It’s been a minute since I did an interview, and we are definitely in for a treat today. Let me introduce you to The Real You, an emo pop-punk band from Florida. They have just released a new single, so I thought it was time for a little treat and to catch up with Tyler from the band to give us some insight into who they are and how they came to be. And remember to check out “Lackadaisical” below!
DS: HI, HI! How are you? Would you like to introduce yourself to our readers?
Hello, I’m doing great today. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Tyler. I play guitar and do some lead and background vocals in an alternative emo band called The Real You.
DS: What inspired your name?
We got our name from a few different places. The first that I could think of was we had this song in the early stages of our band called Talk is Half the Game. It is still out on Spotify if anybody wants to listen to it. Still, we had written it before we had decided on a name, and in the bridge, there’s this lyric that says, “It’s not what you say, it’s what you do. Don’t let them change the real you. ”We were like “Oh, that could be our band name.” we also did this thing where we looked through the episode lists of some of our favorite cartoon shows to try to see if we could find a name that way because, at the time there was this band that we all kind of liked called trash boat which, I guess we don’t know for sure if their name originated from this. Still, there’s an episode of Regular Show, a Cartoon Network show titled Trash Boat. So we ended up finding an episode of a show called Adventure Time that was also titled “The Real You,” so we just decided that that would be the name.
DS: So, how did you start? What got you into music?
So, I have always played music throughout my life. I’ve been playing guitar since I was 11, so it’s been a long time. I was in a band in Middle School. My high school offered a class called Music Techniques, which was otherwise known as rockband. In that class, we learned a set list and performed it at the end of the semester in the bands that we were broken up into at the beginning of the semester. It was a lot of fun, and we eventually did some concerts where we wrote our original music, which was also super fun. Some of my first songs that I ever wrote was performing them at those concerts.
I also took orchestra and learned how to play the cello, but all that boring stuff aside, what got me into this kind of music and playing in this band was due to our vocalist, Dennis. We went to the same high school, so we knew of each other, but he was in a band called Growing Pains, and he asked me to fill in for a show for them. We ended up not playing that show, but he and I wrote an EP together in his garage and tried to record it, but unfortunately, it didn’t work out. At that point, though, we had been kind of forming all new members. Everybody that was a part of growing pains was leaving, and we just decided that we were going to create a new project called the real you, and then we started from scratch essentially. Dennis was a big factor in getting me into this kind of music. I had always had these angsty kind of sad feelings, and I never really knew what to do with them, but once I discovered this genre of music, I instantly felt at home. I loved going out to shows, especially local shows. Still, like I experienced my first Warped Tour, I think, in 2016, and then I went every year after that, which was only until 2018, unfortunately, but that was how I got my start in this scene.
DS: Who are some big influences in music, but also non-musical influences?
Some of my biggest influences are that it’s a tough one; it changes all the time, but I guess for me, the one that stays pretty consistent is Citizen. I think they have an amazing discography and an amazing sound. I’m definitely more of an album listener. I listen to albums in full rather than just random songs or playlists, and a citizen record from front to back is an experience that I don’t think any other band can replicate in the scene. I love the classics like The Story So Far. I’m also a big Movements fan, and that’s another one that’s been consistent for me. I’d say lately, I’ve been getting into a lot more like shoegaze bands or shoegaze adjacent/grungy bands. I love Basement, I love balance and composure. Yeah, I’ll just stop at those. That’s enough to get the idea. As far as non-musical influences or inspiration, I don’t know how to answer that. I’m inspired by the people that I have in my life. Whether or not they make music, not most people that I have around me, including my family, are pretty cool. They are very supportive of everything that I do, and I couldn’t ask for a better support system. They inspire me and influence me to write music that I never thought I would ever be able to write, so I shout out to them.
DS: You have just released a new single, “Lackadaisical.” Tell me everything about it!
Yes, we have released a new single called “Lackadaisical.” This song was the first song to come about in the process of what we were working on at the time, which I know is the follow-up question, so I guess I’ll just give a little teaser into that, but we do have an EP coming out this year. We’re taking a little non-traditional approach into releasing it rather than you know doing a few singles and then releasing the thing as a whole I think we’re going to release every song on it as a single just because we’re a small band and we’re really trying to get our name out there and the more consistently your releasing music and exposing yourself to the the airwaves the better chance you have of getting picked up or people hearing you and all these songs that we have coming up are really good we’re all super proud of them I am definitely proud of them I had a lot to do with writing them which was a little bit different from how we had done stuff in the past but I had a blast and it was very cathartic for me to talk about some really tough things that I had been experiencing at the time. “Lackadaisical” for example was, you know, I had moved to Gainesville in like late 2020 early 2021 and I looking back on that time beforehand I don’t really feel like I had much going on in my life or much of my own identity and it was an adjustment. When I moved I was finally like a fully fledged adult and had responsibilities and you know I tried the college thing and it didn’t work and I gave up that to pursue music and I felt like my anxiety in all aspects, whether it was social anxiety or just anxiety about life, existential dread, whatever you want to call it was at an all-time high. I just remembered like being “like damn like I really want to write music right now but I just I can’t handle anything so what makes me think I’m going to be able to sit down and write a song?” That kind of birth the idea of “Lackadaisical.” Our drummer, his name is Kyle, (and) we were jamming on a riff one day and I kind of like wrote the melody on the guitar and it was that like cadence of “Lackadaisical” and I just thought it fit super well and then I just kind of wrote what was on my mind. You know I would say lyrically it’s pretty simple it just gets right to the point. It’s kind of repetitive but it just drives in the fact that you know I was really like I didn’t know what the f*** to do with myself at the time
DS: Will you be releasing an album this year? Or an EP?
So yes, like I said before, we’re releasing an EP. It’ll be out entirely by the end of the summer, but we’re doing a single every six weeks, so after this one, we’ll have another song in 6 weeks and then follow it up with another one, and we only have six songs total, so yeah.
DS: What is the funniest that has happened since you started the band?
This is tough. I don’t know if I could nail a specific funniest moment. I mean, the current group that we have right now is me, our vocalist Dennis, our other guitarist Isaac, and then our drummer Kyle. We all kind of, you know, goof around, make jokes, and do silly things when we’re playing shows. But if I had to pick a specific moment that jumps out to me, which isn’t funny, it’s definitely a moment to remember when we did a DIY tour in 2019. The band was a different lineup at the time, for the most part, so I’m not referring to the same people. Still, we were driving from Alabama to, I believe, South Carolina through the night, and that night was our bassist’s turn to lock up the U-Haul and make sure everything was good. And dude did not do a good job at it. He might have been too high or just wasn’t really fully there because, you know, playing shows is exhausting. He didn’t fully lock it up, and we drove down the interstate. Some car pulled up next to us like, honking their horn like crazy and waving their hands at us, and turned out the door to our trailer was completely open. I was terrified that when we pulled over, you know, we would just see for miles, our gear sprawled throughout the interstate, but fortunately, we only lost two personal bags of some of the members. All of our gear was fine, which is why I can look back on it now and kind of laugh, but at the time, it was actually really scary. But yeah, definitely memorable for sure.
Photo credit: Wolfe Eliot
