Rising Stars: Meet Dylan McNulty of Ohio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Dylan McNulty.

Hi Dylan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
When I was a kid I loved listening to music like Memphis May Fire, Crown The Empire, Blessthefall, very metalcore bands.

It’s what my brother used to listen to.

Eventually I got a guitar and an Line 6 Pod UX2, which came with a program called “Pod Farm” that allowed me to virtually amplify my guitar.

That really was the start.

I would spend hours in my room just playing the guitar, and since it was all through the computer, I could use headphones and not bother my parents.

Pretty soon after that I followed the road most guitar players follow, and wanted to start making my own songs.

Being extremely antisocial and autistic, I soon discovered the world of Drum Samples and Virtual Instruments out of a necessity for needing them but not wanting to put myself out there like that.

That allowed me to start writing my own songs, and they were terrible.

At that point I was only about 14 or 15 I think, doing everything myself. Guitar, bass, drums, mixing, mastering. I became obsessed with it. I didn’t even realize that getting other people to work on music I wrote was even an option. Since then everything I’ve done or put out that was mine has been self produced.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not. As i said before, my early songs were terrible. I had no idea what I was doing and relied on Youtube to get me to where I am today. Never went to school for it or anything. My mom at first wasn’t a fan. She loved that I loved it, but at the time I was still doing bad in school and this was absolutely making it worse. I had to drop out of school for other reasons, but that definitely was the biggest speedbump.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m known among my friends as the guy who can do almost anything, and I say that without an Iota of ego or pompousness. I can sing, rap, play guitar, do screaming vocals, mix, engineer, produce, master, shoot music videos, edit videos.

It’s funny, because the popular immediate opinion amongst creatives when someone says they’re good at a lot of things is “they’re either bad at everything or just alright”, and I genuinely feel like I’ve somehow been able to surpass that notion, to the point where people are genuinely impressed when they hear or see what I do.

Right now I’m most known for my Hip Hop work, I guess. It depends on who you ask. What I’m most proud of depends. It changes from day to day. Right now I’m most proud of a song I created along with Lauren Alvarez called “Death In The Dark”. It’s a very atmospheric and ethereal hard rock/metal track that got me out of a creative rut.

I’d say the thing that sets me apart from others is how I work. So many producers have artists come in and record, and they’re just strictly an engineer. I don’t like to do that. I like contributing anything I can to the song. That’s where I think my musical experience actually comes into play hard. I’ll suggest lines or rewrites, melodic ideas, harmony ideas. None of it comes from a place of feeling like I could do ot better or anything. I just love the creative process. I remember one time I was working with a guy on a song and we didn’t get time to layer the vocals on the chorus, so I went in and did them myself. His vocals were still the main focus, but I put my own behind him. Next session we were listening to it and he remarks how much better the chorus sounds, that he doesn’t remember recording those layers. I said “Yeah, that’s me haha.” Keep in mind, this is the first time I’ve really done something like this. His reaction of “Bro, that’s hard.” was all I needed to continue that line of thinking into the future.

We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
If you had asked me this question when I was younger and doing this I’d have said my age. When I was 19 people couldn’t believe it when I said my age. Now, it’s probably that I live at home with family. The economy is too crazy right now to be living on your own. Live within your means.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/prodbyloti
• Youtube: https://YouTube.com/prodbyLOTI