We were lucky to catch up with Vaughn Ramirez recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Vaughn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?
I definitely wish I would have started sooner, and I started gigging at about nineteen years old. When you go out into the world and play live music with people you meet the coolest, interesting people but make no mistake, you will also meet the craziest egotistical maniacs along the way. In my first gigging band I was in a Guns N’ Roses tribute band named Nuns N’ Moses. Our first drummer was a guy who joked about how he didn’t want to grow up (red flag) and there was this hilarious moment where he got off the kit for five minutes and was explaining how his drum kit needed adjustments here and there because some of the pieces were sliding out of place, so the bass player jumps on the kit and played something way cooler than our drummer ever did in his time with the band. So eventually it wasn’t working out with the drummer and when we found a new drummer the former who was logged into the facebook page decided to block everyone from accessing it thinking we were gonna pay him for a facebook page with like forty likes at the time. So basically making a new page took care of that but you can see what type of people you’ll run into. One of my current drummers from the band DEADRISE and Blythe Vermillion on the other hand is very laid back and has great contributions to the music, and if I had been playing live music earlier, I would know even more cool creative types!
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I belong to a tribe of crazy long haired Mexicans in San Diego. I first got into music through the video game ‘Guitar Hero II’, which I played with my friends every week. From there I dusted off my great grandma’s old classical guitar and foolishly put some steel strings on that baby (cardinal sin in the guitar world) and I guess you could say I’ve been playing “Smoke on the Water” incorrectly ever since! In all seriousness I play with the band DEADRISE and the solo artist Blythe Vermillion and we shred the gnar together, in addition to that I am a product ambassador for Vampiva Cosmetics. The problems that I solve for other musicians and bands are helping with songwriting on that catchy diddy in your pocket and I shred the tasty licks for all my collaborators that want some guitar tracks on their tunes. I also give guitar lessons, replace guitar pickups and do setups as well.
Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?
I’m still waiting around for the Workaholics/This is Important NFT if you catch my drift.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Okay so not that I’m a social guru or anything but what I can tell you is that I had about two hundred and fifty followers on instagram and when I was getting serious about growing that following I started to notice that most of the Instagram profiles I follow with; post frequently, are profiles that post memes or humorous content, post thought provoking and engaging material. So taking those into consideration I started to post more humor based clips and through in my own funny original posts, especially in instagram stories, and I now have five hundred eighty nine followers. So that’s all I’ve got on pro tips for now but always be looking for ways to post interesting things that people will want to interact with. Press their buttons just a little so that they press your “like” or “follow” button so to speak.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.instagram.com/deadrise_official/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/deadrisebono/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@deadrise3209/videos
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vB2E9Ywk0I
Image Credits
Profile Portait: Ethan Wick @ethan.wickphotography Red Room Crimson Photoshoot: Erica Vincent @ericavincentphotos