A musician and the founder of One Wing Angels Music Group, Jay Rano—at 22—is incredibly self-aware. He is conscious about the world, music, and his worst trait. 'Stubbornness,' he acknowledges, 'sometimes it prevents you from seeing things the right way because you always want to see it your way.' Actually, we don't mind seeing things his way...
Is it hard to keep yourself driven?
Not usually, anything else that you're trying to do in life there are going to be ups and downs. So there are times when I do get discouraged or start lacking inspiration. Usually in those times, I can always find something to keep me going, to keep myself driven towards what I want to accomplish.
What do you do when you are lacking inspiration?
I draw most of my inspiration from my own life experiences. Sometimes I watch a lot of documentaries on people who have accomplished the things that I want to accomplish, I listen to music from artists that I like and I try to just go out and create new experiences with my friends. All of those can give me something else to write about. God, family, friends, and happiness. I won't get into too much about religious beliefs, I believe that many people have spirituality within them. A code of conduct for themselves, personal laws that they abide by. Morals that they look toward to determine how they're going to conduct themselves on a day to day basis to be a better person. And happiness is different for every person. When I say happiness I mean my personal happiness which comes from: A) Seeing the people that I love and care about happy. B) Achieving my goals. And C) Being able to change other people's lives for the better. That's where my happiness is derived from. But if you go through every day and you can't crack a smile, I'd say life pretty much sucks. Happiness is important.
Do you believe in love?
Yes, because I've been surrounded by it for my whole life. I have no reason not to.
Yourself in high school vs now.
High school: not very confident. I had almost a false confidence—a kind of display to make people think that I was confident, when I really wasn't. I was very shy about what I presented to the public in totality, not just with my music, but as a person. I distanced myself from a lot of my peers because I didn't feel that they could really relate to me. I’m more confident now in pretty much every aspect of life. I've grown to accept my talents and my strengths as well as my flaws and my weaknesses. And I've learned to turn some of my weaknesses into strengths. I'm a lot more thoughtful, which you can hear in the music, but I'm very thoughtful and careful of the way that I use my words when speaking to people and when writing music. And I think I'm a more fun person than I was in high school. I just do things that I want to do, within reason, of course.
What age do you see yourself achieving everything you dream of?
I don't ever see myself achieving everything I dream of. Once I accomplish something, I'll always find something to follow it up with. I believe if you don't have dreams—what's the point of living? I'll be dreaming until the day I die.
Name someone who has changed your life.
There are so many people that I can think of off the top of my head. And for a multitude of reasons. But for this question in particular, I'm going to say my best friend's step-mother, Marcia. And I say Marcia because as a teenager and a young adult, she opened my eyes to, not only a different way of living, but a different way of thinking and looking at certain aspects of life. And the way that you treat people, and the way that you view people and the things that you don’t understand when you're young and immature. For me, she was an eye opener, and she also pretty much treats me like her own son. So she's definitely a blessing to have. And that's why I wrote "Marcia's Beach House," to really explain a small portion of what I've learned from her to my listeners.
Are you looking forward to anything?
Short term, I'm looking forward to making new music and seeing what people think about it. That's always the main goal, I'm always excited about working on music. Long term, I guess what I'm looking forward to is... Well, you never really get rid of "issues" you just have different issues. So I'm looking forward to different obstacles in my life, rather than the same ones that myself and my loved-ones have been going through. I'm looking forward to being able to change people’s situations and give them a new foundation in life.
Last song that got you hyped in the zone?
The last song that really got me in the zone was actually today, when Joe Budden released part 4 of his Ordinary Love Shit series. Because he's an artist, like myself, who is very honest in his music. So when I heard it, it immediately made me want to write a new record.
Keep an eye out for Jay's full feature in the next issue of KNEON. For now you can find him on @_JayRano twitter and @JayRano instagram
Photographed by Aimee Han
Kid is Jay Rano
