Girl at the Rock Shows

I’ll never forget the first time I saw Hiahli in concert. It was late August last year. I was at the Turf Club in Saint Paul to see everyone except Hiahli. Okay, that’s not true. But I knew the other three acts on that bill. Hiahli was the only band I had never heard of and, although I was excited to see and hear something new, I wasn’t sure that they would be able to stand out on a powerful set full of acts that I already knew and loved. Like I often admit, I was an idiot for thinking that, and Hiahli ended up stealing the show. They brought me such a sense of positivity and love. I couldn’t get over it and have continued to see them every chance I can get since that fateful night.

Hiahli reached out to me about their upcoming show and their new single “Smiling Upside-Down.” I was so excited about the news but even more excited that the band wanted to do something with me. Although if I had my choice, it would have been hiring them as my personal band to follow me around day after day and shine their positivity on me at all times, I figured an interview would suffice so, instead of me just going on and on about how much I love this band, how about I share the interview with you so you can fall in love with them for yourself.

What’s your go-to coffee order?

Ryan: Nine times out of ten I just order a black coffee (No Sugar, No Cream!), but sometimes if I feel like treating myself, a dirty chai latte with oat milk and an extra shot. 
Jason: Not really a coffee drinker, but when travelling to and from gigs late at night, I like the Starbucks Double Shot Caramel. Edit: I just read that the CEO makes 6,666 times the median employee, so maybe I won’t be buying those ever again.
Caitlynn: Iced Lavender matcha latte and a Nutella croissant.

What’s your go-to purchase at a gas station (outside of gas) when on a
road trip?

Ryan: A Poppi if they have them, a Celsius if I need that pick-me-up, Bosco Sticks if we stop at a Kwik Trip, a slice of pizza if we stop at a Casey’s, and usually some cashews and Nerds Clusters.
Jason: Plain Corn Nuts and Kiwi Strawberry Propel.
Caitlynn: Flamin’ Hots, Trolli sour gummy worms, and the biggest water I can find.

How would you describe your music to your parents?

Ryan: Like the hip hop music they’re thinking of, but minus the violence and derogatory remarks towards women. 
Jason: Golden Era Hip Hop lyrics over Rock and Roll instrumentation.
Caitlynn: How would you describe your music to your parents? Hip hop/rock with really good vibes!

If you could compare yourself to a sea creature, what sea creature would it
be and why?

Ryan: Probably that turtle from Finding Nemo. He seemed chill.
Jason: Some type of whale because they are slow, mostly peaceful, and communicative when necessary. I think the humpback is the one.

Favorite lyrics of all time?

Ryan: Prince “1999”
I was dreaming when I wrote this/ So sue me if I go too fast/ Life is just a party/ And parties weren’t meant to last.
Jason: De La Soul “Eye Know”
Shot by an arrow of Cupid through the string of a G-clef My dear, I claim you’re def And if you can hear me, by golly gee Trugoy is ready for what you possess
Or Frank Sinatra’s “It Was a Very Good Year” (now that I am older).
But now the days are short, I’m in the autumn of the year. And now I think of my life as vintage wine from fine old kegs. From the brim to the dregs, and it poured sweet and clear It was a very good year.
Caitlynn: 2Pac “Keep Ya Head Up”
And since we all came from a woman, got our name from a woman and our game from a woman I wonder why we take from our women, why we rape our women, do we hate our women?I think it’s time to kill for our women, time to heal our women, be real to our women. And if we don’t we’ll have a race of babies
that will hate the ladies, that make the babies. And since a man can’t make one he has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one. So will the real men get up. I know you’re fed up ladies, but keep your head up.    

What’s your favorite menu item at Taco Bell?

Ryan: Honestly, I haven’t eaten Taco Bell since I was in high school. I do like crunch wrap supremes when they are called Hippo Pockets, though.
Jason: Crunchy Taco Supreme

If you were to rob a bank, what would be the song playing in the getaway
car as you escape?    

Ryan: “For the Love of Money” by The O’Jays. I can picture that intro loop being the opening song to the bank heist movie Jason Statham and I are in.
Jason: Dick Dale “Misirlou” or Isaac Hayes “Shaft”.

What’s the best concert you’ve ever been to?

Ryan: Too many to count. Some that stick in my head forever are: Green Day @ Target Field (2024), Jon Batiste @ New Orleans Jazz Festival (2023), and Roger Waters @ Xcel Energy Center (2010).
Jason: Difficult one to answer. I haven’t been to many concerts, but most notable ones are Grateful Dead, Earth Wind & Fire, Radio Head, Tito Puente. All of them were musically great and had a fantastic visual component.
Caitlynn: So many to choose from. Beyoncé, Victor Wooten, Alanis Morissette, Hiatus Kaiyote are my absolute favorites so far!!

What’s your delivery pizza?

Ryan: I make a lot of homemade pizza at the crib, but if it’s one of those nights we order delivery, we order Domino’s. Quick and dirty. My all-time favorite pizza topping combination is pepperoni, pineapple, and jalapeños. 
Jason: A local restaurant in Fargo called Blackbird Pizza makes a Sausage Apple pizza “featuring a Béchamel cream sauce, house-made sausage, Granny Smith apples, fresh sage, Parmesan cheese, and microgreens, all cooked on a wood-fired crust.” If I do a chain delivery, pepperoni, sausage, green peppers. I guess Papa John’s is the top because of that garlic butter dipping sauce.
Caitlynn: Pizza Luce elote pizza.

If you could have dinner with any musician, dead or alive, who would it be
and why?

Ryan: Prince. He is my favorite artist of all-time and we could go get some pancakes or something. 
Jason: Living probably Remi Wolf. To me, she is the frontier of pop music. Her studio recordings are pristine. And then her live shows really display her raw musical talent. She is a complete bad ass. Dead probably Bob Marley. His music is the reason I play bass.

Have you ever been able to finish a Rubik’s Cube?

Ryan: Fuck no. Not even close. Ever. 

Jason: No, but I teach the mathematics that makes an efficient solution possible (group theory…which is part of abstract algebra taken by an advanced math major).

What’s the worst concert you’ve ever been to and why?

Ryan: Vanilla Ice @ Bluestem Amphitheater (2022). He headlined this 90s tour with other one-hit wonders from the 80s/90s. The promoters gave out hundreds of free tickets, thus my attendance. He was such a douche. He punched his DJ in the shoulder at one point, clearly frustrated and not as a joke. Eventually, his set felt more like a pro-MAGA rally than a rap concert. It was weird as shit. 
Jason: Phish in South Carolina (I think). I know they are supposed to be good, but I think they were going through a bad phase then. After seeing the Grateful Dead, this show was a letdown.
Caitlynn: Sublime. I will not elaborate.

Now that we’ve gotten all of the super important questions out of the way,
let’s chat about your new single, “Smiling Upside Down.” Where were you
when it was written?

Ryan: I just moved to Minneapolis in July 2023 with my fiancée. I was looking for a job and spent most of my mornings and days on the computer trying to land something. That shit can be taxing, and most often, with zero success. So, I did what I always do when I get down on myself… make music! I was on the back patio of our South Minneapolis house when I took a pause on LinkedIn and opened up Logic. It started with an instrumental that sounded 1000% different from our final version. Then the words came out of nowhere, starting with the hook. I guess it was just my clever way of getting my helplessness out of my head and into song-form. “Smiling Upside Down” is about looking at the negative in a positive way. 
Jason: Ryan wrote the lyrics. The music for the song was written more or less on the spot before a gig at Swing Barrel Brewing. So, I would say we were all at Swing Barrel when the melodies and chords were written. The recorded version is more of a pop tune (at least that was my intention when making the record). So, some elements of the song were completed in studio.

Was there a super big influence on this track or was it a patchwork of many
different influences?
Ryan: Jason definitely had Remi Wolf in mind when he and Steve Wallevand worked on the song’s production. We wanted the song to have a modern “pop sound and vibe to it.

Jason: I can only speak on the recorded version of this song. I studied three songs as models for the recording. First and foremost, “Michael” by Remi Wolf. The Moog sounds from Remi Wolf are inspirational. Second was “ABCDEFU” by Gayle. I liked how the bass sounded in both of those. Third was Pharell
production on “Grindin” by Clipse. He is a master of minimalist production with beats and rhymes.

I’ve seen you perform a few times now and am blown away by not only the
talent of everyone in the group, but also how everyone seems to bring a
special and distinct flavor to the stage. How did you all meet?

Ryan: Jason (bass) and I met around 2015 performing shows together in the Fargo area. He had always wanted to start a band with me, and eventually we did once I moved to Fargo in 2019. I met Blake (guitar) through playing shows with Space Monkey Mafia in 2019. His fiancée, Caitlynn (vocals), joined Hiahli in
December 2024. John (drums) is a co-owner of Swing Barrel Brewing in Moorhead, MN, and we played a few shows there with our old drummer. When our old drummer moved out-of-country, John reached out to us and expressed an interest in joining Hiahli in September 2023. Jantzen (vocals/percussion) and I have been performing together since 2012 and have traveled to many parts of the country together. 

Jason: I met Ryan at a D Mills and the Thrills show (my old group with Diane Miller from The Current). I really wanted to put a band together for him immediately. But I had to wait for him to move to and from Austin. But once he got back to Fargo, we got to work. The current line-up of players consists of friends of Ryan’s that he met in The Twin Cities. Ryan met Jantz many years ago (Zen People). We met John, the drummer, at Swing Barrel Brewing and he joined us after our previous drummer moved to China. The Hiahli Music Group is a fluid one. It is rare that you will see the exact same line-up from one show to
the next.

Out of every line in this track (“Smiling Upside Down”), what’s your favorite
one?

Ryan: “Fought to get your attention in the last 10…”

This line is all about my 20s and my experience of being an independent artist. I traveled tens of thousands of miles, played/organized hundreds of shows, and met countless people who I still call friends. A lot of awesome memories, as well as a lot of failures. In reality, I was fighting for the attention from anybody who gave a fuck about me and the words I wrote. Many of those connections that I made in the last ten years are the same connections that are helping Hiahli today.

Jason: I like the last three bars of the first verse. I think every line in that part is exceptionally meaningful.

“Everyone is gifted if you try you might deserve it. At night I get nervous thinkin this could be my last. I wake up in the morning with this song on blast.”

The first sentence reminds me of a message that I have been telling myself for years about the music game. “Every band is good, but the ones that stay together and put in all the extra work (beyond the artistry) are the ones that make it.” The second sentence sticks because I had a heart attack at the young age of 36. Tomorrows are never guaranteed. I don’t even plan for events beyond a couple years. The third sentence takes me back to college when I was failing out and depressed. The best part of waking up in the morning was Tribe Called Quest’s Low End Theory album…every single morning.

You’ll be celebrating the release of this fantastic single on August 27 th at The Entry. Can you give me some details about that show?

Ryan: We did not plan for a single release when we got this date booked, but we are celebrating the release now! It has been a long time in the making working on this song, so it feels good to couple it with our 7th Street debut. Also, playing 7th Street was on my goals list after moving here and I am proud of what we have done in the last few years. 

How did you curate the line-up for it?

Ryan: Socktopus are our super homeys! Mikey and I have known each other for like ten years playing hip hop shows in the area. I also got the opportunity to rock a few shows as their DJ a few weeks back. I just really love those guys and they have always supported us since before I moved here. Also, as of this writing, I have never met Bryn Battani in-person, but I keep on seeing her do cool things around the city and playing cool shows. She is from ATX and I used to live there too, so I am excited to talk to her about that. 

What’s next after this single release?

Ryan: We have two more singles we plan on releasing this Fall. “None of My Hands” will be released in late September, and “Allen Iverson” will be released in late October. 

Any big touring plans?

Ryan: We tend to consistently go on 2-3 day runs over the weekends. Some people call that a tour. I am hoping we can hit the road for extended periods in summer 2026. 

Anything else you want to tell everyone?

Ryan: Thank you so much for all the love and support! We really just want to give people a 60-minute break from the harshness of reality, and during that 60- minute break, we can all just move our bodies and chant some fun words together.

Honestly, I think that last answer from Ryan is my favorite out of this whole interview because that’s exactly what a moment with Hiahli is– a break from the harshness of reality. Their music evokes not only a sense of joy but a sense of freedom. It’s a reminder that, although this is definitely a dark world at times, there are bright spots if you know where to look and if you’re willing to think of things more like “Smiling Upside-Down” than just frowning.

If you’re here in the Twin Cities, I highly suggest snagging a ticket to the August 27th show at The 7th Street Enty. You can get them HERE!

If you’re not in the cities, make sure to throw Hiahli a follow on their socials (conveniently linked below) so you don’t miss anything new that they have coming out.

“Smiling Upside-Down” is out everywhere on August 27th, so I can’t share the full song with you yet, but I do have this little snippet to tease you with. Just try and listen to this and not fall head over heels.

Hiahli on Instagram

Hiahli on Facebook

Hiahli on Bandcamp

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