Update 12/11/15: Why Not Y is currently apart of a Grammy Foundation competition called “Grammy Amplifier.” When you listen to “The Line” or press one of the share buttons an amplification is added to the counter. The artist with the most amplifications wins an artist development package from the Grammy Foundation! Help them win by clicking here and stay tuned for their new album release in January!
Name: (From left to right) Pio Molina, Kelley Kessell, Ryan Raines
Year: Senior, Alumni, Junior
Age: 21, 21, 20
Relationship Status: Taken, Taken, Single
Hometown: Miami FL; Miami FL; Key West FL
Major: Violin Performance, Computer Science, Jazz Studies
Her Campus (HC): When did you guys officially form as a band?
Kelley Kessell (KK): Probably when we recorded the video for “Young.” That was when we started coming up with band names.
Ryan Raines (RR): Yeah, that song came out May of last year and we started working on it around March, so officially we formed in March of 2014.
HC: How did you all meet?
Pio Molina (PM): Ryan was my suitemate randomly.
KK: Yea and Pio and I went to middle school together.
PM: But Kelley and I weren’t friends in middle school – it was my roommate who was good friends with her and he was the one who brought up the idea that she should sing and I thought it was a great idea.
HC: Outside of the band, do you guys hang out and keep in touch?
RR: We are together too much probably *laughs.* Pio and I live together now off campus and Kelley lives somewhere else, but we all still hangout all the time.
KK: We see each other everyday, if not every other day.
PM: It wasn’t always like that though in the beginning.
RR: Yeah over the summer Pio went to a summer camp thing and I was in the Keys, where I’m from, and we couldn’t get a hold of Kelley for four months.
KK: Yeah, I was here at school taking classes and I didn’t have a phone for a while, but other than that summer we all hangout all the time.
HC: Where did the inspiration from your first single “Young” come from?
PM: Well, after Spring Break Ryan called me up and was like “Dude, we gotta get on the radio” and we had produced stuff on our own for a pretty long time. Then we said ,“Okay we gotta make this one really hot.” And I honestly didn’t know what we were gonna do with it before we had Kelley on the track, we had the instrumental part down, but no vocals. So as soon as my old roommate had mentioned Kelley, we knew we had to get her on with us so we could get some vocals on this track.
RR: So Kelley joined us and then we all kind of pulled ideas, but Kelley wrote most of them. It got done in like an hour.
KK: We recorded it right there, and the rest is history.
Why Not Y’s first music video: Young.
HC: Where do you guys get inspiration from other songs that you’ve written and from songs that will come in the future?
PM: It’s actually pretty random!
RR: We definitely have a style and the process we undergo determines the style of our songs. We all have super different musical backgrounds.
PM: I’m in the Tallahassee symphony. I’ve played orchestra stuff all my life.
RR: I’m a Jazz major and I play mostly Jazz.
KK: Yeah and I’ve grown up on R&B, Jazz, Pop, really everything.
HC: Where do you guys get your funds from that keep everything going?
RR: Donations.
KK: Yeah from some really, very nice people.
PM: We have made some money (not nearly as much as we have from fundraisers and donators), but we’ve made some money from sales. We use Tunecore, KickStarter and we just put up a GoFundMe.
HC: How do you feel your different music styles help you to collaborate into one band?
PM: I’ve always felt like I can’t come up with any cool lines or anything so Ryan lays down the stuff that’s “hip.” And I really don’t know anything about lyrics or vocals and, I mean, Kelley’s the master at that, but I think that because I’ve played in so many orchestras and everything is so part orientated so it’s all about trying to “fit in” with the other sounds. I’ve always felt like my specialty was knowing what else the song needs or what is missing. So in that way we each have our “thing” that contributes to the song.
HC: What’s been your most exciting thing that’s happened to you as a band/what’s been your most exciting experience as a band?
RR: Our most exciting experience as a band is winning a Grammy… next year.
KK: *Laughs.* Oh, please!
RR: I’m sorry! That was the only answer that I had in my head.
PM: The High and Mighty music video shoot! Come on! That was awesome.
KK: Yeah, we felt like freaking superstars. We got there, the dancers were already there waiting for us, the crew was setting up and we didn’t do anything!
PM: Oh yeah, we were like running things in this fancy space. And don’t get me wrong it cost us like a ton of money, but it was worth it.
Why Not Y’s music video: High and Mighty
HC: What are all of your favorite bands/artists?
KK: I like Earth, Wind and Fire. Kimbra.
PM: Oh yeah I think we can all agree on Kimbra. And I mean, I don’t know if you’re looking for like, separate answers here but—
KK: Pio likes Kanye West so let’s just get that out of the way!
PM: I’m a big Kanye fan.
RR: I think we all share Vampire Weekend, Sam Smith, Beyonce and then of course Jazz and Miles Davis.
HC: What are you currently working on?
RR: Well, the big thing right now is we have single that has been in the works, production wise, since September. And we just now put up a GoFundMe to get donations so we can get it mixed by some pretty experienced, expensive mixing engineers. It’s on GoFundMe and that’s where people can help us raise money for it. We need to reach $10,000.
PM: That’s for the first song that will be apart of our first album.
Why Not Y will be playing a show at The Warehouse on Gaines street this Wednesday, February 25th. Check them out!