Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Gibbons.
Ryan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I started and continue, as a kid who exists purely to make art. I am driven to always to be making things with my mind and my hands. This includes visual art, such as painting and graphic design, as well as the written and cinematic arts, which I pursue the most seriously. It also includes music, which is certainly what I’m “known for” if anything.
I’ve been a voracious musical appreciator my entire life, and often fantasized of being a musician as a kid, but I didn’t actually get around to making music until I was around 17, circa 2008. A kid in my grade showed me some beats he’d made in Fruity Loops, and I instantly knew I wanted to try that too. From there, I messed around in Garage Band for a few weeks, just arranging loops from its library into “beats.” Soon after, I got my own copy of FL and the rest is history.
In the ten years since then, a huge amount of my free time has gone into making music in FL. And though I never actually focused on making my career in music, it’s been and always will be a very serious hobby.
Though my tastes have perhaps always been rooted in rock/folk/etc., I was inspired initially to be a hip-hop producer, and that origin influenced the rest of my musical trajectory very heavily. When Kanye’s graduation first came out, I was struck in a way I hadn’t been before by the brilliant opening track “Good Morning” — I heard how each layer was produced individually, and how they were all layered to make something new. Beyond this, I was inspired by who I consider to be the pioneers of the psychedelic future of hip-hop and electronic music: Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawke, Samon Kawamura, Burial, Mike Slott, etc., as well as the production and songwriting styles of certain rock groups such as Boris, Radiohead, and Animal Collective.
A brief boring history:
First, I made music as The Revenge To The Tune, an Elliott Smith reference, under which I released four “albums” of experimental electronic beats. Then, while I was in college in Lubbock, TX, I changed my name to Samcrooke and started releasing music with a group of friends who were up in Denver (Dro Brown, Brrd, Thomas Welch). And it was sometime not long after this that Thomas met and starting working with the then-18-year-old Lord Byron, who went by Black Coke then.
I released three albums as Samcrooke, which were all sound collages of hip-hop, ambient, noise, house, IDM, etc. For a brief time in 2012, I changed my name again to RPBGV to release what I considered that my magnum opus: Die Young (the first RPBGV release). After this, though, I changed back to Samcrooke for a while and began working more with Lord Byron, producing six tracks on his album Digital Crucifixion, and one on his next album We Kill Cowboys. He had joined and been working with the Dolfin Records guys (Ben Hixon, Ethan Worland, Blaque Dynamite, Rami, and others) in its infancy, and I’m proud and lucky to have been brought aboard their ranks just after that.
At this point, I decided, once and for all, to become a full singer-songwriter, instead of just a producer. And so, I changed my name once again to RPBGV and began incorporating my voice and guitar into my music. As RPBGV, I released Explorer, my first album with Dolfin, in Fall of 2017. My second Dolfin project, Samcrooke Story, was released in April 2018. And my third album with Dolfin, Bodygizer, is to be released later this year.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Of course, things haven’t gone exactly as planned, but then they rarely do for anyone, I think.
Most struggles I had were really just internal hurdles I needed to get over to move forward. Perhaps the most important lesson I’ve learned so far, which continues to be reinforced, is simply ‘don’t give up’. It’s a cliche, but it’s true. I think this is all that separates those that make it in competitive fields from those that don’t. So, it’s important to just keep doing it, and keep learning, always, and you’ll see results.
Please tell us more about what you do, what you are currently focused on and most proud of.
As RPBGV, I am a musician. At the moment, this is primarily what I’m “known” for. However, my focus has been in writing for TV/film (and for video games and graphic novels recently) for a while, and hopefully, soon, I’ll be known for my contributions to these fields. That’s my goal ultimately: I want to be a Kubrick or a Miyazaki, and be able to create huge visual narratives for a living for the rest of my life. Look out for productions by Studio Wool Pace in the future! And keep an eye out soon for a series of graphic novels created by local artist, Ghostdrank and I.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
A love for life and learning — there is so much inspiration everywhere, it’s truly endless! If you have an open mind, and an appetite for the minds and works of others, you’ll never run out of ideas and your style and sensibilities will ever mutate and grow.
Contact Info:
- Website: linktr.ee/rpbgv
- Phone: 2142637569
- Email: rpbgv28@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/rpbgv
- Twitter: twitter.com/rpbgv
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
