Wyatt Jordan, Tallahassee’s Most Grammy Eligible Artist
From making music with sounds recorded in a coffee shop to getting inspiration from animal crossing. Get to know Wyatt Jordan, local musician who is constantly collaborating and creating.
Strike Magazine (SM): When did you play your first instrument?
Wyatt Jordan (WJ): I was 9 with a little boy sized red Gibson.
SM: Why did you start playing an instrument in the first place?
WJ: My uncle played guitar and drums and he would come over and kind of teach us guitar, and he was kind of badass, he was in a band, and played rock music, and being a little kid, I saw that and was like hell yeah, so I just got a little guitar and started playing.
SM: Have you ever played a live show?
WJ: Yes. I played one show in total. Another band asked a friend and I to fill in an open spot and they were like “hey would you two want to get together and just write some stuff and play in the show because we have an open spot” this was three weeks away from the show and we were like yeah sure. In three weeks, we wrote three songs and did a cover. Practiced them got them down. We played this one show, got paid like 30 dollars or some tiny amount of money and we put that towards recording it. And now we have had an ep out for three years. And all of the money that came from that went to save the children. And that’s the one show that I played outside of a high school thing like guitar ensemble.
SM: Do you get nervous sharing your music and performing?
WJ: Yes, I do…physically it is embarrassing and also digitally it is nerve-wracking.
SM: Have you gotten a lot of support from people you know/ strangers on social media?
WJ: A little bit from people that I know. Twitter is good for people that share the same interest that you have never met in real life. Instagram for friends, Facebook for family, older friends, and high school chemistry teachers, one time I got a Facebook share from Mrs.Ewart.
SM: What is your biggest inspiration?
WJ: Animal Crossing gyroid sounds.
SM: If you could pick one instrument that you were a musical genius in what would it be?
WJ: Its trumpet dog, it’s always been trumpet, I wish I could play the trumpet. It’s the most physically challenging instrument I have ever tried. And its jazz, that can be so difficult to do, I don’t understand it. Yeah trumpet is wild. Or theremin, that’s one I’ve truly never touched. Give theremin a quick google search. That was an instrument that the guy invented because he was trying to make a detection device for minds, and he ended up making an instrument instead.
SM: What do you like to make music about?
WJ: I usually try to make music on something, I like to express an emotion. There is a painter named Mark Rothko who does paintings that are two or three colors and they are just squares but when you see them in real life, they are kind of overwhelming and you feel one emotion entirely. I like that in music how you feel absorbed by it. I like to wonder a lot. Or discovery is a cool emotion. I don’t have a lot of lyrics, it’s a lot of electronic.
SM: What’s your favorite thing about music?
WJ: I think music is the closest thing we have in real life to magic. If you see the way people do magic in tv and movies its people practicing stuff. I feel like music is this weird thing that we understand how it works but it is still kind of bonkers it just vibration in the air and the more you practice the better you are. Everyone has their own style, It’s weird. It’s like a magical experience listening to music. A big one for me is just sitting in my car, and if you are listening to a song you’ve listened to a hundred times and at a certain moment you are really emotionally tender it just absorbs you. And that’s nice, it just has this magical quality I can’t describe and that’s another reason I could never be a music critic because it’s so subjective and I think that’s what’s really cool about it. I also basically have a recording studio set up in my house, producing other people’s music and showing them how good their music can be is my favorite thing.
SM: What is the process?
WJ: There is no process because it is different every time. A lot of it is finding weird stuff to do, with no reason. And just finding sounds you’ve never heard before.
Listen to Wyatt’s music here:
Strike Out,
Writer: Audrey Estupinan
Editor: Savannah Tindall
Tallahassee