Introducing Brayton: Artist On The Rise

Based out of the Miami music scene, Brayton is an explosive new artist making an epic impact in the world of social media and well beyond.  With a host of compelling singles on Spotify along with a recent tour supporting Sweet Spine, Brayton has been making fans with a thrilling auditory amalgamation of alternative rock, pop, and metalcore.  All this, and Brayton will be appearing March 17th at the world-famous Whisky A Go Go on the Sunset Strip!  Highwire Daze recently caught up with the charismatic performer to discuss his amazing music, touring with Sweet Spine in the midst of a hurricane. writing prophetic breakup songs that wind up coming true – and more!  Read on…

We’re here with Brayton for an interview. First of all, just first question number one, your chainsaw tattoo. Tell us about that.
That’s crazy. Yeah. Well, considering I got it yesterday, I really just got it for Chainsaw Man. I can’t lie. Anime Chainsaw Man. And yeah, I just was like, that’d be sick to put a chainsaw there. So now that’s there forever.

Alrighty. Now, no normal questions. Where are you based out of? And what is your local music scene like there?
Right now, I’m based out of Miami, Florida. And specifically for rock, I feel like the scene is not very good, honestly, in Miami. I don’t know, it seems like in Florida, the better rock scenes are in Orlando and Tampa and even Jacksonville. Nobody comes south anymore. I don’t know why.

Ine of the recent tours you did was with Sweet Spine, who were recently on the cover of Highwire Daze. How did that tour go and what were some of the highlights?
Yeah, Sweet Spine’s super fire. They emailed my manager and they asked, “Hey, we need somebody for this leg of the tour. Would you be down?” And it was easy as that. And then we did it.  I thought that I didn’t know who they were until I looked into them. And then I saw they had this video blow up where their drummer, Brennan, was, “Can I count this song off real quick? Can I count this song real quick?” And it went super viral. And then I realized, oh, my God, that’s the band who’s hitting me up to tour with them. And yeah, we played our first show together in Mississippi, which is a super weird state to play your first gig together, in my opinion. I’ve never even been to Mississippi, let alone played there. But that show was actually really fun. And all the shows with Sweet Spine were really good. The only problem was the hurricane really messed up our tour.

I was actually going to ask you, were there any downsides of the tour? Tell me about the hurricane and how it affected everything.
Honestly, that was definitely the biggest downside. I was most excited for the Florida shows because I have the most pull in Florida just because of I’m from Florida.  So, I was like, this is going to be sick. We’re going to have mixing fan bases. I was really excited for the Florida shows. And then we got news of the hurricane coming through and I was like, “Oh shit!” And you already know how hard it is to make money on a tour, especially now. It’s ridiculous. And so, me and my manager were really good about budgeting and really crunching numbers. And we were thinking, if we miss one show, we’re not making money from the tour. And so, we were nervous about missing one show. We were nervous about Tampa being canceled because that was when the hurricane was going to hit.

And then we got a message from Sweet Spine. “Hey guys, like all of the Florida dates are canceled.”  It was Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa. All three shows. So, we went from playing five shows down to only playing two shows. And it was like, “Damn, like what do we do?” We debated even like not playing Nashville. We debated, because the time between the Florida dates and the Nashville show was so long that we would have this rented van out for so long. What do we do? We played Nashville and two out of the three Florida shows got rescheduled. So, we did end up playing Florida and it was awesome. And it came back around, but that was horrible. I can’t imagine what bands go through on tour when they have to deal with shit like that. That’s terrible.

What could one expect from a live Brayton show?
I think I’ve gotten a lot better at performing. I used to play with a guitar on stage, but I really wanted to be able to move around. So that’s kind of limiting with the guitar because I need the mic stand and yada yada. But I like moving around a lot and I like when other people move around with me. I think I get the crowd going within the first couple of songs. Even as the opening act people are like, “Who the fuck is this guy?” I think I can win over people pretty quickly with certain songs. I love doing covers that that people know. I did Linkin Park In The End. And I do King for a Day all the time because that song is so fun to do live and everybody just loses their mind. Also, I like to think of myself as being as much a part of the audience as the audience is. And so, I like to hop off the stage a lot of the times and like go mosh with people or like I split the crowd and I get off the stage and go down there.

And I like just talking to people. Usually when I’m done performing, I get off the stage, I unload my stuff, I go by merch for a little bit and then I’m in the audience. People are like, “What are you doing here?” I’m watching the show. Literally in every single Sweet Spine show, I was in the crowd, front row, enjoying the show, because honestly, being the opener is just an excuse for free tickets to see the headliner.

You have a new song that was just released. I Know You Hate Me. Tell me about that song and the inspiration behind it.
So, it’s funny, I don’t know if any other musicians can relate to this phenomenon when you’re writing songs, but there’s this thing where you write a song and you feel like I’m just writing a song. These lyrics don’t really mean much.  Oh, I’m feeling like writing a breakup song, yada, yada or something like that. And you write it and you’re writing very specific things that aren’t real. It’s not real. And then later on, maybe a month or two later, your song becomes real. It almost manifests or it’s almost like you predicted what was going to happen. It’s almost like you had an intuition. And so, you’re writing a song about something that hasn’t happened yet, and you don’t even know it. And then once the thing happens, you go, “Oh, that’s what that song was about!“

And you go back and listen to the song and it’s really freaky because you’re describing events in the future that are now happening. I just went through a pretty rough breakup. It definitely like took a chunk out of me. And I’d actually written that song beforehand, but you wouldn’t think it by listening to it. You’d think I got super pissed or something, went in the studio – like those memes where the fucking guy gets broken up with on the phone and then runs to the studio and records a song. But no, I actually made that song two months prior to that. And I have like more music too that is very similar.

Well, be careful what you write in the future.
Yeah, right. Exactly. I need to write that I’m going to make a million dollars or something.

That would work!  So. how crazy is life on social media and just being on there every day and making new fans and friends through it.
I think social media is so important as an artist. And I think a lot of people neglect it.  I’ve seen a lot of artists neglect it, or they don’t focus on all of the pieces that they could. And I’m even working on it – there’s a lot of stuff that I could be doing better on social media, but I would not be even talking to you if I didn’t do social media.

Exactly.
Because social media is what allowed me to connect with my first and best manager. Social media is what allowed me to find my people in LA, like other artists. I’m getting connected to artists in a way that I never thought was possible. It’s like a completely different route than I would have ever pictured.

Do you have any messages for your fans who are reading this right now?
Just don’t be fake, don’t lie to yourself.  I think a lot of people – and not even just artists, but people are oftentimes trying to put on this cloak of an ego to help themselves or elevate themselves or protect themselves. And it just does more harm than good. And I would say being as authentic as possible and being as real as possible has lifted such a weight off of my shoulders and allowed me to move with ease – on living and just being a human. You’ll make more authentic friends. From that you’ll make better connections – more solid connections by just being. Because why would you want to build relationships off of a lie, being somebody that you’re not? You’re building connections as if you’re somebody else. Support people genuinely. And the only way that you can do that is if you’re comfortable with yourself and you continue being your most authentic self.

(Interview by Ken Morton)

Brayton on Instagram