We were lucky to catch up with Tommy Tynz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tommy, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I knew it was the way to go after about 2 minutes after my first hour of retail work.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

It’s funny, I’ve asked so many people this same question during interviews and I don’t quite know how to answer it myself. I guess first things first, I was born and raised in Gaithersburg, MD. Truly an average upbringing and general existence.. and in all honesty, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. And with that upbringing, I was a little sheltered so I didn’t really get into a lot of the music and stuff I’m into now till a little bit later. But as I got into more and more of “the culture” I realized that I want to be apart of it. But without a single musical bone in my body, I didn’t know how or where to begin with becoming a part of it. That was until a friend from high school graduated college and moved back to the area. My, now, partner in crime and someone I consider a brother, A.M. or as he’s more affectionately known as Money and Breakfast (@moneyandbreakfast) came to me with the idea to start a podcast around the start of 2020. It took some convincing on his end to get me to do initially because I thought that no one would want to hear me talk. But it dawned on me later on that people don’t really know what they want until till they get it, so we got started. So during the pandemic my mother’s basement became our makeshift studio and for the first few months we would just go down there, shoot the shit and record it (as do all podcasts) but eventually we noticed that a lot of our friends were either artists or some sort of creative and they didn’t really have a platform where they can promote themselves, speak their mind and connect more deeply with their fanbase. So we figured that we should just become exactly that, a podcast for local artists and creatives.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I guess my ultimate goal, much like most artists and creatives, is to be able to support myself with my creative endeavors. But more than that, I would like to get to a point to where I’m able to explore and participate in multiple creative mediums without having to worry about the minutiae of having to monetize everything I do. To create without compromise.

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

I didn’t have to necessarily unlearn this, but I had to become capable of knowing the difference between art and commerce. Content creating has become a commodity and a very lucrative business for the shameless and untalented. I just think it’s important to recognize and support those who really care about and work hard at their craft as opposed to blindly following and funding, for lack of a better phrasing, content mongers.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://zez.am/atticandfriends?fbclid=PAAaZZPdeI2dTzrPlHo_2tGYL_mD4np0T9cBpcg3MSh25f2K4YfmJGFLeGcAA_aem_AUeeCPcQ_lmRDzGIRPROfvXZkSiKS7Qf2ai3fcEVChznG_M-MtKFibHUTa2g48KIsm0
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tommytynz?igsh=MTYyemJuZzJpd3J0eg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Twitter: https://x.com/tommytynz?s=21&t=zuLsx-ggoQ09FvWvx9ea-g
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@atticandfriends?si=sXw21I1K7WrqyDp_

Image Credits
Devin Bowles (@1800deadboy) Michael Saunders (@moneyandbreakfast) *Instagram