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A conversation with Baton Rouge-based musician, Cody Riker, about his journey to making his own music and how he stays true to his art.
A show highlighting diverse perspectives in Louisiana and the work of those who serve to better their community.
TSB Program and Default Photo credit: "The Sunshine Bridge over the Mississippi River in St. James Parish in Louisiana" (15 April 2009, Sewtex(talk)/WikimediaCommons, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported (Creative Commons)) www.structurae.net, Media ID: 216264
This is The Sunshine Bridge - a program which highlights the lives and diverse perspectives of those who live and work here in the state of Louisiana. I’m Elizabeth Eads.
Cody Riker is a Baton Rouge-based musician whose style sweeps from singer-songwriter to a new wave synth-pop sound. He’s a friend and has always resided in my memory as a great friend who, oh yeah, studied music at LSU’s School of Music. We hadn’t seen each other in maybe a decade, so you can imagine the pleasant surprise it was to stumble upon his music in a happenstance online sort of way.
He put out his EP, Riker, in 2019, and it features more of that poppy synth sound. He’s got a new single out now called “Charlie Brown,” which features him playing guitar. I was really caught by the honest emotion of his lyrics. He’s just one example of the many talented musicians here in Baton Rouge and in the state.
Like I said, he’s a friend. So when we got together for this show, we didn’t really have much of a plan. We really did kind of just crack the mics open while together with some friends, and this is the interview that followed. I hope you enjoy.
EE: So we have a candle set…we have some mood lighting….
CR: We do.
EE: There is some lamp light right next to us.
CR: Mmhmm.
EE: You’ve got a shark mug you’re drinking out of.
CR: Fish are friends, not food.
EE: (laughs) You have a uh…clown next you.
CR: Pierrot. Yeah.
EE: Right? You’re a musician.
CR: I am.
EE: Tell me a little bit about how you started getting into your own music.
CR: I was probably about a junior in college, and I went to The LSU School of Music, and I played saxophone. And finally a group of friends of mine, we sort of put a little band together, and I was playing the tenor saxophone in that band. And after watching my friend Bonnie, who’s also a fabulous musician, sing and write her own songs, it really…I caught the bug in a way.
EE: Mmhmm.
CR: And I was like, “Oh my God. Like, I could totally do that,” because I always wrote poetry. So it was like - I have to do this. So I remember being like a junior in college, like in my first little apartment that I ever had, writing tons of bad songs.
EE: Okay.
CR: You know, ‘cause for every like, good song you write, like, the next six or seven ain’t worth showing anybody.
EE: Okay.
CR: But I started getting into it and getting into it, and a little bit of time went by, and I finally put my first little band together with my roommate, Stephen Nelson, wonderful musician who’s in New Orleans, drummer. And my friend Annie Carlson, a lovely bass player, in projects like The Nocturnal Broadcast, another local group, and we were called Mr. Owl.
EE: How do you decide on band names. I’m always curious about that.
CR: Well, it’s actually really funny, this story. I was going over to Stephen’s apartment after we had sort of moved out from each other, and I pulled up, and I’m very into like, mysticism and symbolism and the occult and astrology and all that kind of stuff. Well, I pulled up into his apartment complex, and there was this like, big barrier fence, like in front of where my car was, and when I pulled up the car, the largest owl I’ve ever seen in my life was sitting on this fence, like staring directly at me, and I was like, frozen in the car staring at this magnificent beast just looking me in the eyes…which owls are terrifying and they’re large. Like, people don’t realize how large they really are. But we probably….
EE: Yeah. I mean, how big would say this one was. I mean, there’s all sorts of owls, so….
CR: Oh at least, like two feet tall, maybe two-and-a-half, three feet…it was huge.
EE: You’re showing me from your torso up is basically what you’re showing me.
CR: Yeah. It was large.
EE: Yeah.
CR: And it stared me down, and it kind of had an effect on me. And I did a little Google search about like, “What does it mean when an owl appears to you?” and “animal familiars”, and what the message I got was is that owls represent death, but they also represent rebirth and wisdom, and sometimes that death is like the death of old ideas. And I sort of committed myself through the music to always evolving and trying to, you know, grow wiser through whatever sort of trials and tribulations I had. So we called the band “Mister Owl,” and after starting a social media presence and everything, I realized The Tootsie Roll Corporation would probably have an issue if I continued to call my project, “Mister Owl.” You know… “How many licks?” So I switched the name with the lovely help of my friend Sierra to “Wise Birds.” So we were called “Wise Birds” for a little bit, and you know, after a year or two and some members coming and some going, Annie and Drew always staying. I’m sorry. Annie and Steven always staying. Um…we eventually broke up in I think 2018. And then I was sort of sitting there having a predicament of like - Okay, like I know I can sing, and I know I can write songs.
EE: I mean, you studied music.
CR: I did. But I didn’t really play guitar. I played piano, but I’m not Elton John. So, I was like, I probably am…and it wasn’t really the kind of music that I was making anyway, so I was like, “How do I…sort of, you know, go solo?” “How do I do this?” Which started the process of over the years of learning how to produce my own music, learning how to play guitar, and really just working closer and closer to becoming as self-sufficient as possible. Um….
EE: Mmhmm. So, I mean, what did you study in LSU exactly?
CR: Music Education.
EE: Okay, so…how, I guess, I don’t really know what goes on in the Music Education program.
CR: Um, they make everybody take piano classes, which fortunately I already knew how to play, so I sort of, you know, didn’t have to work too hard during piano techniques, but I mostly played saxophone, as I mentioned before. And that was my primary instrument, I was an instrumentalist, Instrumental Music Education. So, I had to take lessons with Dr. Campbell at LSU, like the best saxophone player I’ve ever heard(laughs).
EE: (laughs)
CR: Um…but I learned so much from him, and I would say the background and the theory and everything I just learned about you know, what it means to… as far as like… I mean, I learned I didn’t know how to practice at one point.
EE: Oh.
CR: And so I was able to just take in all this information and sort of put it into my little toolbox…that down the road, now I’m really grateful I went. It was a difficult time in my life, but I feel like I really did learn a lot, and I’m now really able to make use of those things that I learned.
EE: Okay. Whenever you think about a musician sort of coming into their own, how much does it help the education that we have here, you know, for the degree that you studied…
CR: Mmhmm.
EE: …how do you understand how you put that stuff together, I suppose? Because you’re saying you have to learn- you have to recognize how you’re going to produce, how you’re going to write stuff, how you’re going to play an instrument that you hadn’t played before, really.
CR: I was able to take all of the theory, because we have to take theory classes. I was able take my knowledge of music history from the music history classes that we also had to take, and as well as the practice techniques and just what I learned about being a musician in those private lessons because I mean, yes, I was taking saxophone lessons, but there’s so much more, you know, private lessons teach you on a whole just how to be a good musician. And I was able to, you know, take that knowledge of history and that theory and those practice techniques and apply it to…. When it came time for me to learn guitar, or I decided to learn the guitar, it really wasn’t that difficult because I did have that background.
EE: Did you teach yourself?
CR: I took a couple lessons from a friend of mine. Ryan Erwin, who helped produce my first EP, but after that he pretty much was like, “Look, you’ve already been to music school. Like, you know the deal.” So he basically gave me the accelerated version, and then I’m pretty much self-taught after that, so.
EE: Okay cool…so, tell me about the first piece of music that you put out.
CR: First piece of music?
EE: The first piece of music that you put out that…yeah, go from there. Yeah.
CR: Well, the first thing that I ever put out was that well, the music that I did with Wisebirds and Mister Owl/Wisebirds. We had a little EP that we put out, and I was so green, you know. I had never recorded before, everything was so new to me and overwhelming, and um I was really insecure at the time of not only um, you know, my songwriting but also my voice and my artistic presence and just, you know, who I was as a musician. Um…I still think some of those recordings are, you know, there’s something there, You know, I go back, and they’re not on Spotify or anything anymore, but I go back, and I listen to them in my Dropbox sometimes, and I can hear that there was something tangible forming, um…and that sort of evolved a little bit more. That was very much an indie rock project. Once I moved into making my solo EP, which is currently on Spotify and Apple Music and everywhere fine music is distributed….
EE: (laughs)
CR: (laughs) Um, that was much…I moved into a sort of synth pop, indie pop sort of idiom, ‘cause I love that kind of music.
EE: Uh-huh.
CR: Always been into that, and I’d never really been in- I remember I would write these songs sometimes, when I was in Wise Birds, and I would think - This is a really good song… but not for this project. And I would table ‘em, and I would let ‘em sit in my Voice Memos, which I never delete.
EE: Okay.
CR: So when it came time for me to like - Okay, well let’s do something as a solo project - I started just sort of going through the back catalogue and also writing new things, and it was a really, I feel like that much more fit who I was at the time, artistically, that sort of synth pop idiom.
EE: So you’ve moved on to your own solo project.
CR: I have.
EE: And I’ve seen a couple of things there: you have an EP, and you have a couple of singles, like we were saying. But the last one that you put out, the Charlie Brown number, that one is guitar.
CR: Yes.
EE: So…yeah.
CR: Yeah. I was, I love the story of Charlie Brown. I was sitting in my living room, I think it was either a couple days before or like a couple days after Christmas, and I was watching a Dolly Parton documentary on Netflix…
EE: Nice.
CR: …and I remember just really, I was really vibing ‘cause I love Dolly Parton.
EE: Who doesn’t?
CR: Who doesn’t? And I was really vibing with the kind of guitar that I was hearing, and so I, you know, pulled my guitar out, and I just kind of started plucking along, and um you know, next thing I know, I just kind of started plucking along, you know next thing I know, I just kind of started singing off the top of my head, and this song started pouring out, and next thing you know, it was done.
EE: It just happened.
CR: It just happened, pretty much.
EE: Pretty cool.
CR: Within a day.
EE: It’s funny that you tell me that it was Dolly Parton that you were listening to. Whenever I listened to it first, I thought - Oh. - Well, for…I had a couple of thoughts, actually because there’s a lot going on in the lyrics, and I don’t know why, it really just made me, I suppose in a good way, want to throw my phone across the floor(laughs).
CR: (laughs) Wow!
EE: Yeah, well I mean, there’s a lot of emotion in it is what I’m saying.
CR: Yeah.
EE: So, um yeah, but I also heard this kind of country twang coming out…
CR: Mmhmm.
EE: And I sat there, and I wonder, I go - I wonder, I wonder if Cody’s influences are country because I don’t…from just the stuff that I’ve known of you, I haven’t known country to be like the primary kind of music that you’re listening to, but I’m sitting here wondering to myself - Is it just because he’s from south Louisiana that some of this is coming out or you know.
CR: Well, I mean, I do talk with a southern accent.
EE: Mmhmm.
CR: And um…you know, I actually went to elementary school in Connecticut, kindergarten through 5th grade, and the kids would make fun of me for having a southern accent, you know.
EE: Really?
CR: It was around the time when Spongebob was airing, and there was that whole episode of like Sandy being from Texas, and “People from Texas are dumb!”
EE: (laughs) Oh no!
CR: And she went on like, a rampage and put them in their place.
EE: Uh-huh.
CR: And, but so the kids would be like…and I had lived in Texas. So they were like, “You’re from Texas. You’re dumb!” So I specifically taught myself how to talk without a southern accent, you know.
EE: Mmhmm.
CR: And as I’ve just gotten older and more comfortable in my own skin, I’m just like, “That’s how I …that’s how I talk. You know.
EE: Right. But there is like a twang that’s happening in that particular song.
CR: Yeah. And I think that’s just something that comes out when I get emotional.
EE: Okay.
CR: You know, ‘cause I feel like I grew up listening to like, country music with my mom in the car. And it was a part of my growing up in childhood and….
EE: What artists?
CR: (laughs) It’s funny you ask. Like, I remember listening to like, Dixie Chicks but also Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. Oh my gosh. My mom loves Willie Nelson. And she’ll play piano sometimes, and I’ll sing, and we’ll do “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.” So I feel like there’s this underneath all the pop and the synths and the veneer and the drum machines, there’s this very like, country part of me that exists in this distilled space, and that’s the new music that I’m working on now, I’m sort of trying to operate from that space because it feels the most honest.
EE: Mmm. Can you tell me a little bit about the Charlie Brown song?
CR: You know I struggle with codependency, and you know as toxic as things got with my ex, like, there were so many marking points where it should have been like - Just pull the plug! Like, Lord have mercy! You know? And so in the chorus, it’s you know, “And if you’re gone, I pray, please stay away for me.” You know? Like “I’m bleeding out on the floor, and I don’t have much more left to pour in a glass here for you.” Like, I just got to this point where I was so like, bottom of the barrel, just done. I don’t know. I feel like as a Virgo sometimes I over intellectualize my emotions.
EE: Hello! Virgoland!
CR: Hi!
EE: Virgo, hey!
CR: Hi, girl! I feel like sometimes I over intellectualize my emotions, and I just end up going around in this state where I’m completely detached from them, and it’s rare for me to just come right out and say like, “I’m hurting.”
EE: Mmhmm.
CR: Like, “I'm hurting right now, and I need help,” and it’s really hard for me to do that.
EE: I understand. Believe me, I do(laughs). Um…what song are you going to play for us now?
CR: Charlie Brown.
EE: Are you going to play it, really?
CR: Yeah.
EE: Oh, I’m excited! Okay, cool.
EE: Yeah, that was great! Just really emotional. And I feel, I see that you’ve come back from it emotional yourself.
CR: Yeah, a little bit.
EE: Yeah.
CR: It’s uh…you know, it’s hard to revisit. You know, ‘cause I’m doing at this point in my life, I’m doing really well, and um, I’m moved past it and….
EE: Tell me about Charlie Brown. Like, tell me who Charlie Brown is to you.
CR: Um…Charlie Brown’s the lovable loser, you know, he’s the fool. He’s the optimist um, that you know, even if things aren’t going right and everything’s crumbling around him, he keeps for better or for worse, he keeps trying, and um….yeah.
EE: Yeah. I feel that too. I think that there’s a lot of Charlie Brown in a lot of different people. I feel that song so strongly when I first heard it, so, yeah.
CR: Thanks. Yeah. Um…yeah, like I said, it doesn’t matter how well I’m doing or anything, but you know, going back and revisiting those moments, you know, it brings it all back again.
EE: Does it help heal any or…?
CR: I think so. I think every time we feel it and allow ourselves to feel, we heal a little bit more. You know, I think the healing is in the crying, it is in the feeling. It’s when we repress and you know, shut ourselves off from our emotional selves that we really commit the most violence to ourselves.
EE: Wow.
CR: ’Cause that’s when, you know, that’s all depression is. It’s just the numb. It’s the void. It’s just the nothing. It’s like in The Never Ending Story, they talk about Th Nothing.
EE: The Nothing. Yeah.
CR: You know threatening to overtake everything because the people stop believing. And you know, we have to feel our way through these…these moments.
EE: Mmhmm…I have all the feels right now(laughs).
CR: (laughs) Yeah. For those of you listening, we’re both fully crying.
EE: (laughs) Yeah, basically, yeah…. Yeah…well(laughs)…yeah. Well, tell me, tell me what um… ‘cause you’ve got these songs on Spotify and stuff, how are you…are you performing? How is that going with COVID and stuff, you know?
CR: It’s slow.
EE: Yeah.
CR: It’s slow.
EE: Yeah.
CR: You know, I’ve played maybe…one, two, three…four gigs in the last few months. You know? I think I played um. I booked a show in August with a couple people, and then I played like a house party situation in September, and then I played at Tin Roof Brewery in October, and then I really didn’t do anything, and I just played a show, January 15 at Yes We Cannibal on Government, but you know at the moment I currently don’t, I don’t have anything in the fire, but I don’t know. I kind of start to get this feeling in my bones when something’s coming.
EE: Oh yeah?
CR: Like, and I just…’cause someone always reaches out and says, “Hey! You wanna do this?” or “Hey, you wanna hop onto this lineup?” Or you know, I’m not super focused on like trying to book shows and tour right now ‘cause I am recording and recording new music, and I’m more, that seems to…I’m balancing this line of ‘cause sometimes you know, I feel like I have two artistic selves. There’s the very synth pop electronic, you know, almost glamorous, you know, I put glitter on and wear furs and shiny things and heels, and I explore this like androgyny, and it’s very fun. And you know disco balls and things like that, but then there’s this other performer side of me that’s like the Charlie Brown side where it’s very much like cowboy boots and blue jeans and you know, I’m wearing a button up flannel shirt.
EE: Red flannel? Yeah.
CR: You know, red flannel shirt. And you know, I jokingly say to my friends, like I’m having my JoAnn moment.
EE: Nice.
CR: Like Lady Gaga.
EE: Uh-huh. Yeah.
CR: Fully having my JoAnn moment, but I’m really trying to figure out how to balance um…these two sort of artistic selves, and it’s interesting. It’s very interesting.
EE: I mean, what do you think facilitates one or the other?
CR: Just sort of depends on…’cause I like doing both.
EE: Mmhmm.
CR: You know, I love the ultra-vulnerable, sort of more acoustic sounding you know almost country/folk singer-songwriter influenced stuff, but like I said, I also love to put glitter on my face and put on the eyeliner and the heels and um vibe to the drum machines.
EE: Right. So the masked and the unmasked versions. Yeah.
CR: Really. It’s very that.
EE: Nice. Can we have a masked version of you?
CR: The masked? Y-y-yeah. Of course! I think we could probably, we could probably do that.
EE: Yeah? Okay. I wanna do that. I wanna hear that.
CR: Okay, yeah. We can a little synth pop moment.
EE: (laughs) Okay, let’s go for it.
CR: Sort of an impromptu synth pop moment.
EE: Okay. Cool. What’s this song going to be?
CR: Oh, I have no idea.
EE: (laughs) We have to decide!
CR: (laughs) Let me look. Let’s figure out what we’re going to do. Umm…okay, I’m going to do this song. Um…”Holy Holy.” I will release it one day, some day.
EE: Oh, so we’re getting something unreleased.
CR: I think it’s done honestly. I think it’s done. I just haven’t actually sat down to…it’s because I’ve been having my sort of acoustic, unmasked JoAnn moment…
EE: For sure.
CR: … and it just didn’t feel like the right time to release it, but it is new, and it is done, and I have performed it live. So, I will gladly perform that now.
EE: Alright. I’m ready.
EE: That was awesome, Cody! Cody Riker! Yes!
CR: Thank you! Yes. Hello.
EE: Tell me a little bit about this song.
CR: So this one, kind of…it’s funny…this one kind of came out of trauma, honestly, and my relationship with physical intimacy and you know, when I was younger, when I was about twenty, um, I was sexually assaulted in college. And I sort of began to view, you know, physical intimacy as this sort of dirty, scandalous thing. And, which like the true intention, it’s supposed to be this sort of you know, divine meeting of bodies and this exchange of energy that you know, for some people creates life. And I think there is something inherently divine about our sexual natures, and I felt like mine had sort of been perverted in a way through that trauma. And so in a way, you know, I’m asking…or was asking. I’ve done quite a bit of work in that department in therapy, um…with regards to like asking partners like - Please use me with caution. Like, I’m…I remember my ex-partner would come up behind me sometimes just you know, in the apartment and would kind of like surprise me, and as flirtatious as he intended it, it scared me.
EE: Mmhmm.
CR: Um…’cause I wasn’t expecting it. I didn’t see it coming. So those sort of, you know, trauma responses were engrained in me, and this song for me is really about like, you know, asking for what I need, and that is a little bit of patience and just let me, you know, let me get comfortable, let me really trust you…and then…we can, you know, create something that, you know…for all intents and purposes should be holy.
EE: Wow. That’s pretty deep. Cody, who are you(laughs)?
CR: I’m just a boy from south Louisiana with long hair(laughs)…
EE: (laughs)
CR: …who sings about his feelings.
EE: I feel like you’re just channeling so much of my energy and even some of my experiences that it’s really…just…how is that we lost touch with each other again(laughs)?
CR: I don’t know, but um. I don’t know. It is, it’s nice to hear you say that ‘cause I get scared sometimes with, you know, quite how vulnerable my songs can be. You know. I mean, they just flat out expose me and my character and all my, you know, trials and tribulations and personal struggles, and you know, some people would argue that you know - That’s too much. You know, you gotta keep some things to yourself, but if somebody can hear my music and you know, really resonate with it on that level and feel seen and heard, then I think I did my job as an artist.
EE: And that was the masked version of you.
CR: And that was the masked version with the glitz and the glamour.
EE: Right. Wow. Wow.
CR: (laughs)
EE: That’s so wild.
CR: So maybe it’s not so much masked. Maybe it’s just, you know….
EE: With glitz.
CR: With glitz.
EE: Yeah.
CR: With a little bit of flair.
EE: (laughs). That’s really great. Okay, well um, we have had just a wonderful conversation. And also I need to- we need to say thank you to Garrin and Jenny.
CR: Yes! Thank you, Garrin! Thank you, Jenny!
EE: Yes. Thank you so much. They’ve been doing sound and sound setup for us, and it’s soo appreciated. So, so, so appreciated. Um… you have another song…
CR: I do.
EE: …that you said you’d like to perform. I’d love to hear about it.
CR: It is brand new. Um, I have not really played it for…I think Garrin might have heard it once, truth be told.
EE: Okay.
CR: Um…it is brand new. I intend to record it on my forthcoming project. It is called “We Were The Nightlife.” And you know, it’s sort of a combination. I had a song idea a few years ago after a breakup that I had, and I didn’t quite know what to do with just that chunk of the song. And in 2021, the rest of it came to me, you know, about 5 years later.
EE: That’s so crazy.
CR: So, it just finally seemed right, and I finally knew what to say to finish it. So, I’m going to perform that now.
EE: Awesome. Ready.
EE: Cody Riker, that was wonderful!
CR: Thank you.
EE: Thank you. And where can people get your music?
CR: They can find me on Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, YouTube, Tidal Music, anywhere that fine music is distributed.
EE: Thank you again. It’s been a real…it’s just been so wonderful and exciting to talk with you again. Thank you for being with me this evening.
CR: Thank you. It’s been lovely catching up with you.
EE: Same.
You’ve been listening to The Sunshine Bridge - a show which showcases the work and lives of Louisianians. As Cody mentioned, his music is available in all of the usual places, and you can find links to his music on the Show Description tab.
Special thanks to audio engineer Garrin Costa, Jr. and assistant audio engineer Jenny Herman. The show’s opening and closing theme music is by Arnav Srivistav. If you have questions, comments, or a story to share with the show, please send an email to thesunshinebridge@gmail.com. I’m Elizabeth Eads. Thanks for listening. Until next time.