We were lucky to catch up with Ryan Myers recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ryan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Who is your hero and why? What lessons have you learned from them and how have they influenced your journey?

Obviously, there are people like my mom and other family members I look up to in that sense, but if I were talking about more noticeable figures, I’d probably say Pharrell Williams. Growing up, I used to want to be Pharrell. I would wear a fedora, want Ice Creams and even dream of having Bape because of him, but if we’re talking on a more personal level, I really appreciate his love and passion for everything he puts his hands on and his mindset is so strong it’s genuinely impressive to me. Almost everything I do, whether it’s for my music or for the upcoming brand I’ve been working on, I always tend to look towards Pharrell as a reference.

Ryan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Growing up, I was really close to my mom due to her being a single mom, so I really learned a lot of what I love today from her. She was one of those parents that would play like anything around me, so I would often listen to a lot of rap and rock music with my mom. My mom is how I also got into fashion at a young age. When she was younger she also wanted to be a fashion designer, so I guess she kinda rubbed that off on me. I remember being in 3rd grade watching Fashion Runway with my mom, memorized by these people’s pieces. I think that’s really why I always wanted to make clothes. Maybe she was planting a seed. Who knows? After that, I started looking more into fashion and that’s when I found out about the luxury brands like Maison Margiela, Raf Simmons, Rick Owens, Prada, Ralph Lauren and I started learning more about the streetwear from people I liked as a kid, like Pharrell, Lil Wayne, Tyler and Rocky. As I was growing up, I guess I couldn’t see myself doing anything else but this, so I started creating my own stuff. In 3rd grade, I started writing music, but I didn’t record for my first time until like 7th grade. After that, I was super on and off when it came to making music, but I eventually started taking it seriously in the junior year of high school. Now I’m trying to take a step back from releasing music so I could focus on starting my brand, Friends & Family, just so I’m not the only one in my circle winning. I really don’t want to do anything if my friends aren’t with me in some type of way. It’s just lame at that point.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Yeah, so the pivot happened recently, sometime late last year. I just released my 4th music project, and I’m looking at my catalog and I still feel like it wasn’t enough. I tried starting a different brand earlier in the year called 745 Warehouse, but that eventually fell through because of personal issues and I didn’t like the name, so that was definitely weighing on my mind at the time. If I am honest, I really felt like a failure at that point. I was beating myself every night trying to figure it out. One night, I was on call with my homie, Dev, and I was ranting to him, telling him how I felt at the time, and I was talking about starting a brand, and he was telling me how he thought it was a good idea, so we started brainstorming different names. I forgot how, but we eventually came up with the Friends & Family name and that same night I got Photoshop and got the right to work on Friends & Family designs. The first design I made was a little buddy bench design.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think when I finally start getting into performance art I’m definitely going to touch on topics people aren’t comfortable with talking about and or they simply just wont understand the point im trying to get accross and the only thing i could say that is it doesn’t mean the art is below you and it doesn’t mean it means nothing. I just want to bring people together with art and if it doesn’t work on you I really hope you find something else.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanasterisks/
• Twitter: https://x.com/ryanasterisks
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-VW-X70fgcGoLnRggedAIA
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ryanasterisks
• Other: Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/ryan/1611112017
  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0LAuyKN6MdpU01EOJZfrme

Image Credits

@ryanasterisks on Instagram
@Jak.Hold on Instagram
@friendsnfamily.official on instagram
@fivefitsaday on instagram