Heres my interview with the band Ugly Tongue
Please allow me to introduce the band. We have two singer songwriters and I'm one of them. My name is Rich. Our other singer/songwriter is Ryan. Ryan is also a multi-instrumentalist. So far in our band he plays Piano, Harmonica, Guitar, and Mandolin. We have Donovan on Bass and Derek on Drums, and last but not least, Josh on Lead Guitar. Everybody sings harmony.
How'd you get started in music?
How I got started in music is the usual story in a lot of ways I think. I was always drawn to the arts. All of them. I was drawing and writing and spending all the freetime I could find enveloped in the sheer bliss of making things up at a young age. I think that's the story for most artists though. My Mom had bought me a beat up little acoustic at a garage sale/ house fire sale and I finally decided to buy strings and a book of chords. After that I spent a great deal of time annoying everybody while I learned those chords on this little guitar with the melted pick guard and a couple of tuning gears that would turn without the aid of pliers.
Derek and I met in intermediary school in the school band. I played trumpet, baritone, and tuba and he played in the rhythm section. Donovan is my brother and he picked up his bass just a little after Derek and I got our instruments and had started jamming together. He was a quick study and it just made sense to play together. Donovan had met Josh and brought him to meet us and play with us and it was pretty instant kinship. We were a very different band back then. We had a different name and sound.
Over the years we would play together for periods of time under different names and then go out and play in other projects and groups again. It didn't really gel until I finally fully took on my role as singer /songwriter. Until then the music had been interesting but it wasn't complete. Then we bacem Ugly Tongue. We had some years of success and we were all really close. The music was going great...then I moved to Vegas. (we are an Ohio band) While I was in Vegas we were all still on very good terms and the band had decided to continue with a new singer songwriter named Ryan. Long story short the bottom fell out for me in Vegas and I moved back to Ohio. We all got together and played and I liked Ryan's style as much as he liked mine. After a bit of discussion we were all Ugly Tongue and as time went on we became brothers of the tongue.
Who are your inspirations or influences?
All the fellas in the band have different influences. What I think is more interesting is how the longer you play together, the more you begin to be influenced by each other. We each have different styles and approaches and over the years you anticipate each other. Sometimes you write a part that has empty space because you would rather hear how the other musician is going to feel it. How they're going to interpret your chords and fill that space. Sometimes you bring a song in and when you hear the other parts you decide to lay back let that slick bass part start it or that kickin rhythm. Let the lead player gently slide us into the song. It's not other bands you're feeling inspiration from, at that point, it's your bandmates.
What advice would you offer aspiring performers?
1 Let your dream light your path. It may twist and turn, but it is still your path even if you use a service road here or there.
2 Don't "try" to be anything. Be you. Be you as loud and as good as you can be and keep working at being you even better. Be you so long and so hard that when people hear you they know that's you. Everybody else has already heard that already famous person and you can't be them no matter how hard you try anyway. Take comfort. They can't be you either.
3 Don't spend all of your energy and time trying to be rich and famous. That time is better spent making something beautiful and there is only so much time in the day.
4 Don't let people segregate and divide us as musicians. There is room in the pool for all of us and a marriage of genres and styles is a wonderful thing.
5 Never give up.
How do you set yourselves apart from other bands or singers?
I don't know if we intentionally do so. If I had to answer that I would say that what I love about being in this band is that we are unafraid to be different. We don't care if all of the songs fit perfectly into the same genre coloring box. We actually have never tried to decide our genre. People may still put us in one. As a matter of fact I'm almost certain they do. We approach every song as a separate sound.
Any new gigs or albums in the future?
Yes! We will have a live streaming show on 3/19/2022 that we are very excited about. We have tons of new songs nobody has heard yet and we intend to record a couple of albums when we can get all of the funds together for studio time. We don't want to do a home recording this time. There will be many more shows to come. Stay tuned! https://linktr.ee/
I also wanted to ask how'd you come up with your band name?
Well Dizzy...I think a good band name is best left to interpretation. I can tell you that it means something to me. I can also tell you that if you tune into our live streaming show on 3/19/2022 you may find a clue as to my meaning.
Special thanks to them for this interview & you can check out their work via the link & I wish them lots of luck in their music. So until then I'll catch you on the Flipside! Stay awesome & rock n roll!
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