☆ Q&A with Ari Rivera ☆

Ari Rivera on Emo Music, Living in LA, and a New EP

Meet Ari Rivera, a bread baking enthusiast and emotionally driven producer from the Bay Area. His musical background encompasses a wide range of experiences that include a middle school cover band named “Illuminati Fried Chicken” as well as traditional music production where he guides the artist throughout the creation of a track. Ari believes in a DIY approach, shown through his self-taught skills such as music production and coding in order to create unique websites. (Like this one, which he designed for his EP collection, “5664 Fair Ave”.)

Inspired by Frank Ocean’s Blonde, Ari creates moving tracks with lyrics and production that leave you wondering if you should text that one person you’ve been thinking about. The vulnerability and authenticity that is translated through tracks like “nap time” and “undo <--'' feel like floating down a river of your emotions. Conversely, songs like “head spinnin electro 3” and “right way” have exciting, upbeat elements that hold your interest—making it hard not to replay them over and over.

I was introduced to Ari’s music about two years ago when I first started posting music recommendations on Pinterest! Time flies, and I was really excited to have the opportunity to ask Ari some questions about his musical experiences. Over Zoom, Ari drank from a green mug, and we dug into cool albums, our favorite things to bake, and the background stories to some of his tracks! Scroll to read our conversation.

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Ale: It’s so nice to finally meet you! Tell me about yourself, where you’re from, and where you’re based now.

Ari: I was born in the Bay Area—I fucking love the Bay Area. It’s the best place on Earth. I lived there until I was six or seven. Then, we moved to Saudi Arabia—me, my mom, and my sister. I grew up there from seven to sixteen in this international community. I came back to finish high school in the Bay, and that was a culture shock. The high school [in Saudi Arabia] had maybe 300 kids—you knew everybody. When I moved over, it wasn’t that same culture. Packed school, too many kids, nobody really cared. Now I live in Los Angeles. The city of angels!!!!! It’s great. I’m in Pasadena right now, which reminds me a lot of the Bay, and I love it. I’m so far from all my friends though, but I see them pretty frequently.

Ale: Cool! How long have you been in the LA area?

Ari: I’ve been living in LA for about two years now. I always talk about how I have a five-year cap—like, I don’t want to be here for more than five years. I feel like I might get stuck. The longer I’m in LA, the more I like it though. You just meet people and have friends. You’re like, “Oh this area’s nice,” and you can go get food at spots you’ve stumbled upon. House of Pies in Los Feliz—we go there every Saturday after I get off of work late at night. I hit up my friends, and I’m like, “Who’s down for pie night?”

Ale: When did you first get into music in general? Any influential artists or albums?

Ari: In middle school, I was really into emo music. A lot of Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, and Panic at the Disco. It’s funny though, because a lot of those bands were popping in 2006, and I was getting into them in like 2015. I was just playing them all the time, and all my friends were like, “Why aren’t you listening to Migos right now?” [laughs]. I was in a bunch of cover bands though. We had a band called “Illuminati Fried Chicken” in middle school. We played for a few years until we got older and started focusing more on school. Our school was very STEM oriented, and there wasn’t much outlet for the arts. At some point I heard Blonde by Frank Ocean—which is funny because I feel like everybody has a story about it. Like you go to any party where there’s music people, and they’re like “Yeah I listened to Blonde one time and I started making music” [laughs]. I was like, “Dude, somebody made these sounds like I could probably do something like that.” I was really into Frank Ocean at that time and early Cavetown, like 2016-2017 Cavetown when he was posting shit on BandCamp and YouTube. It’s really strange how those influences carried over. I listened to a lot of emo music. That’s also when I decided to move to the U.S. too. I lived in a super super small community. Literal 10 foot walls surrounding our town. I felt that there was no way I could do music there. It worked out, and I’m doing well now in LA, so yeah.

Ale: Your production’s great! What’s your story with learning and evolving?

Ari: Most of it was self-taught like lo-fi beats—everyone starts off with lo-fi beats. There was an era in 2016 where there were copious videos on YouTube that were like, “I remade the ‘Magnolia’ beat by Playboi Carti.” It was a lot of that stuff, and it was also a SoundCloud era. Lil Yachty was popping off and Playboi Carti was coming up. It was a weird time like Water by Ugly God was a thing [laughs]. So yeah, that’s how that happened. Then, I moved here and started working with friends. We’re doing sessions where I’m doing more traditional production. I’m with an artist who’s recording into a mic, and I’m telling them to do this and do that. Now I’m at the point where we have a little studio out of my friend’s place, and we bring artists through all the time. We have really collaborative sessions where we’re making stuff properly and really paying attention to sounds. Year by year things change, and hopefully we just get better and better.

Ale: So you released three EPs, 5664 Fair Ave I, II, and III. They have cool production and emotional aspects that are really great! Can you share a bit about the story behind the process of creating the work? Does it represent certain chapters of your life?

Ari: That whole thing is definitely about a chapter in my life—North Hollywood. They are all song demos we had from that time. All of them are unfinished—for the most part. One of my favorite ones is “willie jandek” which is just fucking noise [laughs]—it’s just like destructive noise. Me and my friend and manager, Cameron, were talking about how we could share the music in interesting ways—like how [do] we create some buzz. I made a website for it and put the songs in there and also piled in some art. I wanted each collection to sound dynamic. I didn’t want anyone to get bored when they were listening to one of the sets. They have a little bit of everything in each drop. My friends Jed and Daniel are on it. It was a good chapter of my life, but a rough time. I was 18 or 19 and Daniel was 21, and we had both just gotten out of relationships. We decided to move in together and it was a cool year and just grind it out in North Hollywood for a year. Lots of good memories. There was a point where Daniel was feeling self-conscious about his voice and his writing. We got the idea to just make joke music and put it out under the alias, MINI WHEAt. There are some really obscene songs on Soundcloud somewhere, but “right way” a beautiful one that came out of the process. It was like “It’s a joke, but also this is really pretty.” It felt good to me which is why I put it out—like, people need to hear this.

Ale: “head spinnin electro 3” is one of my personal favorites! Can you tell me a bit more about it?

Ari: Yeah that’s a cool one. There’s so many versions of that. My homie Jason, who helped produce a bunch of this EP, came down. He is such an EDM producer at heart. That song feels a lot like what it was like to live there. It was just a bunch of ideas and we didn’t know how to structure it at all or what to do. In the end it was like “Here, have it,” [laughs].

Ale: The song “c the mess” has textured sounds that really captivate the listener. Where did inspiration come from for such cool sounds?

Ari: I was sampling a bunch at that time, because we were working on a rap project for Daniel. For that song I would ask myself how I could get something to sound distinct. I think a lot of what I try to do is make the music sound familiar. I’m still trying to figure that out. The beat was inspired by JPEGMAFIA who does it so well. He’s really good at getting sounds and pulling samples. He’ll put in sounds like WWE samples and immediately people are like, “That’s familiar, but why is he using it here, and it works”. Whenever we are trying to make music, we don’t want people to get bored or comfortable.

Ale: Your visuals have always been super cool and captivating, and they really capture the essence of your music. Can you tell me more about the creation of all of that and your visual art experience?

Ari: I think a lot of it comes back to the DIY thing—like I didn't have anyone to help me with that kind of stuff in Saudi Arabia. You just end up learning how to do it yourself. I was listening to a podcast where The 1975 said, “We don’t really know how to play these instruments, but we played them on this record.” When you don’t know how to do something, there is an inherent characteristic to the stuff you create. I’m not a web developer by any means, but I can code a little bit. I don’t really see myself as a visual artist. It’s always secondary to the music. There is so much effort that gets put into the music. Then it comes to visuals, and we’re like “Yeah this shit looks cool—throw it on there.” They really go hand-in-hand and are a part of the story though. I have friends who are really good photographers and are actually doing this stuff. I would by no means call myself a visual artist you know? I mean it’s all just art.

Ale: Almost 2 years ago, you reached out to me on Pinterest by sending me your song, “In Luv”. You have a demo version on Spotify that you released recently under “5664 fair ave II” and then the official version. Is there a story behind why you released one version first?

Ari: Yeah that is really interesting. That was the first version I ever did. We started to think about how we could make it poppier. I think the final version that came out has louder vocals and harder drums. That original version was one of the first songs I made that I sent to someone, and they thought it was cool. I've got constant demoitis, which is like when you’re always trying to get back to the feeling you had with the first version of the song. You can go through 30 versions, and it just won’t feel like the demo. You can tell that there is a lack of thought with that version. It’s really simple. The drums do just what they need to. The vocals are fine. I got to the point where I felt I was trying too hard to make it work. It’s just about balance. That’s why I put it out, because I felt that the initial version is actually really good for what it is. It feels like how the song should feel.

Ale: Inspiration comes from all places and all sorts of experiences—art, people, architecture, books, literally anything. Is there anything as of recent that you felt made you feel inspired?

Ari: My friends and family. I went up to the Bay for Christmas, and when I came back, it felt like I had woken up from a dream. The bay is so nice—there are so many people I care about up there. I’ve been writing a lot of songs about friends. Baking bread too. It’s meditative. It’s literally three ingredients, and then you let it sit and then you put it in the oven. Fresh bread is soooo good. But yeah, I draw a lot of inspiration from music as well. I lost my dongle to my headphones though, so I haven’t been listening to as much music as I normally do.

Ale: You mentioned that “nap time”, from your new EP, is a track that feels the most like Ari. Would you say that about this EP as a whole as well?

Ari: Yeah, it definitely is. It’s SO emo like it’s just so sad [laughs]. I’ve always been really into making sad and slow music. This is pretty representative of that. That song just feels like guitar music that’s honest, or at least trying to be honest. That feels like me right now. I’m finding that balance between songwriting and production. I previously used to hide behind it. I had a song called “Maya” that I took down. That one in particular was okay, and you could tell I was just trying to hide behind layers and layers of production. People really liked it, but it felt soulless to me. I was playing around with it for so long. That was also a point where I was really into pop and thinking about what was gonna do numbers on streaming. Now, I'm more okay with doing stuff that feels more genuine and doesn’t cater to the audience so much.

Ale: Now for the fun get-to-know-me questions. . . to start off, are you a sweets or salty snacks kind of person?

Ari: Sweets for sure. This is so bad, but every night before I go to sleep, I need to have a glass of milk with something sweet. A slice of bread with Nutella or I’ll fucking go to the Winchell’s Donut down the street to get a donut if I feel like it [laughs]. They’re open 24/7, and I’ll just eat a half donut with a glass of milk. If I’m feeling like a menace, I’ll eat the whole thing.

Ale: If you could automatically be fluent in one other language, which one would you choose?

Ari: Arabic for sure. We used to take classes up to the fifth grade. I can still read it, but I don’t know what it means. It’s such a beautiful language. That's a part of living in Saudi that I wish I had with me. In middle school, I had the choice to switch to French, and I did. I wish I had stuck with Arabic though.

Ale: If you could open for an artist on tour, who would it be?

Ari: Daniel Johnston, because I’d be able to see him perform every night. Also Modern Baseball, because they were a huge inspiration to me growing up. I remember I wanted to move to Pennsylvania when I was younger, since there was a big emo scene there. Yeah I don’t know why, living in Saudi Arabia [laughs]. Who else. . .Drake [laughs]. That would be crazy. Imagine I’m here singing my sad songs and then Drake comes out and is like, “Said you belong to the streets but the streets belong to me, It's like home to me” [laughs]. Imogen Heap too.

Ale: Favorite album of all time?

Ari: I think right now it’s Meaningless by Jon Brion. That album was super influential to me when we were living in North Hollywood. I would listen to it all the time – I have the CD in my car. He just put it out again. It’s very Beatles-Inspired and the writing is so honest. The songs are so good, and the ideas are great. He’s a great producer. He did the score for “Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind”. He also produced Circles by Mac Miller and worked on Blond. It’s the coolest thing when you fall in love with an artist, and then some time later you find out they are on another record that you really love and find impactful. Another one would be Judee Sill’s self-titled album which is so beautiful. It’s kinda gospel, but also folk and singer-songwriter. “Lopin’ Along Through the Cosmos” is great and “Abracadabra”. There are no skips on it.

Ale: Dream collaboration?

Ari: I would love to work with Jay Electronica. That would never happen, because he’s so good. It would be hard to make beats for him. I would like to collaborate more with visual artists. I really like Jenny Saville’s paintings. They’re really beautiful. There’s also an instagram account @femalepentimiento, and they make really cool art. Jon Brion would be a dream, because he’s so good. Everything he touches has this quality that I love. Blake Mills maybe and Imogen Heap again. All my friends too. I love working with my friends.

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Follow Ari on Instagram to keep up with his musical endeavors! Don’t miss out on his beautiful EP, “leaving flowers out” which was released this month!

Click here to view my playlist filled with artists you need to "keep on ur radar".

Click here to view my playlist "can we live in a song?".

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Article was written by: Alejandra (@alejandrmor)

Article was edited by: Martha (@marthaa.22)

Photos provided by: Ari RIvera (@urboiari)