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Meet Andrew Rudy

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Rudy.

Hi Andrew, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
The journey it took to realizing that I wanted to pursue music was a very windy road. It was my initial childhood dream to be a singer, but I was very shy. Then in high school, my mom recommended that I take acting classes to get comfortable on stage. I was super opposed to this at first because I was like “No, I want to be a singer, not an actor”. Fast forward in time and I actually fall in love with acting and was in my high school’s theatre program for all four years, while also singing in honor’s choir and in the musicals that my school put on.

When I had graduated high school, I was dead-set in pursuing a career in screen acting, I was in Los Angeles after all so it made sense to me. I did not go directly into college and instead spent the following three years acting, auditioning, and going on all sorts of crazy adventures in that field. But throughout this whole time, I would always be writing songs and recording them into my voice notes app. I would come up with bodies of works for my songs and title the hypothetical EP or Album and daydream about that.

Finally around 2017, I started attending community college pretty much just to take acting classes for a cheaper price, but then I started taking music classes, specifically singing and had the realization that this is what I really wanted to do. So I completely changed the course of my life to try to get myself into the music world. I met some producers at this community college who helped me make and release projects and then I learned how to produce music for myself.

Before I knew it, I was making my own music from start to finish, making music videos, performing at various live LA venues and I felt like I was dipping my feet into the world of music. Eventually, one of my professors recommended the Music Industry program at the University of Southern California (USC) which is where I am currently attending with the aforementioned major. And I am continuing to make and release music to this day!

My upcoming single is one called “German Lover”. I wrote this song about three years ago after I was mourning the loss of a relationship that I could really see going on for a long time. I met this guy who checked all the boxes that I wanted in a partner. He was cute, he seemed to really like me, we could talk for hours, and his family was even from Argentina. Unfortunately, I met him when he was visiting the United States from his home in Germany, and I knew this from the start. We ended up seeing each other for the entire weekend that he stayed here and as each day passed, I grew sadder and sadder at the thought of him leaving. I was not expecting to fall so hard for him, so when he left I was incredibly depressed for the following week. I felt so strongly about him that I had to get my feelings down on paper. I started by journaling and then as I felt I was getting better, I decided to pour the last of my feelings into this song.

Often I write in the way that I want to be and how I want to feel, so naturally I wrote a confident, strong, sexy song where I come across as being more in control of the situation and of my feelings. I wanted to paint this fantastical night where two lovers meet and the rest is history. However, in the bridge of the song you can see how I really felt about the experience with lines like “why do you have to go? Was it too much that I showed? Am I just a fool to think that this was love? My heart was once full and now it’s all dried up”. This is how the story had really left me feeling, but in typical Andrew fashion, I had to turn it into something fun, if for nothing else other than to give me something to smile about from this experience.

I am so excited to be coming out with this single right in time for Pride month here in LA. The song is a celebration of gay love and I hope everyone wants to dance to it!

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. My start in music really happened when I met this guy in one of my community college classes who had heard me sing and wanted to produce a song with me. This was exactly what I had been hoping for to give me my start in music and I was so excited to step through the door. This professional relationship ended up turning into something very ugly and very toxic, as he wanted to take the majority of ownership for the songs that I had written. When I declined this proposal he told me I was worthless, a terrible singer, artist, etc. You name it and he probably said it. I felt awful, however this encouraged me to become my own producer.

I took the only digital audio production class that my community college offered and learned the ropes around how to produce my music through pro tools. I was extremely driven to be my own producer and not have to rely on anyone else. Just like any other practice, I did not start off being amazing, but I practiced production every single day and got better and better.

And here we are around four years later, with my fully producing a full-length album titled Gold Blooded that came out a year ago, and now having fully produced my upcoming single German Lover, out on June 4th, 2021!

It feels incredibly gratifying to have come so far, from a place where I was so vulnerable to abuse to now a place of power where I am being approached for production advice by my peers.

I hope that this story makes people appreciate my upcoming single, German Lover, in a different light. A light where someone was able to overcome the emotional abuse that is so unfortunately common in the music industry and get to a place where they are in charge of their own destiny!

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am a pop artist. My job includes being a singer, a songwriter, a producer. Occasionally it means being my own graphic designer, publicist, director, editor.

As an independent artist, you end up wearing a lot of different hats than you thought you would. But I actually love it. I get to explore so many different passions under the umbrella of my greatest passion, music.

I am known for being very outside of the box, overly dramatic, and a bit weird in my music. I can’t help it as this is just where my creativity naturally leads me to. I am very inspired by the likes of Lady Gaga, Panic! At the Disco, Melanie Martinez, Nicki Minaj, Yungblud, Doja Cat, Queen, Billie Eilish, and the list goes on. All of these artists have gone into very avante-garde areas in music and I love every minute of it.

My songs like “Devil’s Contract”, “Possessed”, and “Gold Blooded” all capture the general vibe of my pop persona. I love being over the top and fantastical in the way I represent very real topics. I try to capture more than just your typical elements of love and heartbreak that is so overabundant in pop music. I like to delve into social anxiety, insecurity, coming out of the closet, feeling stuck in life, bullying, trust issues, the list goes on and on. But these are all feelings and experiences that I go through in life, and it is therapeutic for me to write about them in a way that is larger than life.

I think it is this way of creating that I do entirely on my own that sets me apart from others. No one can see the world the way I do, they can’t write the way I do, sing the way I do, or produce the way I do. So, while I might not be for everyone, I know that the fact that I like what I make, and experience what I experience, means that there will be at least one other person out there who can relate. And that’s what this is all about for me.

Do you any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My favorite childhood memory has to be getting on stage for the first time and performing completely solo. I was this frightened, chubby, shy 7th grader who saw Lea Michelle sing “Don’t Rain On My Parade” In Glee and felt this urge in me to get on stage and do what I know I love to do.

But the experience was frightening. Being an overweight child, all I wanted to do was to be unseen, if I could accomplish that then I was happy. That is how awful I felt about the way I looked. But this feeling directly opposes the desire I had to be a singer and show other people my talents. Somehow I mustered up enough courage to audition for the school talent show, get in, and end up performing this song on stage wearing my mom’s pleather pants, suspenders, and a fedora singing this song as best I could on front of a packed audience full of parents and my peers.

It was a memory I’ll never forget. I felt so proud of myself for getting up there with my ridiculously flamboyant get up and do what I wanted to do. And in many ways, nothing has changed. Sure I have more confidence in what I do, but I am still making music videos where I play multiple characters, both male and female, and just do “weird” things that make me happy.

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Image Credits:
Mariana Rudy Sami DeMello

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