Artist: The NTWRK
Socials: Instagram/Twitter/Facebook/Spotify
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Members: Ryan Moore, Brandon Monsta Brown, Chris Stanz, Danielle Kinoshita
TrunkSpace: With three producers in the group, each with their own creative POV, how do you strike a balance with your collective input? Did everything just click right away?
Moore: Before, Brandon (Monsta Brown) and I have been producing together for almost a decade and (Chris) Stanz and I have been producing together for the past four years. So over time we got to understand each others styles, which made our chemistry pretty solid. Even though our range of styles differ from time to time, we focus the intentions of making the best possible product that compliments the sound we’re trying to get across. Everything is built on trust.
TrunkSpace: What was the core idea and goal with The NTWRK when it was first conceived, and has that focus shifted or grown at all as time has gone by?
Moore: We started off as a music production team. Our goal was to write and produce songs for up and coming and major artists. After some disappointments in getting our songs pitched we decide to release the songs ourselves as artists. If the door won’t open you have to build one yourself! Although we’d still like to write and produce songs for other artists. That definitely hasn’t changed.
TrunkSpace: What has been the most surprising part of this journey so far for you, not only in the experience but within the music itself?
Moore: How much we’ve learned along the way in doing it ourselves. There’s so many factors involved in releasing music. The feedback we’ve gotten from our family and friends has been more than great.
TrunkSpace: The group has dropped a couple of singles to date, including “Today.” Is there a plan for a full album in place or do you anticipate focusing on singles?
Moore: We actually just dropped our fourth single, “Bad Place,” which was released on March 1st.
Stanz: Our current plan is focusing on singles. We love the rush of dropping a song every other month or so as opposed to binding ourselves for months on end to a single arching concept.
TrunkSpace: What are the benefits to releasing singles in this day and age as opposed to full albums? In a lot of ways it feels like the industry, at least on the artist side of things, is shifting back to the dawn of mainstream music where singles were the focus.
Moore: For us it makes releasing music more consistent, which is mandatory in this day and age. It gives the flexibility to collaborate with other artists as opposed to solely working on our project. Releasing singles back to back seems more beneficial for us at this moment as we’re building a core fan base.
TrunkSpace: What do you get out of being in a group setting that you can’t achieve as a solo artist? Does the creativity of the collective fuel the creativity of the individual?
Moore: Yes, absolutely! Four heads are always better than one! Whenever one of us is stuck on an idea we’re creating for the group, we have three other minds to add in their creativity. When we send an idea to someone in the group and they add in whatever instrumentation they contribute… it usual inspires the next person who can hear something new and then it becomes a creative collective cycle.
TrunkSpace: What is the biggest hurdle that artists face today with not only building a fan base, but maintaining it as well?
Moore: Getting their attention and staying ahead of the game creatively. There are so many great songs out there – not to mention other forms of entertainment – competing for three to four minutes of time out of someone’s day.
TrunkSpace: What are the perfect conditions for you to tap into your creative space? Where are you at your best with new ideas?
Moore: It varies between working in our individual spaces and meeting up at the studio. Usually we work at home when we’re creating ideas and send them back and forth. Sometimes we’ll meet up with each other to go over specific ideas. The studio is where we hash everything out.
TrunkSpace: What do you get out of creating music that you can’t achieve by being a listener alone?
Moore: The satisfaction that the music we create can influence the lives of people and hopefully make their day a little better.
TrunkSpace: Time machine question. If you could jump ahead 10 years and get a glimpse of what your career looks like a decade from now, would you take that journey? If not, why?
Moore: No, we wouldn’t. We’d like to enjoy the journey and each step of the way, no matter how long it takes.