For many artists, the journey into music begins with a spark—an unexpected moment of inspiration, a life event, or even the drive to explore uncharted creative territory. This is especially true for Re:, a genre-blending artist who seamlessly combines alt-pop, rock, and rap influences into a sound that feels both familiar and refreshingly unique. With a career born out of self-discovery and resilience, Re:’s music is more than just beats and lyrics; it’s a testament to growth, reinvention, and the power of authentic storytelling. In this conversation, Re: opens up about their unconventional start in music, the creative processes behind their songs, and their vision for fostering community and opportunity within the San Diego music scene. Without further ado, let's get into it!

TELL ME A BIT ABOUT YOUR START in music.

"I had no musical background. I can play the piano. I've been able to play the piano since I was little relatively decently. But other than that, it's all vocals for me. I love working with producers. I love letting other people create a canvas for me to paint on. That's definitely how that started…My first two or three singles were pre-pandemic, right before we knew what was coming. It was in late 2019 when I just kind of started playing around with it"

WHAT DAW DID YOU USE?

"Funny enough, I actually started with BandLab. It was just the most accessible thing that was there, and I saw that other artists were doing that too....That inspired me a lot. Then obviously once the pandemic came around and we all had expendable funds and so much time, I started using Logic."

SO DID YOU HEAVILY GET INTO PRODUCTION AFTER THAT?

"I did learn to produce a little bit and I tend to do a little bit of co-production on some of my tracks. I don't do it very often. It's not something that I'm very passionate about. And it feels more like work than creativity to me, which for other people, it's the opposite...I just like to write and I like to vocalize and sometimes give a little bit of input on the production just to make it more me."

WAS THERE SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED, BESIDES HAVING EXTRA FREE TIME, THAT REALLY INSPIRED YOU TO START MAKING MUSIC?

"My first track came out in December of 2019...I had a couple of other things that I worked on before that. But, what kind of cemented me dropping a song was…initially, I wanted it to be completely anonymous. I worked for a tech company before that. That's actually what my career was. I was a visual design artist for a couple of different tech companies...And, I was sitting at my desk and I was looking at a chain of emails, just going back and forth. It was like, a hundred replies, and not in a single one of them did I see my name, just instructions on what I was supposed to do. And, I felt like I wanted to embrace the anonymity of not really mattering as a person and instead mattering as a creator or something of substance."

"This was right after a lot of kind of traumatizing things happened in my life at that time. My dad had just passed away. It was a lot of stuff. But for me, it was the turning point. I had nobody to impress anymore. I picked up a job in tech and I went to college and I did all those things. And, I think a lot of those things came from wanting to impress my parents. And then, you know, the person that really pushed me there wasn't around anymore. So, it almost felt like...why am I still doing this?"

"So, I decided to publish my first track. It was just on SoundCloud, and it got a little bit of attention. It's how I got connected with all of the artists that I would later work with. They just happened to notice it. It was actually SadBoyProlific, (who was) the first person that noticed one of my songs. And then, I became online friends with them. And, as I started offering to do visual work for them, music videos, photos, and stuff like that, I started to work on my own music...And then by the time the pandemic came around it was like 'That's what I'm doing. I'm just making music now.'"

WHAT ARE SOME OTHER ARTISTS THAT YOU HAVEN'T MENTIONED THAT INSPIRED THE SOUND RE: HAS HAD OVER THE YEARS?

"Funny enough, one of the ones that inspire me a lot, at least from a songwriter perspective, is the Front Bottoms. Their writing is so visceral…especially for the time when their earlier albums were coming out, there was nothing else like that. You know? Like, there were a couple of other bands, but they were much smaller and harder to discover at the time. I think Modern Baseball (is) another one that people mention... But for me, it was the Front Bottoms. Particularly, there was one song, it's one with GDP, who's a rapper. It was (the song) Historic Cemetery…That was one of the biggest inspirations for me because I come from a background of mostly listening to alt-pop and rock. I grew up listening to Panic! at the Disco and MCR and a bunch of bands I'm not supposed to like anymore. But I also really love rap. And I've always loved rap. And, I think that X (XXXTentacion) was definitely one of the ones that inspired me to combine the elements of rap and rock."

TELL ME ABOUT THE CREATION AND RECORDING PROCESS OF YOUR MOST RECENT RELEASE, DRY SPELL.

"You know, funny that you asked about that song because Dry Spell is actually a song that me and Yung Kell made over a year ago. That song actually came out before, it was completely different though. There was another producer that initially produced that song...(But) same mixing for the vocals. In fact, the vocals stayed the same. They're even placed in the exact same place and everything. I have chops on that song, which don't even make sense now because it's more of an alt-pop song, but it still sounds great. It's just that it was a completely different style initially. It was a hyper-pop song. We made that about a year ago. Something ended up happening with the producer. We ended up getting it reproduced…And then me and Yung Kell just kind of bounced off each other for that one."

WHAT IS THE CORE MESSAGE OR MEANING BEHIND DRY SPELL?

"It was very much about feeling like you're continuing to grow when the people that are around you don't want to. They might even claim to want to do that, but they don't really want to do that. And it's starting to hold you back. And, that was the big meaning behind that song... And how the feelings that we evoke in that is just this feeling of disillusionment with the people around you not wanting to grow with you."

I think that's something that is oddly and unfortunately relatable to so many people. I know I have had times in my life where I've had to let people go because they're not growing. And it's tough because you can't help someone who doesn't want help.

"The hardest part is when you don't let go. And when you hold on to it, they're actually the ones that push themselves away. And it takes a while to look back and realize that that's exactly what happened. You kind of just end up blaming yourself the entire time until you realize that's not what happened."

LISTEN TO DRY SPELL BY CLICKING BELOW

IS THERE ANYTHING IN STORE FOR THE FUTURE IN REGARDS TO RE:?

"There is definitely going to (be) more music. That's not going to stop. I don't think that it's ever over for people like us…Even when I don't want to work on music, a random youtube beat will start playing, and I'm just like, 'Damn. I really want to write to this.' But you're definitely going to hear more, especially now that I'm in San Diego. I'm going to be collaborating with other artists that are here as well...Blocktane (San Diego local) is one of my favorite producers ever. He's an incredible lo-fi producer. He's also a vocalist. He does really good samples on his own instrumentals. So you'll be hearing more stuff from me and him. I have one coming out with him, the bootleg boy, and Giovanni as well which is really cool."

AND LIVE SHOWS?

"As far as live shows go, I don't know yet. It's a completely new world for me here. I've never been a musician in San Diego before, even though I'm from here. During the pandemic, I was making music here. Any show that I was playing, I was playing in LA. It was almost like I had two separate lives, but now it all kind of came together and it's like, this is me, and this is home, and this is what I'm doing. So, we'll see where that goes, I guess."

"I do want to continue working on Gravehouse, even though Gravehouse is not a house anymore, (which is why) we renamed it to Graves Ave. I want to start to do the thing that I wanted to do with Gravehouse, which is extend opportunities to artists that maybe aren't getting noticed."

That's so cool. I think San Diego needs something like that, specifically for the genre of music that you're talking about. I know so many people who feel like they're lacking a specific space to collaborate with, and...

"And they leave, which is the biggest issue."

Exactly. I think it's 'cause a lot of musicians feel like they hit a roof. So, they're like, 'Okay, where do I go from here?' LA.

"Yep. That's exactly what it is. That's what happened to me. I felt like I was screaming into a void here. And, I think that obviously comes from a little bit of narcissism. It's that feeling (of being) entitled to being heard, you know? And I think that comes from every artist at some point. But, it really started to weigh on me....This was at the time when I was peaking in monthly listeners. I think I had like, almost a hundred thousand monthly listeners, and no one in San Diego cared. None of my friends cared. None of the people I went to school with cared. My parents didn't understand it. So it was like, 'I have to go somewhere where I'm gonna be understood,' you know? And that's the problem. You go to LA and you put on this mask of like, 'I'm the artist that you guys have heard about.' But, I'm also a person. And, we forget to draw the line and it starts becoming a full-time job. And by full-time, I mean every hour of the day."

REGARDING GRAVES AVE, HOW WAS IT FOUNDED?

"The way that it was founded was I moved to LA, I needed a place to stay, and I had a lot of musician friends. Some of them were already living together. Two of the ones that were living together were ulovely and Belak. They were living in LA already, but their situation was ever-changing. So they were like, we need to get a bigger house, you know? We had another two people move in. One of them was a videographer/editor from Florida. His name is okextraa. He's done all of my visuals for me...Incredibly talented artist. The other person is a...He's kind of a curator. (He) kind of managed us. Primarily, he just rolled blunts for us. He goes by screwyounick. He had a lot of connections already in Los Angeles because he had done blog writing for a couple of other underground magazines and stuff in LA, and then he had gotten tapped in with a couple of different venues and stuff like that. That's definitely where his input came (in), was connecting us with venues connecting us with other artists in LA...okextraa, like I said, did all of our visuals and stuff. But ulovley and Belak and I were the artists that were running everything."

"For the entire first year that we were living together, we still made our own separate music and stuff, but, we mostly made music together. I think an iconic song that brought the community together was the song called everytime. It also had Arkaeo and Kbackwood$ on it...And we kind of just continued that sound. It was like a meld of hyper-pop instrumentals with pop-rock vocals, with like- for me specifically, my heavy-handed writing. It really created a new sound altogether. And then we all maintained a lot of those elements going forward...But yeah,  did that, and then everyone started going their own paths. And now I want to use that brand that has accumulated a little bit of notoriety, at least in LA, to start platforming other people."

HOW DOES THE RECORD LABEL ASPECT GRAVES AVE WORK?

"This is something that all of us have talked about for a really long time. So, shows are super, super important for growing a fanbase. But, they can also become a bubble. Something that I started realizing is that we had the same faces at all of our shows. They were all still good. You know, relatively good-sized show."

But they were all within the same area, Right?

"Exactly. We were just seeing the same people over and over. We didn't go on tour. We tried doing a show in...was it Arizona? Yeah. It was horrible planning, and it didn't end up working out...That's when we realized that we really are in a bubble. Like, the moment we try to do a show somewhere else, it's not the same. And I'm tired of seeing the same faces. I appreciate those faces, and I love those faces, and they're all who's going to be at my home, but I don't make music for a bubble. I make music for people who might love it. And how are they going to love it if they don't discover it? Well, streaming."

It's so tricky for DIY or new artists to tour without help from a label, booking agent, manager, and so on. It's super expensive. that's, I think, where a lot of smaller artists get stuck. It's HARD for artists starting off to make any sort of profit off of touring.

"The biggest issue is that doesn't work anymore. And the way that I realized this is because I have had luck and success in streaming. I've realized that, that's really where you're going to grow. I think that artists, especially like, real artists. And what I mean by 'real' artists (is) people that have a background and have studied making music and have worked on making music. Especially artists that create their own sounds. For example me, as a vocalist, it's really easy for me to just hop on a beat, right? But for bands and artists that have a lot of time and resources they need to dedicate to actually creating the music, it's really hard to focus on anything else. And I think that one of the biggest focuses that should be happening is your online presence. And obviously, like, that does go into social media, and frankly, I'm not good at that. But, what I have been good at is studying and understanding the way that the algorithm for streaming works. That was how PowFu blew up."

"I don't think a lot of people remember this, but Beabadoobee didn't release that song. His big song, Deathbed, that she's sampled in. That wasn't her call. A random YouTube producer sampled her. That beat wasn't cleared. It wasn't supposed to come out. And PowFu knew that, and he dropped the song anyway. He got claimed two times before Columbia realized 'this song is going viral on TikTok.' And that's how that happened. It was TikTok…It was infectious. Like I said, Beabadoobee had no input on that…In fact, I'm pretty sure that it was her team that struck it down the first time, and then it was Columbia that struck it down the second time before they were like, 'Okay, this song is going viral. There might be something to this’...So it's that. We were bored in our houses in 2019, and some of us were a little bit more analytical about the way that these algorithms work...."

Exactly. If you get just one song that does that well on tiktok, you will be way better off than someone who's struggling to do that. It's crazy, the impact that TikTok has on the music industry. It's almost a little scary.

"I for one am so hopeful that they'll ban it."

It’s tough because I think a lot of labels and management now push the whole 'you gotta sell' scheme. it should be that people are posting on their because they want to, not because their labels making them.

"That's the biggest issue with TikTok. It's put its hands into the music industry to the point where they're kind of determining who's going to blow up next. I don't even have most of my songs (on TikTok), and I have a really well-built discography on Spotify. It was one of my main priorities, making sure that everything was attached to my name correctly. Especially because I have the worst name for SEO. It was a challenge for me. And even despite working with distributors that are making sure that these things work, they're not all attached. There's a lot of sounds that aren't on my TikTok. There's a lot of sounds that aren't on TikTok at all that I've made...It just confuses me as to how that works. And it shows that TikTok has a priority for artists that have labels that are paying. My label isn't paying TikTok. It doesn't matter to them."

Moral of the story is that social media plays, unfortunately, such a huge impact on what music blows up nowadays. it has taken over the essence of platforming music.

"Well, that's what I want to do. I want to use the platform that we built in LA to platform artists that are from San Diego in particular. I'm not opposed to working with artists elsewhere; I just want to focus on San Diego if I can because I know that there's a lot of talent here that's not getting discovered. I want to at least expose them to the community that we had in LA...I've been working with a lot of Indie labels that have been helping me a lot with, particularly, my lo-fi stuff. And I want to extend those connections as well...If I can be the reason that someone's song gets heard, that's good enough for me. I just want to extend the opportunities that I've had given to me to another artist. I feel like being an artist isn't just about creating, but it's also about collaborating and having input in creations that aren't necessarily yours"

I totally agree. I feel like that's how the music community should work. you receive, and you give back to it. I think that's amazing, and so many people in San Diego are gonna be so stoked to have something for this specific music niche. a lot of people would cherish that, especially those who can't go up to LA.

"...I would love to see that kind of transition where you don't need to be in LA to be exposed to people in LA. You don't need to be in LA to be recognized."

IF PEOPLE WANT TO COLLABORATE WITH GAVES AVE, IS THERE A CERTAIN WAY THEY SHOULD GO ABOUT IT?

"Honestly, I want to keep it as casual as possible...DM the account on Instagram. It's, @grave.ave. We're human. We're all just people. I just want to hear what people in San Diego are making. I want to help support people that I think are making something really cool. At the end of the day, everything is subjective."

IS THERE ANYTHING ELSE YOU WOULD LIKE TO MENTION?

"In the spirit of platforming people and giving people their due attention, there's a lot of really awesome artists that I've worked with. I wanted to obviously shout out the people that I worked with at Grave House. I think Belak and ulovely are some of the most talented artists, and I can't wait to see what they do on their own...I hope that what I choose to do with Graves Ave is something that makes them proud too because they obviously put a lot of work into it as well. There's a lot of artists in San Diego that I think people should know about. There's 47lab (roots). There's Dylan Lotus. There's Lunzero, who is probably going to be one of the first artists that I sign as well. She already has music out. I have a song with her. It's called Curtains. It's with Blocktane as well. But yeah, I just hope that I can continue to platform people and continue to collaborate with people that inspire me and I can do the same for them."

Re:'s journey illustrates the power of persistence, adaptability, and staying true to one's creative vision. From their early days experimenting on BandLab to their evolution as a vocalist and songwriter, Re: has consistently pushed boundaries while remaining grounded in their core values. As they continue to make waves in San Diego and beyond, their dedication to building a collaborative and supportive music community is as inspiring as their artistry. With plans for future releases, live performances, and innovative collaborations, Re:'s story is far from over—it's just beginning.

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