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

Hi Rian , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

You never know it’s a risk until you make that leap. I used to be a drummer, I still am, but it’s not my main focus anymore. I started out playing drums and I was really good at it, but I always felt like I needed to do more than that, there was more to music to me than drums, I had to write, i wanted to sing, to say something beyond the rhythm of the drums. That was my first big risk, to keep playing drums while learning how to sing, becoming a songwriter, writing songs and recording my own artist project. I love risks, they give me this insane gut feeling. I strongly believe that risks are the things that change us, shape us and create who we are and need to be.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Everything we do is a process, for example my process right now is learning to be proud of myself and appreciate all my accomplishments because I realized if I don’t, nobody else will either. My parents and my growing up got me into music, especially 70’s and 80’s rock and pop music, all the way from Phil Collins, Depeche Mode, and Sting, to Coldplay and Maroon 5. So before I knew it, I got into playing drums, doing shows, writing absolutely terrible songs that never even got recorded and then at 17 I started writing some real stuff. I’m really proud of my latest songs and my upcoming EP (maybe it’s already released by the time this article comes out, so go check it), and of my next EP that captures who I am in such a unique yet familiar way. I’m working on bringing elements from my Romanian background and growing up, into this fusion that I’ve experienced while travelling and living in the US.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I had to unlearn how to be myself. As humans, we are unique, yet at some point we start becoming influenced by the world around us, some of us, including myself, to the point where you become a copycat. So I had to unlearn what I learned (metaphorically), and go back to the beginning. More simply put, I was focused too much on making hits like that song, or that song, or this song, and none of them were “me”, they sounded great, but they were already made by somebody else and were not capturing my uniqueness, my quirks, my personality whatsoever. So i had to unlearn that, to learn how to write and sing like myself.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

As I might have briefly mentioned, I started playing drums at 13 and songwriting (properly) at around 17. The city in Romania where I was born is really small so we had no real opportunities except for playing in bands, and in all fairness, we were playing 90’s rock music, nothing really sparked an interest in me to write that kind of music. I was just starting to speak english and listening to UK music, but nobody around me was writing music like Coldplay or Ellie Goulding. I would’ve liked to start writing when I was younger, learning how to sing when I was younger. I was hearing the music on youtube, my friends were listening to Ed Sheeran when “Lego House” got released, but I was focused on something else, playing drums and getting into music college, cause I was good at it, but yes, I wish I started singing and writing sooner, having that one person show me how to actually write a song, that’s what was missing for me before 17, when I met a friend and he showed me how to write a full, pop song. But I guess there’s a reason behind it all and why my time came later.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.riancult.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/riancult
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsmUynjOclN5pcjrvlVw86g
• Other: linktr.ee/riancult

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