Dot to Dot, Interview: Yot Club

Just before his Dot-to-Dot show at Bodega, Ross Williams got the chance to chat with Ryan Kaiser of Yot Club. The project has gained quick momentum over the past few years, as songs such as ‘YKWIM’ have become viral on social media sites. Ryan has toured the UK for the last month to promote his new EP ‘Amateur Observer’ and the Nottingham set would be his penultimate effort.

You've just finished touring around the UK in support of Skeggs, how was the experience?

R: Yeah, I just did my second tour with them. We did one in America and then we did one here. The one in America I had my full band with me, so the drummer and bass player. And then the one here, since it's all the way here in Europe, it's a lot to take drums and all that sh*t. Just did it alone, just played solo. So it's a little bit of a different vibe on the set, but it's still fun!

How would you say a solo performance is different to having a full band, is it more laidback?

R: Yeah, I kind of make that the goal of the show, for it to be as laid back and candid as possible. I just

want it to look like I didn't plan what I'm going to say or plan what I'm going to do or anything, I'm just going to be up there playing my songs.

You've been across the pond now for a few weeks, any places you like in particular?

R: Bristol was cool just because I got to play on Thelka, which is the venue on the ship. Also, I'm just kind of a history and architecture nerd, so to go somewhere way older than America has been really interesting, and it's had me like constantly Wikipedia-ing sh*t. Yeah. Every time I see some old sh*t, I just think, what is that? In between shows I got to go to Arundel Castle and I'm very fortunate, but it's cool to come over here and get a taste of something different.

How does touring the Uk compare to the US?

R: The size of the UK is a good thing for touring. It's not necessarily a good thing to tour somewhere

where all the cities are ten hours apart. It's a lot easier here; you play a city, you drive two hours, then

you play that city, and then you get a full night of rest. The flights are cheap as hell here too. You can

kind of pop off all over Europe for barely any money and I like that.

Do you have a very regimented approach to writing music or is it more of a fluid follow the thought sort of thing?

R: It's not regimented, but I did live with a rapper years ago and he encouraged me to try to make beats for him, so he didn't have to buy beats. And that's how I learned to work Logic, and how I learned to work Pro Tools and different digital audio workstations. Recording him gave me a lot of practice with mixing and stuff, so when we didn't live with each other anymore I didn't want to just have that for nothing. I was discovering certain projects and I was just thinking in my head ‘I could make this; I could be doing this’. I'm seeing artists like Dayglow, for example, get all this praise for these songs and so it's kind of like this itch in like 2018/19 to start making stuff for myself. I kind of did it the way that I did for the rapper guy that I used to live with. I would make the full song first usually, I would know what was going to be the verse, what was going to be the chorus, I knew the whole arrangement of the song and I'd make it and once every instrument was recorded and mixed and done, I would go back and write the song and write the lyrics. You kind of just listen to the guitar or you listen to the keyboard and you ask what does it sound like it's saying? You know, like the song Japan sounded like it was saying Japan, so I was just like, alright, I'm gonna call this song Japan and now I know what to write around.

Are you a gear hoarder or are you a minimalist?

R: Minimalist. If I buy something, I feel like I've got to get rid of something. A lot of my favorite

musicians, like JJ Cale for example, their genius comes from their touch and the way they play. There are obviously great musicians out there like Tom Morello, where their greatness comes from their gear and all their technology. All my favorite people growing up have always just been like, really fucking tasteful with it. And that's all it took. Also, just as a travelling touring person, it does make the whole process easier to be a simple person and travel with a small number of things.

Where does the title of your latest EP ‘Amateur observer’ come from?

R: That was my project before Yot Club, I had a project called Amateur Observer and it was just on SoundCloud and Bandcamp. It existed for like a year or so and then I just got insecure and nervous about it, so I deleted it all. I named it after that as a homage to it, kinda.

You've been quite prolific since 2019, do you feel like you're becoming more confident in releasing things and getting it out and doing the whole promotional circuit?

R: Yeah, there's been lots of validation along the way. I've always had this attitude towards my own

music that it's not good and that it's nothing special, but I made it. And if I don't put it out, it's going to

disappear forever. You know, my MacBook's going to break. It's going to be gone for the rest of time.

I've already experienced that with other projects and it's made me kind of sad. Like Amateur Observer

for example. It made me kind of sad to see all those songs go. So, in the same way that people keep a

diary or keep a journal or something, I feel like I've got to put these songs out and let them be saved in

some sort of database. That was kind of the mindset. At first when I was putting stuff on Spotify, I was

like, well if I put it on Spotify, at least if my computer gets water spilt on it, the songs will still be on it in the world. But then I started getting like $100 a month from Spotify and I was like....

Do you have any rider requests when performing?

R: I notoriously always forget to fill out the rider, and so my manager, Ally, fills one out for me. And she's always looking out for me, so it'll always be like fresh fruit and hummus. Yeah, I'm so bad at it. Some bands are really good at riders and they ask for socks, underwear, lunch meat, bread and they never have to spend a dime on tour because they're so good at asking for certain things on the rider. But then I f*cking suck at it. I'll straight up just be like, let me get a bag of Doritos and a Pinot Grigio.

What prompted the move from Nashville to New York and how has that been?

R: I was feeling FOMO in Nashville. I was a part of a scene in Nashville, and I liked it, and I liked those people, but it's safe to say the whole scene in Nashville was probably like 60 people or so. It's a country place, yes. It's country all the way, like modern country. And it's also like sync licensing music. I don't know. It's like the commercial music capital. When they say ‘Music City’, they don't mean like, oh, that's the coolest, like, DIYC in the world. They mean, this is where the music capitalists come to thrive. And that was kind of the vibe. I mean, it's Music City, but I saw five music venues get torn down in one year. I saw them all get replaced with Airbnb's and luxury high-rises. The local scene of people there, I f*cking love and respect so much and I enjoy going to national shows more than any other shows. But the city as a whole is kind of sabotaging the culture and it's kind of sad. As for New York, It's fun so far. It's like a playground for grown-ups.

Ross Williams

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Edited by Olivia Hannant, Video Courtesy of Yot Club, Youtube