Ryan Allen aka Wlav got his start in music by producing DJ mixes for fans of his tumblr (whitelinesandversace), where he built a following after several viral posts. He released his first EP in 2015 and immediately began working on his debut album, 1001, which was released in Fall 2016.
Before the end of 2017, Wlav had released two singles, Gold and Wasting My Time, both featured on his Honors EP. In December 2018, he released his long-anticipated horror EP 1959. So far in 2019, Wlav has released his single Shatter, a collaboration with close friend & fellow electronic artist Hardy Harajuku.
His upcoming 6-track EP, Anxiety & Apathy, is due for release on July 31st (2019). The lead single, Welcome to the Future, was used for the fashion film The Future’s Contemporary by J. J. Battista.
Not one to stop or slow down his creating, Wlav is already preparing his sophomore album Famous on the Internet for a late 2019 release. Drawing on personal experiences with social media and cultural observations, the forthcoming album will focus on the digital age and the modern creation of the “internet persona.”
In this interview spotlight, I chat with Wlav about his music, challenges, online community and more.
Full Q&A along with links and music below.
Where are you from and what style of music do you create? (In your own words, not necessarily in marketing terms or by popular genre classifications.)
A small little town in the mountains of North Carolina is what I currently call home. My music plays with so many sounds it’s hard to define as one established sub genre, sometimes I’ll put out a dark ambient soundscape & other times I’ll drop a nice poppy indie tune.
The name I perform under, Wlav, is short for White Lines & Versace and my genre IS White Lines & Versace, there’s no other way to describe it. Even that’s transformed over the years, my name makes me think of a very specific aesthetic that served as the original intended direction of my artistry. I envisioned a couple wild supermodels staying up for 3 nights on a coke bender while wearing their best fur coats the entire time. I‘m not sure what the hell that sounds like, but it’s what I wanted my music to be like. Nowadays those supermodels are on acid too & one is listening to her favorite music and chilling in a bathtub with a fruit bowl while the other is in another dimension staring straight into the eyes of God.
What led you down this path of music and what motivates you to keep going?
I’ve always been obsessed with the entertainment industry. When I was 13 I auditioned for America’s Got Talent & The X Factor. As cheesy as it sounds I remember on November 11, 2011 at 11:11 I made a wish that I’d make it in music someday. When I turned 18 I had this thought, “ok … I can literally just fucking make the music I’m dreaming of.” So I saved up, built myself a home studio, & taught myself how to produce. 4 years later & I’m still going strong.
I’ll admit it has been a bit of a rough road though. I try to stay inspired but I have moments where I get really down and struggle to find motivation. I’ve had a number of anxious meltdowns where I’ve almost deleted my entire music catalog from every platform out there. I just get so embarrassed about everything I put out, even when I think it’s good. Sometimes depression will leave me staring at my laptop screen blankly for weeks just praying that I’ll finally think of a fucking melody. I’m about to sound like a nerd but the friends and connections I’ve made in my online community have helped pull me out of this a lot. They’re there to pump me up & motivate me to keep making art whenever I need it the most.
We’re all involved in a subsection of Facebook that has a lot of independent artists like myself & we really uplift and support each other so hard. We send each other our unfinished tracks & collaborate with each other at times, I’ve built a team of visual artists & songwriters through there that I can rely on. Even the people in the community who don’t make music are always willing to listen & give advice or offer whatever service they can to help us. We’ve known each other for years, have gone to each other’s weddings, and flown across the country to meet each other. It’s some wholesome tight-knit shit.
How is this new release different than previous ones? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?
“Anxiety & Apathy” is gonna be a very very atmospheric EP. It’s described as “an autobiography of my mental state over the past year.” Every track tries to capture the feelings I was experiencing at the time & represent it through music. I only sing on one track, I’m trying to highlight the producer side of me with this project.
Overall, the production is much more intricate than my previous releases, partly because I’ve finally upgraded software & work in Logic, partly because I know so much more about making good music now. I’m proud of my previous EP’s but I was still learning a lot about how to produce while I made them and I feel it shows. I’m now at a stage where I’m very comfortable with my production skills. I want to really prove myself this time around, I want major label producers to listen to me and be jealous of what they hear.
Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this over saturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?
Getting people to actually listen to my music is the hardest challenge I have. It’s easy to promote something, it’s hard to get results. There’s so many artists out there and it’s so easy to access them now, you get overlooked and lost in the crowd. As somebody who has to operate on a limited budget hiring a good outside service is out of the picture for me so all of the promotion that I do is on my own. My main plan is to just pray that someday a song of mine will go viral & everything will be ok after that. With that said, I do owe all of my current success to technology. I don’t do live shows yet, I don’t have physical copies of my music, I pretty much only exist online. I was lucky enough to start my career off with an established fanbase. Before I made music I ran a popular tumblr blog that was home to a handful of mega-viral memes and had actual fans of my social media persona. They were, and still are, the bulk of my audience. Without it the promotion that I do have would be absolutely useless.
What was the last song you listened to?
High by Sizzy Rocket. Not many songs touch me the way it does, I listen to it on a daily basis. If I was a great songwriter and could like really sing that’s the style of music I would want to make. Chilled out alternative pop music about drugs that’s beautifully written, hell yeah. For now though y’all are just gonna have to deal with my avant-garde electronic bullshit.
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
MP3s by far. It offers the easiest access to music with the least amount of commitment. While I plan to release a limited edition vinyl of my next album, I haven’t actually released anything on a physical format yet. My persona works best online & so does my music.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
Spotify. It’s a popular platform that‘s brought me the most streams, the majority of people I promote my music to can listen to me on there. Also that’s what I use as a listener most of the time, I built my 3 thousand song playlist that’s on current rotation there. Sometimes when I’m on it I’ll just search my profile & look at my bio and releases & everything like “damn …. that’s me.” It’s a cool thing to experience that I haven’t gotten over yet.
Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?
My website or social media pages can keep you updated! Check out www.wlavofficial.com for my website. I’ll list the links to my social media pages below. My online persona is just as important to my art as my music is so if you really want to get to know me I suggest following me there.
https://www.facebook.com/wlavofficial/
www.whitelinesandversace.tumblr.com
www.instagram.com/whitelinesandversace
www.twitter.com/wlavofficial
Anything else before we sign off?
Give your mom a present, pet a cat, do your skincare routine, join a protest, stay away from drugs. I promise they’re not as cool as I like to pretend they are. And stream Anxiety & Apathy on July 31.
