It's hard to not know the name Bryce Vine without immediately pairing it with Drew Barrymore, the song that blew him up in 2017. But there's heaps more to Bryce Vine than you may think.
Bryce has worked with the likes of G-Eazy, Carnage, Wale, Feder and now he's dropped a new track with YG called La La Land, so we thought we'd gather some intel on the 30-year-old New Yorker before he becomes our next obsession.
he grew up listening to punk and rock
Like many rappers right now, Bryce grew up listening to the bratty punk of blink-182 and Fall Out Boy and the melodic rock of Third Eye Blind and Everclear, letting it influence his sound. In high school he was in a punk band called Goodsell, but when he went to the prestigious Berklee School Of Music and learnt to harness gospel, hip hop and jazz, he really started to explore genres.
his stage name was inspired by jazz music
While at Berklee, Bryce was listening to a lot of gospel and jazz - it's how he got his name actually. He tells Celebmix, "When I was at Berklee, I was working with another rap group and I sang one of their songs. I didn’t have an artist name, my last name is Ross-Johnson, and for years; banks, airplanes, trains, the DMV, nobody could understand that I had a hyphen between my last name. So, I just wanted to simplify my name and one of my friends pointed out how I sing jazz so he suggested Vinyl. Then I just said how about I make it Vine for now."
drew barrymore was created using a julia michaels voice memo
Bryce was dating Julia Michaels back in 2015 when she left a voice memo on his phone with a portion of Drew Barrymore's hook. He explains, "I went into this song just trying to write a song that didn’t focus on the girls looks, a love song that doesn’t talk about how beautiful she is physically, which was more difficult than I thought it was going to be.
"I found this voice note from Julia Michaels from three years ago with that “you’re the next Drew Barry” but it was over a different beat that didn’t really work at the time. Once I had written all my parts and made the beat for this Drew Barrymore song it just fit in really nicely and it kind of worked with what I was trying to say. I’m talking about a specific kind of girl, she’s kind of cute, she’s kind of a bad ass, she’s sweet, so Drew Barrymore was kind of a good example of that."
And has Drew herself heard it? He assumes so, but he's not sure.
he's got a new album called Carnival on the way
Following releases like Lazy Fair and Night Circus, Bryce says he has a full-length in store for us called Carnival, "because that’s kind of what my mind is. It’s loud and colourful, and there’s a lot going on," he tells OnesToWatch.com.
his mum is his best friend
Bryce has a really solid relationship with his mum, who was an actor on US soapie Passions. He tells OnesToWatch.com, "She’s always had my back on whatever I wanted to do, and she knew early on it was music. She would’ve tried to talk me out of it; she was a struggling actress for a long time.
"She’s ecstatic. She loves being a part of it. I brought her out to Palm Springs for the KIIS show that we just did and she had a great time. On the way home, for the first time for me and for her, we heard my song playing on KIIS FM. It was huge. She’s one of my best friends." Awww.
