At the age of 13, Bryce Vine knew that he wanted to pursue music as his profession. He saw a segment on MTV that featured Pharrell breaking down how he constructed beats and produced songs for various artist including a measure for breakdown about how he produced Jay-Z’s hit single I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me). Sounds standard, right? Well, that’s not true. Bryce Vine’s experience didn’t involve one of the greatest producers of all-time, Jay-Z, or his hit single I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me). The moment that made him look at music differently at the age of 13 is rather unique. It actually involved an episode of Comedy Central Presents.
Vine happened to be watching Comedy Central when the network aired one of its Comedy Central Presents specials featuring Comedian Stephen Lynch. Lynch is known for writing and performing funny songs all while playing the guitar. For Vine, this was the moment that made him look at music in a different light. He doesn’t know why, but it did.
I had the chance to talk to Bryce Vine by phone a few days after his sold out show at Union Stage in Washington, DC. We talked about his soon to be released debut album Carnival, myspace, why your day one friends are important, and why Tokyo and Ethiopia are in his future.
What are you listening to right now?
Ohhh, that’s always so hard to answer on the spot. I’m going to do what everybody does I’m going to look at my playlist.
[Laughs]
Okay. Here we go. So I found this punk band I really like called Sidlar. I’ve been listening to EarthGang alot, their dope. Goldlink, Lizzo. I’m always trying to find the next cool thing that really catches my ear. I think we all are, right? It’s like candy when you finally find that.
You were in a punk band high school [Goodsell] and I know that’s had an influence on your career. Do you remember the first punk band that you ever heard?
I think I randomly bought …And Out Come The Wolves by Rancid, CD. And I listened to it front and back for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. Just the energy of it, like the rawness of it I love. And then, uh, who else was amazing? Transplant, Blink-182, bands like that.
I like to ask artist about their first tour experience. Do you remember your first tour experience? What was it like for you?
I think it was the most excited that I have been about anything since getting into college. Because you have all these dreams of going on tour and playing in front of crowds and having them become fans. You know, as you’re growing up, part of the excitement of writing these songs is hopefully one day people will grasp your music and then that means that they’ll grasp what you’re trying to say as a person and then they’ll
understand you. So when you go out there for the first time… so, I thought I was prepared for it. I had gotten all my outfits right [Laughs] and I had been warming up my voice, made sure that I had enough songs. I practiced performing, but I was in NO WAY prepared for it. You can’t be until you’ve experienced it. Just the days on end repetition of driving to a show. And at first it was just me and my DJ and my manager. So it was just three of us in a rental car like following the band that we’re opening for around the country in the freezing cold weather and like having a windshield freeze over and then getting to places late because we didn’t know there was going to be a storm. I mean there’s just like so much that goes into it that you could never see coming. And then it just keeps making you better for the next time. I’ve been on five or six tours now just as an opener and I’ve learned something new every time.
YouTube and the internet are a goldmine. As I was doing research for this interview. I found this old clip of you from 2010. You were singing Maroon 5’s Sunday Morning.
Oh God, that’s still around.
And as I continued to do research, I found another clip where you were being interviewed with your band from when you in college. This lead to me to start thinking about when you first started playing and when your Mom bought you your first guitar. Your Mom, buying you that guitar when you were 13 years old, which is one of the reasons you are professional musician today, how did that change your life?
Wow, that’s loaded.
[Laughs]
I think it was as soon as I realized that I had an interest in music and I wanted to play an instrument or teach myself how to play. I didn’t have any guidelines or anything. Like neither of my parents were musicians, but they both respected the art. So I think every parent hopes that their kid has some kind of musical ability because it’s just something extra that you have that a lot of people don’t. That’s why parents always want to have their kids take piano lessons so young, or learn a language, it just, it puts you into a better place in the world. As soon as my mom saw that I had that interest she didn’t even hesitate and I was excited to learn something new. Like I can control it. You know, I’m like kind of an awkward, chubby, 13-year-old kid going through adolescence and I now have this new way of communicating my thoughts, and I have complete control over it. It was like self-therapy and that alone was worth it. You know?
So I just spent every night in my garage, teaching myself different chords using tabs from the internet for everything from Blink-182 songs to Third Eye Blind to anything that I could play easily. And then I would get better with fingering because I would try to challenge myself to learn a song that I wasn’t going to be able to play right away.
I still didn’t know what I was going to do with any of this. I was recording on a little eight track player in the garage. And then I met a lesbian chick in my journalism class that played drums, and I was like, you want to be in a band? And she was like, yeah, fuck it. And that was really how it started happening.
You have your first full-length album coming out, Carnival, is it still set to be released this spring.
I think it will be out around summer. If not, it’ll be out around the fall.
Is it still going to be around 15 tracks?
Something around there. Yeah. I have pretty much all of them done. You know, it’s funny, everything’s a work in progress until it’s literally out. So anything could happen. Like the next single comes out in a month. Actually less than a month, like in a couple of weeks.
Who knows that could change any moment.
When it comes to the guests on the album, are there any guest artists you can tell us about?
There’s definitely one who’s on the next single, YG is on the next single.
Oh, nice. Nice. Speaking of guest artists I would love to hear the story on how you connected with Wale to be on the remix of “Drew Barrymore”?
So we were looking for somebody cool to feature on it. Even after we had decided to push the original cause everyone felt really strongly about it. We wanted it to be part of rap culture too. I love rap music and I am not just a pop artist. So I wanted to bring on somebody that I knew would elevate it, you know, and I’ve been a Wale fan as long as I can remember, I mean I grew up listening to his music. So he was like first on my list and I didn’t think we could get him. He heard the song and he liked it and one thing led to another and I flew back from tour to shoot a video with him and he was so cool. He was so cool, man. He was really invested in coming up with ideas. He was like, you and me are like the new like Martin Lawrence and Will Smith. [Laughs]
[Laughs] Wale is definitely a music nerd too.
He really is. He’s a true artist.
In the future, what other artist do you want to work with?
Childish Gambino. Childish. He’s dope, man.
Why Childish?
He’s just on his own shit. He really is. He’s an artist and he makes music for the sake of it. He never rushes it. He’s such a good role model for somebody like me because I always feel like I’m slow at what I do and it takes me too long to get stuff out. But I really care about what I put out I want it to be good. And then I see Gambino and he doesn’t give up fuck. He’ll make a song that’s a banger one day and then he’ll make something like “Red Bone”, the next and it’ll work every time because he just, he has that much musical background and that much affection for what he’s doing and putting into it. And that’s who I rather be compared to rather than any of these other dudes.
You’ve been on your grind for a while. What are some of the biggest lessons that you can pass on to other artists who are just starting their grind and trying to get their foot in the door in the music industry?
It’s hard man. I wish I could say that there are guidelines. My path won’t get you there quicker. You know, I’m 30 it’s not like this happened overnight. But the things that I did think would work, ended up working. Like keeping the same people around me. Keeping people that I trust around me, like who I know have my back and who will tell me if a song sucks or not because they want me to succeed. Not because they want to bring me down. I’ve had the same best friend since I was like 10 years old, and then all my college boys that I met at Berklee, I still work with. So that’s super important because then you have people to celebrate with and they remind you of the person that you are. And when you go into the studio to write, that all comes out, you know?
But as far as making music, what you want to do, how you want it to sound, you just have to listen to a lot of different music, like actually a lot of different music. Not say you do and then only listen to all the Kanye albums, like actually listen to a lot of different music, jazz, you know, uh, I listened to Fela Kuti and Bob Marley and the Wailers and I listen to punk rock, like I told you. All these things play a little part and when I make a song and make it very much my own thing, because I actually am that dude, and have that background. So authenticity never hurts, but how do you teach someone to be authentic?
And then the last thing, which no one ever seems to really listen to, which is why I always say it… I read all the time, not all the time, but I always have a book with me. Always have something I can do to take my eyes away from my phone and focus on something different and someone else’s imagination and a story. And, it helps a lot.
Speaking of Bob Marley, I know that you were the lead singer in the Bob Marley Ensemble at the Berklee 5 Summer Program back in the day.
[Laughs]
You’ve said it yourself, man. You really have played and performed with a variety groups and bands playing all types of music. You’ve been in a Gospel Ensemble, you’ve done R&B, punk, pop, hip hop you’ve done just about everything. And I think that speaks to who you are as a musician.
Tell us about your time at Berklee College of Music and how that influenced your music career?
I mean you kind of nailed it. It was really a trial period. You know? Now I’m in school for music and I’m surrounded by all of these talented people from all over the world. And immediately I’m like, holy shit, I don’t deserve to be here. This is crazy. All these people that can sing better and play multiple instruments and I just liked to do it. I just love to write songs. I don’t know where I fit in yet. So I just kept trying things. I just, I tried to the Gospel Ensemble, which I had no business being in. All these people were just power house voices, but the teacher knew I just wanted to try it. So he let me in.
And then, I remember I knocked on this dude’s door cause I heard beats coming out of it that were really cool. It was right around Graduation by Kanye and he and Kid Cudi we’re starting to bridge the gap between pop and rap. And like I finally found a place where my voice fit, which was pop rap music and the first time just recording with this guy. And that was like the start of where I figured out where I sat because up till then I’d just been experimenting. And I met who ended up being my producer Nolan Lambroza. And he didn’t even produce yet back then.
Then I meant G-Eazy through myspace when I put up the first four songs and we put up on myspace in our old group, this DJ reached out to us and said, Yo, I have this rapper who is really dope. I think you guys should work together. And the DJ who reached to me was Carnage.
As your saying this I’m looking at your old myspace page.
You said you can see the myspace page. Oh shit!
Yes, “Coming Home” ft. G-Eazy, “Take Me Home”, “Welcome To Lazy Fair”, “Sour Patch Kids”. Yeah, it’s still up.
[Laughs] Damn. I haven’t seen that in years.
Another interesting thing that I found while doing research for this interview was your Berklee music network page. It was fun to look at how you were progressing in your pursuit to establish a career as a musician. You posted about getting ready to graduate, making the Dean’s list, meeting with Atlantic Records, putting in your internship application and other stuff like that. Just to be able to look back and see you’re progression was pretty cool.
I haven’t looked at that in probably a decade, man. There’s a part of it that you’ve now reminded me of just saying that…. I forgot that I had went to LA through Berklee, just technically study abroad even though I was from LA. But like, where else are you going to go if you want to be in the music business? Not like I was going to go to, you know, Barcelona, to try to make it in music. I interned at William Morris Endeavor and that’s actually how I learned how to login offers for other acts and what an agent’s job basically was. That’s where I learned it.
Do you remember this song? I’m gonna play something for you real quick.
Oh my God. [Laughs]
You remember that, “Infinity”?.
I still love that song.
You’ve been grinding for while, man. I appreciate you doing this interview.
How did you even find that? Cause my name’s not even on that.
Digging, man.
Wow. You really did your homework.
If you could pack up today and go to any city and play a show anywhere in the world, where would you go?
Tokyo.
Why Tokyo?
Tokyo or Ethiopia.
Why those two locations?
Tokyo has always been on my list. I love the culture. I love Japanese culture. I grew up as a total geek for Anime.
It’s just on my list man. It’s one of those places that I just haven’t reached and it hasn’t become real to me yet, like having a tour bus wasn’t real to me until last week. It’s just one of those things man. I can’t wait to see what kind of stuff I would write having gone to Tokyo.
And then Ethiopia, it’s funny man, I was talking to the bartender, this dude, in Indianapolis and he’s a perfect example of someone that you meet and you would never expect… This guy has traveled all over the world by himself just to see it. Um, black kid too super smart, super wise and went to Ethiopia on his own. He told me how beautiful it is and how no one talks about it. People are starting to invest money into it. Even black Americans and people from other countries are starting to put money back into the homeland. Ethiopian history is fascinating. At one point in history, even like Aristotle and Plato talk about how Ethiopians were the smartest and most developed people on the planet. And that’s really something, that’s hard to ignore. The beauty of the skin and the versatility of how they look and knowing that everyone comes from that background at least a little bit.
He met his wife there and he’s working on trying to help her become a citizen so she can move here. That’s why I want to go. That’s why, after I talked to him, I was like, all right, I promise you next time we talk to each other I’ll have visited Ethiopia.
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To see when Bryce Vine is coming to your town, visit brycevine.com. Also, give a follow to our photographer JC Collins.
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