PipemanRadio Interviews Ryan Oakes at Aftershock 2023

0:04 Hey, you have done too in censure see Wow crazy you why become of America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipe Man on W four c HY dot com. West Palm Beach is number one internet radio station. Here's your host. The White Man is a pretty to what Cappie on everything that you wanted to be. It's time to give them what they wanted to see. Tonight's a movie you We started to sing because my hands along Orderman would call the police. What's somebody? It is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm here with Ryan Oakes.

0:55 Yes here at Aftershock. Yes, sir, oh is this a cool festival or what? Like it's so cool? Yeah, right back here, like look at this area we have here to hang out with a free alcohol, free drip bar. There's gonna be a chef later making food, no way, yeah said. So it's very new for me. This is like my first time at something like this. I did Rockville in the spring. But yeah, like the festival life, it's very new and it's crazy to just take it all in, like how complicated it is in a good way of just like how many moving things there are and every time it's super nuts. And you know the DWP festivals, I do a lot of them. They're the most organized and I have yet to hear one artist say something bad correl any date DWP festival. It's baffling, how smooth like our Loadan was like they are on top of it. Yeah, I love here and stuff like that because nothing more is going to stress an artists than dealing with a bunch of crap that goes wrong before you even get on stage. Yeah, I mean they deserve the cred. Like we drove overnight to get here and make it. We were all exhausted. We get here, they were like, you're good, loaded in, super smooth, When got some food, super smooth. They deserve a lot of credit. Nice yep. So then later you can come back here and get some food and hang out. And it is like every festival has its kind of like own cool vibe. This one this is part of it. Like you didn't have this at Rockville. You had similar, yeah, but not the same. But then Rockville you have the daytime speedway Yeah, which is like insane and it's cool because the course

2:30 light stage is what we're playing. Were you used to like the concrete everywhere, it's like a grass field and we saw trees and I was like, nature, I love that. It's so nice. Take did you walk the ground to ray and sees So it's cool. Right, there's like trees and it's like you're actually in a park. Yes, it feels very good for an artist to see that nature stuff for sure. Yeah. Now I like bad news is it's like the hottest weekend of the year in California. Yeah, it's been brutal. Oh man, So tell us what you have going on after after shot. Yeah. So I'm currently on tour with this band Don Broco and the Home Team, and we're doing a US tour right now. We after our set, we pack up immediately and head to Texas to get back on the dates. But yeah, we're going down through Texas up the East coast and that's about it. There's only like seven shows left.

3:19 But it's been great and I'm happy to be here. Is your hat on your merch site? No, this is my friend's brand. Actually, they gave it to me to wear, and I promise them I would, But I love this hat. It is so freaking cool. Like I any time I wear baseball heads, backwards. That's one I would wear front. I love that. I'll let tu. I'll make sure I let them know because it'll be stoked. Oh it's badass, thank you man. It like cut my attention. So you gotta get it on your merch site then, Oh yeah, I gotta get them like a partnership or someone get it up there for sure. Right, So tell us what's been going on since Rockville that listeners need to know. Yeah, man, I'm starting to roll my second album. The first single just drop two weeks ago. We're gonna let the second one fly next week actually, so we're kind of getting them out there pretty quick. But yeah, lots of music, lots of music videos, lots of touring hopefully for the next few years, and just keep trying to keep the machine going. Dude, all the content, all the stuff you gotta do. It's a lot of work, right. Oh yeah. People don't realize. They think of like the old days where you know, rock stars were falling over themselves and doing nothing but their gigs, and nowadays, to be an artist it's like a full time job of everything else. Yeah, then a full time job of being the artist. It's like being your own entrepreneur. I personally like it because I'm kind of a nerd of that stuff. But it's definitely a lot more work than it used to be.

4:40 No hater shade. All those people worked very hard, but the Internet just changed the game for everybody. Which social do you think you use most out of all? I keep blowing up on TikTok, man, I'm one of the people that got lucky. Yeah, Like after we talked, I blew up even more and it's been going super well. So I try to be good on that. But yeah, just the basics, like TikTok, Instagram. Now it's like YouTube shorts too, and like Facebook a little bit, YouTube shorts have been becoming popular. Yeah, so that's cool. It's a it's a tough one for me to figure out, but I'm trying to get there. But TikTok has always just been like clockwork. You know what's tough too. You don't want to put the same thing on everything. Like there's a lot of people in any industry that they just share their tiktoks to their Instagram And I actually was reading up something like Instagram will punish you for that.

5:28 You know, yes, they want their content not not tiktoks content. Yeah, they've gone out of their way to like tell my label, don't do that really and will help push you more basically, so there's some words of wisdom out there. They definitely don't like it. Yeah, So what's the either craziest or funniest comment you've gotten on one of your tiktoks? You get a lot like people call me Draco Malfoy just because my hair's bleached, and it's like that's like kind of second grade feeling. And then you just get the classic people that are like this isn't rock and roll because they're like fifty years old and you're on the wrong part of TikTok, and it's just like you guys just gotta let people come in and innovate, do their thing. If you don't like it, it's all good. You don't gotta go out and make mean comments about it, you know, because clearly it's connecting do that. Yeah, Like I see it all the time, and it's like during the pandemic, it was the place to go to escape that from Facebook. Yeah, and now it seems like it's Facebook. Everyone just migrated over when they heard and then it just it went just like that on TikTok too, And I'm gonna say right now, I'm fifty six and you are fucking rock and roll. Thank you. I appreciate it. So they're idiots, you understand. Yeah, you know, some people just don't get it.

6:34 Their idea of rock and roll is like Elvis, and nothing passes exactly exactly. You gotta evolve, like listen, even as an artist, from what where you started to where you are now. I'm sure you're not the name of the same artists, right right, you know, you gotta evolve. It all evolves, And I kind of in radio it happens too, because radio is a whole new thing, and I basically focused on the new thing. Well, while as my competitors, they're focus on holding on to something that doesn't exist anymore. I call it WKRP in Cincinnati syndrome. Did you ever see that TV show? No, it's a TV show from the seventies about radio. Okay, So the reason I'm saying is because they're still living in the seventies. Yeah, yeah, how to do radio? But same as you like my way of pushing out radio isn't you know, the same as people did like ten twenty years ago. Yeah, you have to evolve, you have to go with everything, and that's why you're here it after show. Yeah, and it's super important to me, Like, if you're not innovating and trying to do something new and trying to like make the next waiver like the next big thing, it's kind of pointless at this point because everyone knows how to do that now, respectfully, Yeah, you might as well just try to go out and do something crazy or new or weirder, experiment a lot, and I feel like that's where you eventually evolve into becoming some massive artists that everyone was excited about. Yeah, and you know, we talked about this last time. I love the fact that TikTok makes it so easy for artists to blow up. And I mean from the algorithm

8:05 it's so different. Yeah, you know, like Instagram's a bitch. It sucks, man. They got to work on that. Oh my god. I've been like sometimes I'm just like I don't even know why to do this. I'll like take time off because they'll frustrate me. Yeah, whereas TikTok, did I tell you last time about my daughter's boyfriend? So keep going? Maybe he solves Rubik's cubes. Yes, yeah, yeah, he blew up from solving rubis cubes. It's not like he's a kid, he's twenty six years old. But it was like, there's something like that didn't even know anything about social media, didn't even know how to work Instagram. Yeah. So that's what's cool about It takes people like you or anybody else up and coming. They really can make a career for themselves from it. Unlike the old days where it was like you had to get lucky. Yep, you know. So that's really cool. It really removed luck. And it's really cool because, like you're saying, that kid in middle of America, in a town of one hundred people, they have just as good as a chance as anyone right now. Yeah, And that's really cool. And I've seen some artists blow up like that, and I think that it's great.

9:09 And it's crazy to me that some artists are like anti TikTok, where they're like, I'm not doing the social media stuff, I'm not doing the posts. I'm like, yo, this stuff changed my life has changed, showing to people's lives. Why not just do it and just do it? Yeah? Why not? If it works exactly? You know, and to your point of somebody like in the middle of the country. Back in the old days, they would have to like pick up hitchhike to La, trying to hand c these out outside like a record label prey. Someone didn't throw it in the trash can, like yeah, crazy, And so now you know, then maybe you couldn't afford to do that, or maybe you didn't have the balls to do that. Now you don't have to, Yeah, And that's what's cool about It gives everybody an equal opportunity. That's what I think.

9:50 It's really cool because I was one of the people that was like, I'm just gonna go to LA, but some of my friends never went, and they're doing just as well just because of the Internet. They didn't have to sign a record deal fully independent like making crazy amounts of money because their streams are as hih as a mainstream artist, Like, the game is completely different. Now, what was your favorite TikTok to make? I do enjoy the skits, but I kind of have this formula now that works where it's just like a certain editing style and as long as they like the song, the TikTok blows up. So we somehow got really lucky where mine are really simple and they just do really well and it doesn't require like planning or much thought. That is lucky because some like TikTok too. On the other hand, I look at it sometimes like I have like five hundred drafts in my TikTok because you get that look to like, oh my god, I'm gonna have to spend eight hours making one minute video yeup, you know, because the draft doesn't mean shit. Yeah, it's what you do after that.

10:46 Yeah, I mean it's cool. Luckily, before I did music, I was a video editor very so I was I just got stupid lucky with that, so I just like get it done very quickly. But I'm one of those weirders that enjoys learning stuff like that. I'm like, the more skills, it's probably more beneficial down the line, I guess, so great. I'm always yeah, I'm like that too. Yeah, I'm sure, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And you know the thing is is it's kind of cool to hear somebody being able to do that and create. That's the cool thing. Yeah, is Like, you know, some people may put TikTok down, but I give so much credit to anybody that creates tiktoks.

11:28 That's why I was saying why I did. It's a lot of work. Yeah, it's a lot of creativity. People think it's just like, oh, you know, it's doing it for yourself. No, you have to be good to make a good tiktoka. So basically what I do is I just study what's going viral. I'm like why, and I try to like reverse engineer it and it's worked. Like you just have to take the time, figure things out, try a lot and fail a lot and you'll be good. I love it, it'll work. What else do you want to tell the listeners about what you have going on that we haven't covered already, Just that there's a lot of name music coming out one song every month with them video warn huge content overflow MO to get this album ready. Nice. Second albums should be coming in a few months, which is exciting. And yeah, just come see me on tour. If you're around the East Coast, come check out the dates we're gonna do Dallas, Austin, Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore, Philly, New York City, and Boston. So if you're around there, come check us out and have a good time. Nice.

12:20 If you were to use one word that would describe your uniqueness as an artist from other artists, what would you say it would be It's a bit of a lame one, but versatility. I think I am one of the most versatile right now. I don't think that's lame. Yeah, in the society we live it it would have been lame like in the eighties. Yeah, in twenty twenty three. I think that's the only thing that makes you a successful artist because otherwise I talk about this all the time, they just use this formula and like, music's not supposed to be a form Yeah, you're supposed to be a creative, you know. So versatility, I think means you're a true artist for sure. So I love it and tell everybody how to hit the socials and your web and buy your merch and all that great stuff. Just look up Ryan Oaks on any streaming platform and Ryan Oaks music on any social media and you'll find me, You'll find my merch, you'll find all that good stuff. So yeah, come check me out.

13:13 Cool. Well, I love that you're here at Aftershot. Thanks for being on the Adventures Pie. Thanks for having me, dude, Thank you for listening to the Adventures of plate Man, I'm W for Cui Radio.