Rising Stars: Meet Kyle Harrington of San Fernando Valley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kyle Harrington.

Hi Kyle, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I’m the frontman of our band Riot Knight as well as a filmmaker. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to do a lot of creative things, so it’s pretty often that I can throw people off when talking to them. It’s not really masking, but there’s definitely a different face I wear depending on who I’m talking to and the context. So there’s a bit of a winding road to how we ended up exactly here.

When I was a kid, my parents ran a youth theater program and were always really encouraging of my hobbies and interests. It’s how I first got introduced to theater and performing. Whether it was acting in a musical or taking ballet classes, it was all encouraged! But ironically, I was bought my first electric guitar in the 1st grade. I liked it, but for whatever reason I dropped off after a few memorable lessons. That guitar sat in my closet for about 10 years almost completely untouched. In the mean time, I had fully focused on being a video game designer and film guy. I went to a great school for that and really got my professional start working in video game voice over then cinematics on larger corporate games. Jumping around, I re-picked up that Fender Squire the summer before college for a few lessons and fell in love with it. I would write music in the background and not even decide to pursue music till I’d rounded out a couple of years working as a video game developer. I ended up coming back around to songwriting, which was an identity that’d been lower-key. Once I embraced that, that’s when I assembled the band. It took the producer of our first album, Apostolos, seeing me perform one of my originals at a poolside open mic. He assertively got me to grab coffee with him the next day. I didn’t want to do a single though. My background in storytelling made me want to do a full album debut and it became one of the most artistically satisfying processes of my life. And the payoff? Playing my original songs with a great set of assembled musicians with a packed house at The Viper Room. And the guitar I was playing? That Fender Squire that I spotted collecting dust in my closet for 10 years.
That story is just mine though. My bandmates Kellie, Mikael, and Tyler all have their own to tell. Even with how we all found each other.

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?
I can’t speak for my bandmates, but the biggest struggle that kept the band from becoming what I envisioned was just finding a rhythm of communication with the right people. I theoretically could’ve been a solo artist, “The Kyle Harrington Band”, but that sounded like something that’d lead to stagnation. Collaboration across any medium has raised the quality of my own work and I knew it’d be that way in music, even if I didn’t know what that collaboration would look like. It was important to me that it wasn’t a one-man show. I wanted to lead, but I needed to find the right people to lead. After cycling through a few great musicians that weren’t quite the right mutual fit and learning how to exist collaboratively in that world, I found my awesome bandmates and manager. I may be the chief songwriter of the project, but I knew pretty early on that my skills required other people to help arrange and execute. It’s become such a breeze since we hit that stride. Hopefully this period lasts a while before we have another big hill to jump up.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I struggle to know how to present myself a lot of the time. My identities have gone through phases as an artist. I was a theater kid, then a voice actor, then a VFX artist, then a video game designer, then an animator, and now a filmmaker and musician. I think there’s a fluidity to being an artist that the world isn’t quite set up for. The systems that art exist in require focus and branding, the “specialist” mentality. I think that’s what separates me from others. I’m not unfocused, but I have the perspective of someone that’s made different types of art in many different ways. The work that I’m most proud of tends to be exactly what I’m currently working on. If anything, it should be that way so it keeps me focused and excited to put my greatest effort and thoughts into the task at-hand. There’s a trap any and all artists fall into in which they can be stuck thinking ahead or enjoying past works, but not remembering that the grand view of your “library” as an artist will improve with attention to your current work and details going in. So when I directed an indie game published on Steam or performed in a kindergarten production of Peter Pan, those are equivalent in my eyes. My current focuses are on my first feature-length directing project we’ve wrapped principal photography on (a sequel to my short film 1932: The Great Emu War on YouTube) and this new album we’re releasing this year with Riot Knight.

What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
The most important lesson I’ve learned is to manage my emotions and learn how to assert myself as a leader. As someone who values collaboration, I think we all forget that the benefits of working with others are only harvested by being a good collaborator. And that includes keeping a level head when things get tough. It makes a huge difference in how much others are respectful to your feedback and leadership. It’s a double edged sword though. You can’t always expect others to manage themselves in the same way. You can only control what you can control. You can do so assertively and with self-respect, but you just have to focus on what’s in your control when working with other creative minds.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/riotknightofficial/?hl=en

Image Credits
Alex Vasquez
James Trotter