Ty Bru - Like It Used To w/Interview
Ty Bru is an independent musician from Asheboro, NC. A veteran of the independent music scene for more than fifteen years, Bru has taken his award-winning music across the globe, touring Europe and spending five years in Shanghai, China before returning home to North Carolina. Today we have the opportunity to share our interview with Ty Bru and take a listen to his new track, “Like It Used To”, which is full of passion and heart.
“Like It Used To” is a powerful song and at its core a strong and genuine emotional display by Ty Bru. The track is not overly flashy, instead showing a subdued approach that really lets Bru’s vocals and lyrics hit home in the best way possible, effortlessly striking emotional cords. An overarching vibe of nostalgia fills the air while listening to “Like It Used To” and, in addition to its heartfelt nature, the song is also very catchy and full of brilliant melodic choices. “Like It Used To” features a different approach compared to what Ty Bru usually does but the track was clearly crafted by an experienced expert of songsmithing and it is all the better for it.
We’d like to thank Ty Bru for being with us today for the interview! Let’s jump in!
How did you get your start in music?
As for writing, I’ve been doing that since about 7th grade, but as for performing, I started as a DJ for a fraternity at Appalachian State University back in 1999-00, which was my Freshman year there. After a few gigs, I started sneaking in some well known instrumentals from Wu-Tang Clan or Mobb Deep and since I had access to a microphone, I started performing my own lyrics and songs over top of those beats. It caught the attention of the crowd pretty quick and before long I was performing entire sets in between my DJing.
Here is a little history on just that. https://soundcloud.com/ty-bru/stages
Who are some of your influences and do you feel like their sound has found its way into your music?
Throughout the years I have had a myriad of influences, but the ones that really have had an extreme impact have been musical artists like Beck, Big K.R.I.T., Norah Jones, Sadat X, Rob Zombie, Vinnie Paz [Jedi Mind Tricks], Tom Waits, The Wu-Tang Clan, Biz Markie, EPMD, Bob Dylan, Wanting and most recently JK-47 and Machine Gun Kelly.
I feel like I do tend to channel these artists aura at times, but not fully or to the point it’s stealing their style, you can hear a smidge here or there in a bar or hook, or production style, but for the most part I like to remain with a unique sound, and some of those aforementioned I’ve had the privilege to meet and/or work with and that brings an entirely different level of influence as well.
Aside from those types of influences, I feel as if I have gained greater rewards with artists right here in North Carolina. When I was in High School there was a crew with Dana Lucci and Celinski that really helped show me the level of music that could be made in North Carolina. Then there is this producer I met while in college, Westtopher that has influenced me incredibly as a person and as an artist with the ever-evolving way he makes music. He has been my main producer since the start of my professional career and has expanded his base to some really high places.
Ed E. Ruger is another artist from Greensboro that has inspired and influenced me to do some pretty great things, we’ve worked closely with one another for going on 15 years as well and he has become a staple of the hip hop community in several facets. Recently Hawkface, Poe Mack, Otrocity and Czientist heavily influence the way I write with their powerful production, I have tons of work on the way with all of them.
You’ve toured all over the world and spent five years in Shanghai, China performing your music. What’s it like to reach a global audience? How is performing for international crowds different from touring in the United States?
My first tour was in Europe in 2005, it was a very enlightening experience, it was the same time NAS was over there, so I was playing at a lot of the venues people came to after they saw his show and the music I was doing then was pure hip hop, and they loved that, ate it up.
The logistics there were always so much better than that of the USA, venues and promoters welcomed independent artists to their establishments with a ton of love, whereas here in the USA it’s always been a battle.
Fast forward to China, I initially moved over there right after my European tour for a business opportunity and some teaching, but started getting my foot in the door at bars and venues and did that for supplemental income. However I did perform quite regularly, opening up for acts like Linkin Park, Skrillex, Avril Lavigne and 12th Planet when they passed through. I was able to scratch a big one of my bucket list with performing at a couple coliseums, performing the song I have in Mandarin was always fun.
I’ve read that you earned five degrees from Appalachian State University. In what ways have you used your educational background to promote your music/entertaining career?
Aside from marketing and promotion practices that I learned in the College Of Business at AppState and also the Journalism and Communications techniques, the main way I used this educational background was to establish a label, Mightier Than The Sword Records, but that was hard.
It was damn near impossible to be an artist, manage other artists and make sure everyone felt like they were getting equal treatment in the process. We grew too fast and friendships got confused and conflicted within the business and then on top of that, it’s almost like I felt the need to teach each artist the way business was taught to me and rarely was it received well, instead it was seen as something controlling.
That’s some stuff they can’t teach you in any higher educational system. So I started to abandon those practices and went back to street smarts and the like, and when that didn’t work either, I decided to consolidate the label tremendously, which was a tactic I learned in classes and it’s been the best decision I made in regards to that.
With “Like it Used To” you took a different songwriting approach than you previously used. How has your writing process changed?
COVID-19 changed almost everything for me, as it did everyone. Up until then, I had not been writing very consistently for almost a decade. My last solo album was released in 2011.
I released a conceptual EP, an award winning collaborative album with label mate Tenacious, produced an EP for Marshall Alexander and dropped some instrumental albums since then, but shifted a large part of my artistic self to film making, photography and fashion design, so I had really been putting off writing for quite sometime, and not actually meaning to.
But when COVID-19 struck my city and some of my close friends and family were positive and affected by this, something clicked inside me to stop putting it off! just do it! and having the full support of my wife and son was a major component of that.
I have always wanted to evolve into a more folk sounding, singer/songwriter artist, and ever since I tapped into my regular writing pattern again it’s been a hybrid flowing of hip hop and a different, maybe unheard of style or sub genre of folk.
“Like it Used To” is a very powerful song. What is your message in the song? Is it based on a personal experience?
First off thank you for checking it out and describing it as powerful!! That’s awesome. The message is a simple one; It’s for my wife and it is a celebration of our 10 year relationship and 5 years of marriage, the video goes into a visual ride into the past ten years of our love that has yet to really fade away. It was released on our anniversary date October 17.
Is there anything else you’d like our readers to know?
That the best way to help support artists like me is usually free of charge!!! Of course we love it when fans buy albums and merch, but adding our music to playlists, sharing, commenting, streaming, following, subscribing and word of mouth are still super powerful!
here are some links!
https://open.spotify.com/album/5GSCVwhSy0Rmz9gmxzjBu7
https://music.apple.com/us/album/like-it-used-to-single/1535342203
https://mightierthantheswordrecords.bandcamp.com/track/like-it-used-to-prod-by-hawkface
https://soundcloud.com/ty-bru/like-it-used-to-prod-by-hawkface
https://www.facebook.com/TyBruGoesGlobal
After speaking with Ty Bru, we can really appreciate this artist even more than before. His wealth of experience and unique journey through his music career is interesting and inspiring while his love for the craft is clearly unwavering. Furthermore, understanding the place where his emotional new track “Like It Used To” came from is certainly enlightening and it is delightful that such a genuine sounding song comes from a real place: his relationship with his wife. Overall, I feel as though Ty Bru is a musician worth rooting and that it would be worthwhile to dig through his catalog and find more awesome songs; you can begin your search by checking out “Like It Used To” which we have embedded below via Spotify!
