Life is insane right now for Ryan McCartan. The Liv and Maddie and Rocky Horror Picture Show star has a new single "Changed My Mind" out now – and believe us when we say it is a TOTAL. JAM. He stopped by the J-14 offices to fill us in on his busy life and perform the new jam. Watch our exclusive interview with Ryan in the video above.
If you keep up with Ryan, then you know this is not the first solo music Ryan has released. In 2017, he came out with three singles that we just couldn't get out of our heads – "Everything," "When You Went Away" and "Right Now." He has now released his first song of 2018 – and he did it all on his own, might we add.
"I write everything myself. I produce everything myself. I record everything myself. I engineer everything myself. I arrange everything myself, and then obviously I play everything on my own too," he exclusively told us. "When I do like live shows and stuff, I have like a looper station and also like a mixing board so I'm literally a one man band. I pre-program the drums and I create the other instruments live. So it's a little lonely, but it's cool at the same time."
Um, talk about talented. Ryan went on to explain why he chooses to do everything on his own.
"[I like] having my hands in everything, especially when it's my story to tell. This is something else that I've been saying a lot because I don't think that people realize this either. Like if I write the song, and it's all my intellectual property. It's all mine. I write the whole thing, but I give it to a producer to help make the track – legally, they then own the song. And then I have to buy it back from them. If they're a mid-level producer, that's a six-thousand dollar buy. If they're a high-level buy, that can be a twenty, thirty-thousand dollar buy. So to get my own song, it cost me maybe ten grand."
Ryan's been an independent musician for quite some time, as he and his former band with ex-fiancée Dove Cameron, The Girl and the Dreamcatcher, wasn't signed to a label either. He opened up to us about how going through a break-up actually shaped his upcoming EP – coming soon.
"I wrote most of them during my grieving process of a really tumultuous break-up – and I realized that each one signified one of the stages of grief of that break-up," Ryan spilled.
We can't wait to see what's next for Ryan. If his latest single is any indication, we know there's only great things in the future for him!
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