Bryce Vine

Bryce Vine

Words by MARISSA JOHNSON

Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

Music’s newest superstar Bryce Vine is climbing the charts and turning heads with his unique blend of influences, honest lyricism, and intense devotion to his fans.

Born in his mother’s New York City apartment and raised in Los Angeles, Bryce Vine was introduced to the entertainment business at a young age, growing up around sets and learning about the film industry during his mother’s 11-year run as an actress on the soap opera Passions. His father, a restauranteur, instilled in him a sense of community that has shaped how he interacts with everyone he meets. “He was always super inviting. Everyone was welcome, and he always treated people like family so I just grew up with that vibe, that’s what I created with music,” Bryce says.

Bryce began using music as a form of “self-therapy” early on. “There was always a song for what you’re going through,” he says. Bryce realized that he wanted to make music a career after seeing a comedian on television performing his own music and getting excited about the possibilities that music presented. “You could just make your own music and do it however you want, I was sold from there,” he says. At the age of 13, he picked up a guitar and taught himself how to play and write songs in his garage.

In high school, Bryce formed a punk band with his friends and developed a sound that still influences his music today. “My influences are different from a lot of people, I liked ska music and went to Warped Tour, but I also like Tupac and Tony Toni Toné,” he says, “Rock music just had this raw energy to it that I couldn’t get out of my system.” During this time he worked tirelessly to get his music noticed and to cultivate his unique style. “The town I grew up in outside of Los Angeles wasn’t just full of up and coming stars, it was just I loved to make music so I just kept working towards the next step,” he says.

After high school, he took his passion for music to Berklee College of Music in Boston where he made an effort to fully immerse himself in every style of music he possibly could in order to create his own sound, including joining an elite gospel ensemble. “When I got to Berklee I went into the gospel ensemble just to try that out. It was humbling for sure because it was the best voices in the country. I think the teacher only let me in because he knew I wanted to learn,” he laughs.

It wasn’t until later in college that he began writing pop music when he heard someone making pop beats and knocked on his door. From then on he used this new “sexier pop vibe” intertwined with his already developed punk sound and gospel influence to create his songs. During his time at Berklee he also met his DJ and Producer, Sir Nolan. Together, Nolan and Bryce created the group Crush Club and started uploading music to MySpace. Their song “Love-Aholic” was picked up by DJ Carnage and then remixed by G-Eazy, with whom Bryce later collaborated with on the song “Coming Home”.

After college, Bryce began working on his debut EP, Lazy Fair, and started touring with artists like Kyle and Hoodie Allen. This past summer, he embarked on the Travelogue Tour, a headlining run that sold out at almost every date, and the momentum is only building from there. Now, Bryce is keeping busy on the road again, opening for Timeflies and working on his first full length album.

Despite having little time to write new music while on tour, Bryce plans to use his experiences from the road to inspire his writing at home. “Now that I’m signed there’s so much more for me to do, but when I go back home this is all I’m going to be talking about, it’s the best job ever,” he says. Of his time on tour, he says that his favorite part of each show is making the live music something communal. “On this tour I’ll throw someone the mic if I can tell on stage that they know the words and that they’ve been having fun,” he says, “A kid in Columbus I’d recognized from other shows, Calloway, I knew he was a big fan, I threw him the mic and this dude takes the mic and turns around to the rest of the crowd and sang all the words, jumps up on the barricade and owns the moment like I’ve never seen before. This guy felt completely comfortable in a room full of people he doesn’t know, and that’s exactly the kind of environment that I wanted to create when I got into this.” One of the most important aspects of Bryce’s music is the sense of community, he wants every song and live show to “be a relief, it should feel like you’re driving around in the car with your friends.”

As for the future, Bryce is planning to tour this summer and will release his debut album, Carnival, this fall, an album that he says is “exactly what a carnival is: a lot of things happening at once”. “It’s a bunch of my personality all condensed into an album,” he says. Two singles, “Lalaland” and “On The Ball”, will be released before the start of summer. Bryce will also be releasing a new song with MAX in anticipation of their fall tour together.