Today we’d like to introduce you to Louis Ramsay.
Louis, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I’ve been performing under the name “The Gyrating Hips” since I was in high school. The band has gone through many iterations since then, but it has always just been my friends and I playing music. When we first started, we primarily played classic rock and punk covers in bars in Seattle, WA. When I was in college we moved to play originals in style I described as surf-pop in the Bellingham, WA music scene. In 2014, I moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in music.
Has it been a smooth road?
Trying to do music full-time professionally in Los Angeles really burnt me out. At one point I was working about 60 hours a week making below minimum wage under the table engineering other artists’ music. Around the same time, I recorded my first album where I played all of the instruments and wrote/arranged everything. I found the process extremely tedious due to my desire for perfection (or OCD as some might call it).
I’ve always enjoyed collaborating with other people when I make music, but I had no connections and couldn’t afford to pay session players in LA. I ended up losing a ton of money doing two independent west coast tours that I self-booked to try and promote the album. After all that I had to take a break from music because it was really wearing on me physically and psychologically.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
After I took a break from music, I started working in the film industry (which is how ya’ll at VoyageLA found me). I transferred my music engineering skills to work as a boom op/sound mixer on indie film projects. I found this work to be much more fun because I was once again collaborating with great people to make art. After a year of having steady work in film, I built up the connections and inspiration to start working with friends on music again. Which is where I am now for the current version of The Gyrating Hips. We are currently a studio recording project. Thanks to the many wonderful people I’ve met working on film sets, I now have people I can reach out to play and record with me.
The Gyrating Hips was always supposed to have been my friends, and I am playing music we enjoy; so this feels right. Since I know a lot of independent filmmakers, we are able to film all of our recording sessions and make a video for every song we release. We also record live in a room together so I can’t spend countless hours re-recording parts which is a much healthier workflow for me. In addition, I have noticed that because I enjoy my work in the film industry the stress of having to “make it” as a professional musician has been lifted so, I can enjoy myself a lot more in the creative process.
We have three videos out at youtube.com/TheGyratingHips and plan on releasing one a month for the rest of the year. We are going to divide those 12 songs into two six-song EPs that we will be released on Spotify and possibly a limited physical release. Our first EP “Growing Slowly” is set to be released through a streaming service near you on June 28th, 2019.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I think if you want to work in entertainment professionally, you really need to move to either LA or NY (or Nashville if country music is your jam). It’s where the industry is and also where you can find other people with similar mindsets that take their craft seriously.
If you find the right group of artists to work with you can grow with them. It is expensive and a lot of hard work, but if you can make it, I think it is absolutely worth it. Hell, I’m still worried I’m not going to be able to afford to live here after five years, but I wouldn’t trade the experience and have no regrets.
Contact Info:
- Address: 434 E Elmwood Ave Burbank, CA 91501
- Website: Youtube.com/TheGyratingHips
- Phone: 425-208-5635
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @TheGyratingHips
- Facebook: Facebook.com/TheGyratingHips
- Twitter: @TheGyratingHips
Image Credit:
Photos by Dan Caplan, Max Funke, & Ryan Miller
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