Talking to: Robby D

Robby D is a 19 year old from Reading, Pennsylvania who is living out his dream of creating, in his own words, dark pop music. Already releasing 3 albums in a year, he’s proving to be unstoppable and with new music already mapped out as well fighting for social justice and preparing for his first term at college, we decided to catch up with him after the release of his third album, Bitter.

So, how long have you been making music for? 

I started at around January last year, at the time I was in 11th grade, so I was kind of juggling music and high school at the same time, I did during the summer of last year and I put out 2 albums last year and 1 album this year and now I’m slowing down a bit just because I’m getting ready for college

Where are you going to college and what course?

It’s a university in Pennsylvania and I’m going for graphic design and advertising

And where are you from?

So where I am it’s called Reading, Pennsylvania and where I’m from there a lot of musicians but they are mostly rap so that’s what I wanted to switch things up by doing pop. The city is very typical America, very suburban.

So what got you into music?

It’s bit of a weird story, my first song came out of nowhere, I was annoyed at the time because I have a very bold personality and some people don’t really like that and somebody told me to simmer down and next thing you know I’m using GarageBand for the first time and I’m making a beat and writing lyrics and then my first song is created. When I think back to it, it kind of bugs me because my first song is maybe my least technically skilled but it’s the one that people in this area kind of know me for and I have this whole kind of discography of 3 albums and you all know me for this one song

That’s what happens with music isn’t it? There’s always one song that people know and love.

Yeah, it’s not my favourite song but I think it’s a good start because it did kind of get attention in my town because of the shock factor; because no one was expecting me to do something like that and then BAM there I am!

BAM, there you are! That’s Simmer Down, right?

Yeah it is.

So you started in high school and carried on – were you doing much live performing before Coronavirus hit?

So I haven’t done live performances, I really wanted to but then Coronavirus hit. I’ve done 1 or 2 performances of my songs in front of groups of people and it went pretty well. One thing I want to work on is being more captivating when I’m up there, but one thing people said was that I sounded better live, which was a compliment I took well. But yeah I have plans, I wanted to do a zoom concert but then I got sick. I didn’t have COVID but I got a cold which was just my luck getting a cold in the middle of a pandemic,so unfortunately I wasn’t able to do that. I also wanted to do like a backyard concert; there was a lot I wanted to do but I really wanted to use this time during quarantine to start with new music but not release it so quickly

So is that what you’ve been doing then?

Yeah, it’s going really good. I’m switching genres because I would describe my music as dark pop but I want to switch to soft pop and bedroom pop. I’ve really been getting into 70s music recently and I’m seeing influences of disco in my music and I’m excited for what I have set up for it.

What sort of artists have been inspiring you?

Not all of them are from the 70s, there are some that are more current and that are doing similar things; Zella Day her song My Game is one of my favourite songs of all time, she is an incredibly talented artist. Other artists are Donna Summer, Cher, ABBA, etc. The other day I listened to Cher singing Waterloo on repeat for about an hour… I was really feeling it.

What else sparks you creatively? Not just music, but what gets your juices flowing?

I love lemons… I know that’s weird but I have lemons all over my room; ceramic lemons, big lemons, a lot of lemons! Objects inspire me, like I have these sunglasses that are very 70s, 80s, disco-y and I was looking at them one day and I wrote a song. It wasn’t about those sunglasses but I’m one of those people, if I have an idea about a song I can get it done in about 10 minutes, lyrics and everything, it’s weird sometimes because I don’t always know where the influences come from but that’s just being an artist I guess.

Even in art, I do paintings and I did a sketch the other day and it’s like a 70s living room and I’m going to paint that tomorrow!

It’s really nice to see different things that you can do… do you find that making music is kind of similar to making a visual piece?

It is because I get in that very determined headspace where I’m like, ‘I’m going to get this done, I’m going to do it’, and it’s a very similar thing, like a rush, whether I’m painting or writing lyrics. One of my favourite feelings is when I have a beat in my head for an instrumental and I put it out and I’m making it and it sounds even better that I imagine or I love when I create something by accident. The other day I was making an instrumental for one song and I added a loop to it and I was like ‘oh that’s not good for this song, but it’s perfect for this other song’ and I just changed the name!

What I really liked about your blurb is that you said “you dig deep into your soul and take from your pain to create music”. I was wondering if you could tell me more about that? Where is that pain and that soul?

So my song Frat Party is about when I was in a relationship before and they were much more interested in getting drunk at parties than texting with me and I was in a really bad spot and I ended it because I felt like they were more in love with the party than with me; that’s what inspired that song; I think that’s the song I’m most proud of, I’m really proud of it because of the message.

I was bullied a lot in school for my weight, for who I am, because I wasn’t athletic, because I was more artistic and some of that transferred over... I had a very small group of friends, they were amazing and I love them but it was very small.

My song Teenage Nightmare, many people thought I wrote it about someone but I wrote it about myself. There have been times in my life where I find myself falling into these deep dark pits of self-loathing and I decided to write a song where I confront that side of myself and be like, ‘you know what? I’m done’. I am who am, it’s time to be myself.

My song You Broke my Best Friend’s Heart came from a real place because my best friend was in a terrible relationship and she could not see it, but then they broke up and I was angry because she would have done anything for him and he was just the worst, so I wrote that song to let her know I’m in her corner. I thought there are a lot of people out there who see their friends in bad relationships and I wanted this song to be kind of a motivator for them - support your friend, it’s all going to work out; you just need to be there for them because they’re in a bad spot right now

How have your family and friends supported your music and what you’re doing?

My friends have been so supportive, they’ve been buying my merch, posting on their stories, and I send them instrumentals and bits of songs and they’re so supportive of that. I have other friends who I thought would have been more supportive but have been like “oh that’s great” and other friends who just didn’t like it. I have people from my school sending me messages like ‘I hate your music, kill yourself’, and I’m like ‘oh thanks’!

My family … I’ve only told my parents and my one cousin because she’s my age. My dad’s side of the family, he’s not like them, but that side are very conservative, they live in small town, rural, very set in their ways, some of them are Trump supporters… who I really don’t like.

I’m not a Trump or a Boris supporter so I can definitely relate to that!

I don’t want my family to come up to my at my family reunion going “are you going to sing one of your songs?” because that’s not what I would like. I don’t post on my Facebook about it because all of my family are on there. I get sick and tired of it because it’s a bunch of people saying things that I don’t really care about. But my friends are really supportive and inspirational… My one friend Allie, well I have two friends who are both an Allie, have both been supporters since day one and I love that I can send them a picture and be like, ‘which one would work as art for my single?’ and they’re like ‘I love this one’. It’s nice because I’ve always been the friend in the background supporting everyone and it’s nice to be the one at the front being supported.

You’re quite enjoying that move from being bullied at school to being the limelight and people noticing you.

Yeah definitely, my goal is now, with this new era and move of genres, is I really want to make my music more inviting to all people and not just people from my town and my friends. But if you heard it on the radio, you’d keep it on, or if your friends send you a link to it, you’d be like ‘oh this is a really good song’. I’m very proud of the concept I have for it

The concept being more pop and disco rather than the dark stuff?

Yeah!

What’s your goal in getting yourself out there internationally?

I don’t want millions and millions of listeners because that opens up my life and invades my privacy a little, but I would like to have a substantial amount of listeners, and still like to be able to go on a tour and do some performances. I love Germany, I went there for a month last year, and would love to move there one day. I also love Britain, you guys are the cutest country. I think that I would love to spend a year in Britain, in London or the countryside because, personally, I think the British countryside is so much nicer than American countryside… we just have farms and cows.

Pennsylvania is a very rural state, one half is farmland and the other urban… I love Philadelphia; that’s one of my favourite cities here.

What’s Philly like?

It’s a very diverse city, there’s a lot of arts in it, and it’s a very historical place because there are a lot of buildings there from the revolutionary war. There’s a big arts scene and a lot of growth happening in this city… Pennsylvania is not a very exciting state but things are happening in Philadelphia, it’s not the capital but it’s a very big city.

It sounds a bit like Bristol! So what’s close to your heart in terms of social justice?

You know, I’ve never been that political online but I was posting a lot of stuff during the George Floyd protests, on my twitter I have a whole thread I update with links to petitions… I just think that enough is enough. I have a lot of friends who are African American and it pains me to see them feeling like they’re not being treated as people by our government. I know these people and they deserve better and America has been treating them terribly for the past 100 years, so I really wanted to help with the BLM movement. I’m also a huge supporter of the LQBTQ+; it’s one of those things that as my platform grows, I hope I can be more involved with and I hope at some point I can set up a charity that can help homeless LGBTQ+ youth. Because that’s such a concern in America in which people are coming out to their families and then being kicked out and sent away; that’s terrible and I wish I could do more. Society really needs to get its act together, people need to come together.

Do you think music is a good place to talk about social justice issues?

I think it is, personally I don’t think it’s my place to discuss the Black Lives Matter Movement in my songs, just because I’m white. I want to make more relatable music, I just want to change how I’ve been making music.

Moving on to you making music… how do you make it and do you have the set up at home or do you have collaborators that you work with?

I’m pretty much a one man show; I do the lyrics, beats, covers, music videos, I’ve really been doing this by myself. I’ve only done two songs with other people who went to my school so it’s not really collaborating. I really want to do a song with Trixie Mattel, I love her and her personality, I’d so love to do a collaboration with someone like her. I’d also love to work with Jake Jermain from Chicago and Michael Medrano from LA whose doing a lot of disco pop, and I’d love to work with him.

In terms of how I make my music, I’ve been using GarageBand on my phone for the first two albums but it wasn’t really working, so I recently got a Macbook for college and I’ve started using Soundtrap, which is from Spotify. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel I’m just trying to create my own wheels…. if that makes sense?

What would your feelings be about signing to a label or would you rather stay more DIY?

The one thing I would love about a label is the advertising, but if you’re signed to a label you don’t have that much control over your music. As long as I’m doing it all DIY it’s all mine, I control it and I can do what I want. But then I don’t have the access to free advertising, but I have to pay for promotion on Instagram.

I reached out to The Everyday and you guys are the first magazine that got back to me, so thank you! I’ve really become an avid reader of the magazine, I think you guys are doing a great job and I can’t wait to see where it goes and I hope further down the road we can do another article and I can be talking about something big!

It’s such a great concept, I love the magazine and really enjoy writing for them and doing the editorial for it as well. You’re what we’re all about you know, helping people on their journeys.

What music are you listening to at the moment?

I have been listening to Folklore by Taylor Swift, it’s such a good album! Lady Gaga’s Chromatica, Rina Sawayama, Conan Grey. Also, Harry Style’s Fine Line, I listen to that when I need a good cry. I have a playlist that can go from Donna Summer to 2010’s pop music with Britney Spears… it’s ever changing, I have so many playlists

You’ve got an appreciation for a wide range which makes it a lot more interesting…How’s Bitter, your latest album been doing?

Of all my albums, it’s been doing the best; the first two singles both have over 1000 streams, which is incredible for me. Some tracks are doing better than I thought, others aren’t doing as well as I hoped; Frat Party is looking to be the standout track from that album. I like to think with each album I get a little bit better because with each one I’m learning new things and I think by Bitter I’d reached a new level for my music, but I’m always going to love the tracks from the previous albums.

My friend Allie and I were painting the other day and I painted Bitter, and you know artists have their gold albums on their wall and I have my painting!

Is that something you want to see in the future? Progressing into something more physical rather than just online?

Yeah, I would love have the Bitter CD and you open it up and there’s the disc, I’d love to design the inside and back cover. I got into music because I designed a lot of single covers for songs that I never wrote and I said to my friend, do you think real artists make these and my friend said ‘Robert, you can sing, make the music for them!’

Is vinyl big in America?

I think what’s bringing people back to vinyl is that it is a piece of art that you can hang on the wall and play it, I also think it’s so cool how it works! I would still sell CDs if I had the option to, but I would love to have the vinyl, one of each album on my wall, just so that I can hold it and hold up and say ‘I made this, it’s all mine’!

I know you’re writing new music and your latest album has just been released, but what else is coming up? Obviously with the situation everything is on hold but once lockdown is eased, are you looking at doing any live stuff or an idea of when your next album will be coming out?

I do have an idea of when my next album will be coming out, I will be dropping 2 EPs next year, around May… a two-part EP and then an album with the songs from both EPs and some new ones, so there will be a part one and a part two, then a full album. The title is called Psychodelic which I love because of the little play on words, so it’s something I’m really excited for! I have my merch line on Teespring, I’m going to be putting up some limited edition stuff soon and now I’m going to college, I’m hoping to grow my fanbase in my hometown; they do live performance night on campus which I’d love to do.

It’s going to be a time when everything is going to flourish for you, I’m excited to see where you go! Is there anything else you would like people to know about you?

I’d like to speak really candidly about my music, I know it’s not for everyone but I’m not done yet and I’m very excited to start this new chapter. People always say ‘I’m not good enough’ and I’d want to say to them ‘yeah you are, you know I’m this 19 year old kid from Pennsylvania, who just got an interview with a British magazine about his music; anything can happen!’

I love that, that it is definitely the message we want to get out there, so thank you!

Check Robby D out on Spotify

Find him on Instagram and Twitter.

And seriously, this guy has the merch angle completely covered here .