Conversations with Mose Richards

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mose Richards.

Hi Mose, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory. 
Music has been a part of my life since my earliest memories that I can remember. I was in a choir every year (and sometimes multiple simultaneously) since I was in the first grade, progressively accumulating more activities in my free time that revolve around creativity and expressing myself. From having a Hannah Montana pillow that had a microphone attached to it and a little cable to plug in my iPod nano to sing along with Miranda Lambert songs as a kid to watching “School of Rock” starring Jack Black and digging out a dusty old Alvarez from my parents’ basement to teach myself Rolling Stones songs, I’ve found ways to let music seep into my life every step of the way. 

To my recollection, there wasn’t a starting point, no cinematic shot of me holding a guitar for the first time and thinking, “Oh yes, this is my calling.” Nope, none of that. It was progression. As a young kid, I knew I loved it. I took up piano when I was around 8 years old, but I didn’t practice enough, nor did I stick with it. When I got to middle school, there was a point in time in which I was in 4 choirs at once. I just LOVED being immersed in music. In high school, I was in musicals, the marching band (on the drum line,) and did district/regional chorus for the state of Pennsylvania. The first time I ever touched a guitar for real was in my bedroom; as I mentioned earlier, I felt so inspired by School of Rock that I just HAD to noodle around with my Great Uncle’s guitar we had in our basement. To this day, I still write songs and perform with the Alvarez that I first learned to play on. 

In my sophomore year of high school and my junior year of college, I lived in Italy as an exchange student. While there each time, I found local choirs to join, and in college, I even rented an acoustic guitar so that I could continue to play in my apartment there. When I returned to the USA, especially in high school, I brought with me my pronunciation skills for when we did anything in Latin. 

After returning to the States to finish out my college career, I moved to Manayunk, a neighborhood in the Northwest section of Philadelphia. Manayunk was a short commute to my college and a cute little hillside town that is reminiscent of European villages. Moving to Philly was the start of what actually felt like my adult life, which came to a screeching halt when (you guessed it!) the pandemic hit in Spring 2020. I finished out my college career and 2 Bachelor’s degrees from my stuffy 3rd floor bedroom. I was a nanny to wealthy families a few towns over to make ends meet, and when I got tired of that, I joined the local restaurant industry in multiple different roles. Right around when I made that job change in Summer 2021, was when I entered the local music scene. 

Backtracking a bit to January 2020, I went to my first open mic night at a local venue in Manayunk called The Grape Room. I had just written a song about being ghosted/neglected/I don’t know how to classify a man just not wanting to spend time with me and decided to play it in front of people. It was the first song I had ever written. I shook in my boots, though there weren’t many people there – it was late on a Monday night. And I had a law class at 8 am the next day. 

My classes and the looming pandemic got in the way before I was able to continue going around to open mics. So, there was about a year and a half in time where I stopped doing much music altogether, until Summer 2021 when my neighbors coaxed me into doing open mics again, as they heard me practicing sometimes from the outside of my house. But, being cooped in my room brought me more creativity. I bought my first electric guitar in 2021, an Epiphone Les Paul Special, pretty much the cheapest guitar money can buy. I practiced scales on the Les Paul and wrote new songs on the Alvarez and debuted them at The Grape Room open mic. 

Open mic at that point in time was a renaissance for local musicians. It became almost cultish – everyone was leaving their domiciles for the first time in a year and a half to play their original music at the Grape. We all became close friends, adopting each other into musical projects and bands, supporting one another when one of us got booked on a gig outside of the neighborhood. We learned the words to each other’s original songs, and the running joke was that we all passed back and forth the same $10 in cover charges to see each other play. I hung around that venue multiple nights a week, and so much so that one of the bartenders ended up offering me a job as a door person at the venue. I did that for a few months and then expressed interest in learning how to run the soundboard. I was trained a few times on sound and ended up running my first show in March 2022. I fell in love with show running and mixing. I loved working with the artists, seeing the passion between bandmates as they synchronize their movements on fretboards. I loved nailing a mix, or buying a t-shirt at the merch table from the touring band and paying double for it because I knew that gas prices were insane for their van. I worked a TON of shows for about a year and a half while simultaneously gigging and performing music across the city. I took on a role as a main organizer for a Porchfest event that was born in Manayunk in 2022, and I book the entire festival. I recorded my first album in 2023, which I released at Kung Fu Necktie on August 18th, 2023. All I did from August 2022 to May 2023 was eat, sleep, and breathe music. And drink a LOT of alcohol and do a LOT of drugs. 

May 28th, 2023 was the day I quit alcohol and the substances linked with it forever. A lethal combination can be defined as being a 25-year-old musician in a huge city with a family history of substance abuse and working full-time in the service industry. I would stay out until sunrise and then sleep for 3 hours to go work a job I hated and try not to vomit while I did so. My manager once said, “Mose, I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen you not hungover.” That hit me hard but didn’t stop me. What stopped me was when my brain essentially stopped working. It turns out if you drink enough alcohol and do enough drugs, you can get what’s known as a complex migraine, which mimics a stroke. The morning of May 28th, 2023, I didn’t sleep at all. In fact, I was in my underwear in my living room, talking to a suicide hotline, wondering what I could possibly do to feel normal. I was on a massive comedown and had barely eaten or drank anything that wasn’t PBR. I called my friend, who ended up taking me to the hospital. My pupils were saucers, and I could barely speak despite being fully cognizant. I exited the hospital in my pajamas at sunset that night. They sedated me to get me to sleep and sent me home with an empty pee cup and some bills. I got in an Uber, arrived back to my house, and vowed that at least for a bit, I’d never drink or use again. 

Fast forward to now, I’m sitting on my bed typing this as I work from home in my 4th month of my sick new job that pays me to not only sit down all day but also pays me enough to live! Wild concept, huh, service industry restaurant owners? Who’d have thought? My room is clean, my life is clean to be honest, and my heart and mind are happier. I have a routine; I don’t go out to the bar and blackout on Tuesdays anymore. I’ve cut ties with people who kept me tethered to my old way of life and built relationships with people who inspire me to better myself and my habits. I’ve started learning the bass guitar and even released my first song that I wrote, recorded, mixed, and mastered on January 28th of this year to celebrate 8 months sobriety. 

That’s my story, which I’m still currently writing. It’s a page-turner and also a snoozer simultaneously somehow. But I love it. 

Alright, 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?
I mean, fighting my own demons of substance abuse is hard enough, but of course, there were bumps apart from that. 

The biggest one? Being born with lady parts. Have you ever had to tell a group of 4-6 grown men how you need them to set up their equipment while the only thing they’re thinking is, “Why is this chick with a nose ring and pigtails telling me to turn down my amp?” Well, it’s because I’m the one getting paid to do that, and it’s quite literally my job to make you sound good. Being born with these parts means that people try to stiff-arm you out of a lot of opportunities. Whether it’s as an engineer or as a musician, or even my job in sales, I can instantly tell when people don’t want to listen or take me seriously just based off the fact that I look like and sound like a woman. Music and business have taught me that this is a man’s world that I live in, and there’s no changing that. There’s a saying that goes, “Don’t focus on things you can’t change; focus on the things you can,” and that’s how I approach this. If people want to miss out on what I can offer them, which is a whole lot, just based off the fact that I am born with “innie” parts, covered in goofy tattoos, and might not be the most conventionally attractive person, so be it. Their loss. 

I also think that my gender identity reflects this a lot. I identify as genderqueer, not he, nor she. They. That was a realization I had right around the time I started performing music in public in 2021. I had the quintessential “Am I a lesbian?” moment that most nonbinary or transgender people have, and it turns out I still like boys, and I was, in fact, the problem. Choosing the name Mose was easy, and in fact, I soft-launched the name choice while at a Gay bar before I had even broken up with my girlfriend at the time. Mose comes from my middle name, Rose, which I’ve always wanted to shed due to who I am named after, and Mose Schrute on The Office, my lifelong favorite show and cousin of my favorite character. 

In terms of how it relays to my day-to-day life, I go from feeling super confident about myself to wanting to wear a turtle shell and hide from everyone who tries to even look at me. But that’s probably just my anxiety. The biggest thing about being genderqueer is how I dress, especially in a corporate setting: I bounce from tights and skirts in the office to button-downs and corduroy pants while having my boobs taped down. I perform shows in dresses with a full face of makeup and walk home in camo cargo pants and a hoodie to hide my womanly figure. It’s almost like a chameleon, but it also allows me to express myself on a broad spectrum. I was a fat kid, and my options of dressing myself were limited. When you burst out of the gender binary, you get to experiment a lot with whatever you want. Going corporate wasn’t easy to get used to – I went out after my first day and panic-bought a bunch of dress pants at Gap. And then, I realized I can still express myself in my usual way while still being business casual. 

In my 26 years of life, I’ve accumulated a sound group of friends that are like family for me. I finally have found a job with a team that is so incredibly supportive and communicative that it makes me look forward to being in the office (eh, most of the time.) My music never goes unreceived to eager ears. There’s always someone there to spend even the most mundane parts of my life with. I am very, very lucky. 

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am known as Mose of Manayunk. Sounds kinda Catholic, I know. If I had to be a patron saint, I think I would be the patron saint of absolute weirdos. I embrace the oddities of life. 

In terms of what I’m known for, the namesake is something I hear a lot when I’m out on a walk. I’m well known all over Manayunk just because of my presence – from being a heavy drinker at the local bars to my coffee and cigarette runs, people know the name Mose. And thankfully, they like it. I’m easily recognizable in any season, as my outfits change like a cartoon character – virtually never. My octagonal glasses and septum piercing is my brand, which is featured across town on stickers I (definitely have not) put on signs and poles. 

My specialty? I’m not sure. I guess you could say my strum pattern is very “Mose-coded,” or so I have been told. If you’re my boss at work, you’d say that talking to people and meeting them at their level is my specialty. If you were my friend, you’d say being brutally honest and levelheaded is my specialty. If you were a band, I was running sound for, you’d probably say that making sure you can hear yourselves in a monitor is my specialty or shot gunning a sugar free RedBull faster than the speed of sound. Either or. 

What sets me apart from others? There’s only one Mose. I could type my heart out about that, but that’s all I need to say. There is only one Mose. And you’ll know them when you see them. 

Who else deserves credit in your story?
If you couldn’t tell from the word vomit I’ve written, I’m a complex person. A special case, if you will. It takes a village to keep me from losing my absolute marbles. I donate a lot of my time and energy to projects based around community and music, but a lot of people dedicate time to just making sure that I’m okay. 

My best friend Stacy is my biggest supporter, and I am hers. She does all my tattoos, and she started her apprenticeship shortly after I started my music career. Growing alongside of her is one of the biggest pleasures in life. We destroy cheeseburgers together on a weekly basis. 

My new team and coworkers at my office that have indirectly taught me that there isn’t a mold that I have to fill to be good at an office job, have changed my life whether or not they know it. I spent the last 3 years thinking I would only be a washed-up college graduate with two degrees and nothing to show for it besides an alcohol problem and no money in my bank account. I started this job at a really low point in my life, and now I can sincerely say I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. Alan, String, and Chloe, I cannot thank you enough for what you’ve done for me. Whether it’s just being a really good friend to me or keeping me on a tight leash to harbor in my big personality. You’ve helped me move towards being the person I want to be and have had me smiling along the way. 

Thank you to my circle of friends who have supported my sobriety in abundance. I miss what everything used to be like sometimes, but I can’t thank you enough for keeping me straight. Never letting me slip. Never enabling me to come back home. I don’t doubt that if I ever asked any of you for a beer or anything else, that you wouldn’t give it to me without a long conversation. Knowing that makes my life so much more comfortable. 

To the regulars, old and new, at the Grape Room. I grew alongside of y’all and ended up creating the space for you and a newer generation to do the same thing. To Perils, Turtle Ridge, Nolan and Joe, cuddle drug and Ticket to Ride, and so many others: thanks for taking me under your wing, teaching me how to restring a guitar, and being alongside me performing. Thank you for locking yourselves in stuffy rooms with no hearing protection and listening to me scream Alanis Morrissette’s songs. Thanks for letting me sleep in your dad’s basement and pay you in a single ticket to a Taylor Swift concert to record my debut album. Thanks for being my big brothers in the music industry. And thank you to Scooter, the owner of The Grape Room, for letting me be unapologetically myself, always, and make really cool music happen. 

And to anyone I didn’t mention who I speak to a lot, thank you for the cash you’ve given to door guys around the city of Philadelphia to see me play my same old songs over and over. Thank you to those that I send unfinished songs to just because I want to share them, that actually listen to them and enjoy my music. Shoutout to Jill who actually buys my music when it comes out every single time, that is really cool of you to do. Thanks to the bands that I’ve gigged with and the bands that have played shows I book. Thanks to the entire organizing team of RoxYunk Porchfest, who deal with me when I’m stressed out up to my eyeballs every fall. Thanks to my mom for keeping tabs on me when I don’t keep tabs on myself. 

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moseofmanayunk/
• Other: https://moseofmanayunk.bandcamp.com

Image Credits
@keeloverart
@awickart