinds of performance (which making music is, even the parts off stage) is like that for me. Everything ultimately traces back to how you consider a moment, respond to it. Music is just one way to understand a moment in time. I suppose I have learned by listening again and again, trying and failing and coming back, always hoping to allow.

Danny, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Hey there, my name is danny ritz, and I’m an indie rock artist, songwriter, and theater maker based in Brooklyn. Much of my life revolves around performance, and by that I mean I am in the business of the moment — meeting it, responding to it, resisting it, embracing it. My music merges the vocal bombast of classic rock with contemporary indie irreverence and a folk-inspired lyricism to explore the anthemic eccentricities of every day life. Big songs about the little things. Songs that move you and make you move. Something like that. Really though, I’m fascinated by the way that society assigns value onto certain things vs others — how some things are important, beautiful, or powerful, while some things are not. Musically and lyrically, this has always been curious to me. My artist project investigates that value system in playful ways — each song is an opportunity to ask why or why not, to question what we consider valuable or important. I perform regularly across New York City, and am releasing my newest record, house in the space, over the first half of 2025.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most thrilling part of making art is that’s really really fun… That might sound simple, but I swear, there’s a lot of weight in the joy that making stuff induces. It’s a not a cotton candy aspartame joy, either, it’s an honest, no-BS feeling, a presence with yourself that can only be described as exhilarating. I can try to give an example. For a long time, when I would perform, I’d try to see beyond the audience, to act like ‘no one was watching,’ to create an intimacy that the audience could step into. It was a strategy I’d implement to avoid getting distracted. It worked for a while, but then I had someone very close to name (another performer) tell me that acknowledging the audience, everybody’s eyes on you, the bodies nearby, was something that you had to experience in order to create any kind of authenticity. That in order to “go there,” which is really what the art of performance is, you have to actively acknowledge who you are bringing along. And that can feel terrifying, it kind of forces to look at yourself in an honest way and see what is staring back at you in a way that is pretty hard to do when society drives people to feel far away from themselves. But that feeling of recognizing who is there staring back at you from within, seeing the person who gets to go on that journey with an audience? It’s one of the most joy-inducing feelings in the world.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Ultimately, everything I’m trying to do goes towards making the world feel more possible for people. For myself, certainly. And for the audience, as well. I like the idea of softening the edges of what people see– what we think ourselves as capable of, what we think society is capable of. I feel lucky to be practicing art today, to be part of an organism of expression, something that shows people more about the world in which they are living. I do especially love when people feel inspired to make music after seeing me perform. Learning that always makes me smile.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dannyritz.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dannyritz/
• Soundcloud: https://on.soundcloud.com/xnHCNc1oPHbxK1Nh8
• Other: spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1D0aNZ7A0lxBAbu6FRzywE
  tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@dannyritzzz

Image Credits

Jesse Baums, Abby Weber, Film DevaAksorn, Ailin Deng