What's A Thirst Trap? With Owen Riegling

This week we are joined "On The Porch" by the creator of our theme song! Owen Riegling is a talented country artist and getting to chat with him is always a treat.

This was the first episode of On The Porch with Front Porch Music we ever recorded, and it's one for the books.

Even though Jenna and Owen made fun of Logan for being old ... there was still time for us to chat about the industry and to get to know Owen more. We talked about his small town roots, going to school for music, and making music for social media.

We're excited to be able to introduce you to Canadian country artist Owen Riegling.

Stream "Smoke Man" by Owen Riegling.

Follow Owen Riegling on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.

We're so glad that you decided to check this episode out. If you liked it, we'd really appreciate if you subscribed to the pod and share it with your network. And if you could rate and review that would be amazing. It's the easiest way to support this show.

Grab a drink, pull up a chair, and join us On The Front Porch, every other Tuesday.

https://frontporchmusic.ca
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On The Porch with Front Porch Music is a Front Porch Production and hosted by Logan Miller and Jenna Weishar. 

The theme song for this podcast was written, produced, and performed by Owen Riegling.

Transcript

Owen Riegling 00:00
I think my earliest memories of listening to music was on like a Walkman Walkman with a little disc he put in. And my parents had a bunch of CDs from College.

Logan Miller 00:10
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Walkman with a disc. And I remember Walk men's with cassettes.

Owen Riegling 00:18
Yeah. I've never used a cassette Walkman before.

Jenna Weishar 00:20
But neither have I. Let's just age, Logan. Let's just make a habit of making sure we know how old you are.

Owen Riegling 00:26
Logan, I hate this.

Jenna Weishar 00:27
Neither of us have ever used what you're talking about. A walking with a cassette tape? No. How do you even carry that around? You don't you have to sit stationary to hold that thing?

Logan Miller 00:37
No. They had a nice little armband.

Owen Riegling 00:41
That's awesome.

Jenna Weishar 00:42
Never mind.

Owen Riegling 00:43
I don't want to talk about it. I caught them all right now.

Jenna Weishar 00:47
No, you don't.

Owen Riegling 00:51
My first album. I might just put it strictly on cassette.

Jenna Weishar 00:55
Thanks for tuning in to another episode of on the Porch with Front Porch Music cohosted by Me Jenna Weishar and Logan Miller. We're excited to dive in and chat with this week's guest about how country music has evolved over the years, the support of a hometown crowd, and much more. Best known for his single Smoke Man and being a huge fan of Eric Church, might I add.

Jenna Weishar 01:13
Our guest is also the writer.

Jenna Weishar 01:14
Producer and performer of You On the Front Porch Music theme song. Stick around for our chat with Owen Rickling.

Logan Miller 01:20
So pull up the chair and join us on the Porch for our conversation.

Logan Miller 01:35
Thanks for joining us.

Owen Riegling 01:37
Appreciate you having me out. This is cool.

Jenna Weishar 01:39
Nobody can see you in what you're wearing, but you're wearing an Orange hat. And I already made fun of you for it. It looks like you've already got into the Bush.

Owen Riegling 01:47
I thought we were doing a video podcast here, so I wear my Sunday best, but I guess.

Logan Miller 01:53
I'm guessing it's Saturday.

Owen Riegling 01:55
Yeah, that's right. It is Saturday. I guess nobody knows that, though. It could be Tuesday right now.

Logan Miller 02:01
Oh, you're right. Whenever you're listening, that's what date is.

Jenna Weishar 02:05
That's what day it is. And we are not going out into the Bush hunting. That is a matter of fact.

Logan Miller 02:10
Well, first of all, let's just tell the world who's listening that you have joined us on the podcast and you have created our theme song.

Owen Riegling 02:23
Yeah. Awesome. Hopefully it's all right. I don't know if you guys would tell me if it's bad or not. It's good. So, I mean, if you like it, you like it for sure.

Logan Miller 02:34
Well, Jenna and I are not musicians. Spoiler alert. So literally anything would be better than what either of us would create.

Jenna Weishar 02:42
Precisely. We have to the people who do it best.

Owen Riegling 02:47
Like I was telling you before, I've just been whistling it and humming it. It's stuck in my head and it's getting annoying for me, honestly.

Logan Miller 02:55
Well, be prepared to hear it every other week.

Owen Riegling 02:58
Yeah, I still got some work to do on it.

Jenna Weishar 03:00
You have to listen every other week also. That means.

Owen Riegling 03:03
Well, I'll be listening every week.

Jenna Weishar 03:05
Perfect.

Owen Riegling 03:06
I guess. Every other week.

Jenna Weishar 03:06
You have a fan already.

Logan Miller 03:08
Yes. So full disclosure to everyone that this is a prerecorded episode, obviously. And this is the first one that we're recording. So we're still getting our legs here.

Jenna Weishar 03:21
So please go easy on us. And thanks to Owen for bearing through it with us. We've already had enough. Hiccups this morning.

Owen Riegling 03:29
Yes, I'm honored to be the first guest. Guys.

Jenna Weishar 03:33
The inaugural guest.

Owen Riegling 03:34
Yeah.

Logan Miller 03:37
We've already had issues with our audio because Jen and I are dumb and couldn't figure it out. And then the Internet went out and then the service that we use to record these was like we're having technical difficulties. So basically it's just been a great morning.

Jenna Weishar 03:51
Happy to be here. We've made it this far.

Owen Riegling 03:55
The Sun's shining. It's a good Saturday. It's not a podcast. What can we complain about?

Logan Miller 04:00
Right, exactly. So let's get to know you a bit. Jenna knows you decently. Well, you guys are from the same area of the world, but I don't know a whole lot about you. So why don't you take me back to the beginning? Take me to the roots. Where are you from?

Owen Riegling 04:20
I'm from the metropolis of Mild May, Ontario. Huge city.

Logan Miller 04:26
What population? 20?

Owen Riegling 04:27
A little more than 20. Less than 1500. I'd probably say the science is a thousand, but I'd probably say 1200. Now, I live outside of town on a 100 acre farm and I'm actually in a driving shed right now. I don't know if it's echoey or boomy or nothing, but I'm talking to these headphones, so hopefully it's all right. I don't know. I'm bad at ice breakers. I remember in College they do the ice breakers, and I would just say basically what I just said.

Logan Miller 04:56
So from a small town, like from a very small town, is your family musical or how did music come natural to you?

Owen Riegling 05:08
I don't know who plays music in my family. I don't think anybody does. My sister played piano for like a couple of years. My dad, I think, took piano lessons as a kid, but he doesn't know how to play anymore. I don't know where it comes from.

Logan Miller 05:20
Interesting. So did you grow up around music? Did your parents always have music on or where did the passion spark from, do you think?

Owen Riegling 05:31
I think my earliest memories of listening to music was on like, a Walkman. Walkman little disc you put in.

Logan Miller 05:39
And my parents had a bunch of CDs from College Walkman with a disc.

Owen Riegling 05:44
And. Right.

Logan Miller 05:44
I remember Walkman's with cassettes.

Owen Riegling 05:46
So, yeah, I've never used a cassette Walkman before.

Jenna Weishar 05:51
But let's just age, Logan. Let's just make a habit of making sure we know how old you are.

Owen Riegling 05:57
Logan, I hate this.

Jenna Weishar 05:58
Neither of us have ever used what you're talking about. A Walkman with a cassette tape no. How do you even carry that around? You don't you have to sit stationary to hold that thing?

Logan Miller 06:07
No, they had a nice little armband.

Owen Riegling 06:12
That's awesome.

Jenna Weishar 06:13
Never mind.

Owen Riegling 06:14
I don't want to talk about it. I caught them all right now.

Jenna Weishar 06:18
No, you don't.

Owen Riegling 06:22
My first album. I might just put it strictly on cassette.

Logan Miller 06:25
I've seen a couple of artists doing that lately. That's kind of cool. But not one person can play it.

Jenna Weishar 06:31
No, our grandparents can.

Owen Riegling 06:33
That's a novelty, obviously.

Logan Miller 06:36
Yeah, I can play it. So you were listening to music. It's like your first memory on a disc. Come in.

Owen Riegling 06:44
Yeah, I was burnt CDs for my parents. They're in College or their College CDs or. I don't know, like Steve Miller Band. I remember that a lot. Best of Steve Miller Band CD. Not really country at all. Some Eminem. Yeah, just all kinds of weird music. But I think that's my first memory. I would sing along all the time, and it was really bad. And I got a guitar when I was eleven for Christmas out of this year's catalog. And I took guitar lessons for a year, and I learned how to play power chords, and it was pretty awesome. I had an amp and it had distortion, and I thought I was rocking out. That's probably really bad, but, yeah, that's kind of how I started. When I was eleven, I got a guitar, and then I gave it up because I was really into video games when I was a kid, so probably the age of 16. And then I kind of just went hard into the guitar, and I learned how to kind of sing a bit and started playing some gigs. And I just never really stopped since then.

Logan Miller 07:47
So was there a moment where someone was like, Dude, you can sing? What was the switch that flipped? You understood that? I think I actually have some talent.

Owen Riegling 07:59
No, I don't really. I was really bad when I first started. Like, so bad I can't even listen to videos. And in the moment I thought I was all right. I feel like in, like five years from now, I'll look back at me now and be like, oh, it's terrible. But I think that's just how it goes. Like, listening to yourself saying, it's kind of not very appealing, at least for me. But, yeah, I don't know. It's been fun. I remember the first time I played a gig. I got in the car afterwards, we were driving home, and I was like, yes, this is cool. I want to do that again.

Logan Miller 08:37
When was your first gig?

Owen Riegling 08:39
First gig. It was like a lead gym or something. I was playing my guitar teacher and his family band. I played, like, five songs. I had my telly. He was a big tele guy. And we jammed out, and I messed up a bunch about the words. Guitar was out of tune, but it was fun and ever since then, I've been keen.

Logan Miller 09:04
That's what gave you the bug?

Owen Riegling 09:05
Yeah, for sure. I want it specifically.

Jenna Weishar 09:08
You didn't initially pursue music as your thing, though. You went to business school first. No. Didn't you try that out?

Owen Riegling 09:15
Yeah. I mean, I was full on music. I wanted to go to music. Like, I wanted to do music for school, but I just didn't really know anything about music at that time. I knew that I like country music, but I didn't know if there was like a country music program or, you know what I mean, what to do. I'm like, okay, I'll just do business. No interest in business. But I was like, let's go to College. It's going to be fun. We'll go to read, we'll have some fun. I'll stick with the music, maybe get some gigs down there. I ended up getting the gig at a little pub cross from Fanshaw, and it was kind of fun. It's a cool experience. Met some new people, met some artists and then Fanshaw. This is where I learned of Olympic, where I went after business school. I met some guys down there who were talking about it, and I looked it up and I was like, this is pretty sweet, and I want to go to College.

Logan Miller 10:08
What was it?

Owen Riegling 10:09
Oh, we are music school. Sorry. Audio school got you. And that's kind of where I learned how to produce, I guess, or what I call producing record music and put it into a dawn and create it's a pretty intense program.

Jenna Weishar 10:25
I looked it up like you've got eleven months that you jam on their homepage. It says they jammed like two years of school into eleven months.

Owen Riegling 10:33
Yes. Intense.

Logan Miller 10:34
Wow.

Owen Riegling 10:34
Very intense.

Jenna Weishar 10:35
Yeah. How was it? What did you learn? Tell us about the whole thing. It sounds frightening.

Owen Riegling 10:39
It was really cool.

Jenna Weishar 10:41
Yeah.

Owen Riegling 10:41
Yeah. There was like 40, 50 students, so it was pretty small classes. They split you up into two groups and you learn, like event production, audio production, like recording in the studio and then like film audio for film and stuff like that. I was really into the audio production, obviously, making music and just learning how all that goes down. There's so much to it, which I didn't know. It's pretty common to have like a ten hour day at the school. You get there and you get there, like, I don't know, 830 or nine or something. Then you don't leave the studio until nine or ten at night most times.

Logan Miller 11:19
So when you look back on it, that was the best time ever. That was hard.

Owen Riegling 11:25
It was hard for the first bit for me because it was just so much. It was just thrown right into it, and that's just kind of how it is. But as the year went on and you got used to that and you got to meet people and you get to know the professors and stuff, you kind of just want to be there. And third semester, there's a lot more freedom too. So you can really do as much as you want. You can be there in their Studios open, and you get to just use the gear and have fun with it.

Jenna Weishar 11:53
You were only like 19 when you went to school for this, right?

Owen Riegling 11:56
Yes.

Jenna Weishar 11:56
You are very old. That's a lot of like.

Owen Riegling 11:59
I was like 20.

Jenna Weishar 12:00
Yeah.

Logan Miller 12:02
Throw somebody into that's typical post secondary age, though, isn't it? I guess it's been so long since I've been there.

Jenna Weishar 12:09
Like University near College. You go to school for 6 hours a day, tops. I have a bachelor's degree in the arts, so I didn't have 8 hours of school on any given day. There were days.

Logan Miller 12:21
That's true.

Jenna Weishar 12:22
Without school, the class, right.

Logan Miller 12:24
True.

Jenna Weishar 12:25
10 hours is like. No, thank you.

Owen Riegling 12:28
Yeah. The thing is, it's not really like. It's not school for 10 hours. It's something you want to do, right? Hours. They usually fly by. You're listening to music, you're learning about how to make music. It's interesting, right? I mean, there's obviously times where I remember when I wash business school, it was like, not very much schooling for me.

Logan Miller 12:49
I didn't really go to much any classes by choice or just by design?

Owen Riegling 12:55
A bit of both.

Logan Miller 12:59
Did you graduate from Fanshaw?

Owen Riegling 13:01
Yeah. Oh, cool.

Jenna Weishar 13:03
Oh, you finished your Fanshaw program too?

Owen Riegling 13:06
Yeah, I guess. I never picked up my diploma, but I did graduate.

Jenna Weishar 13:10
It's just sitting there in the hollows somewhere. That's sad.

Owen Riegling 13:14
I can probably go get it still.

Jenna Weishar 13:16
You should just email.

Owen Riegling 13:17
I should go get that.

Jenna Weishar 13:18
Hey, class up.

Owen Riegling 13:19
Yeah.

Jenna Weishar 13:20
Do you still have this? Can I have it is where your first day of smoking started from, though, too, right? That was like your major project. Technically, yeah.

Owen Riegling 13:29
It was a third semester project. Yeah. Third semester. I wrote Smokeman that semester, and I was like, this is cool. I should record this. And then I just did it and that's what it is.

Jenna Weishar 13:40
Did you.

Logan Miller 13:40
I love that phone.

Owen Riegling 13:41
Pardon?

Jenna Weishar 13:42
Logan loves it. I want to know if you did it all by yourself.

Owen Riegling 13:47
Thank you, Logan. You're welcome. I did a lot of it by myself. Yeah. My friend Jen from school recorded the bass and I did all the audio work, but I had other musicians come in and play Jeremy, who is a social media guy there still. He played drums on it and.

Jenna Weishar 14:06
Cool.

Owen Riegling 14:06
That was a lot of fun. And then I just experimented. We had like two, three months to make a song, so I was just messing around doing lots of different bowl stuff and writing in different arrangements. And there were so many different versions of that song, but I was going to say.

Jenna Weishar 14:21
We need to hear the other versions of it.

Owen Riegling 14:23
Yeah. There's tons of different. It all falls the same structure, but like different parts and elements to the song and different mixes. I mixed it, like four or five different times.

Jenna Weishar 14:35
How did you pick the one that you wanted?

Owen Riegling 14:38
It was the first mix. The first one is what we came back to. Yeah. That's how it always is.

Jenna Weishar 14:43
Yes.

Owen Riegling 14:44
If you are really into something and you dive in for the first time, that's usually the best with anything. Like, if you're really into it and then you try to refine it. I mean, it's good to refine stuff, and it definitely took elements of that.

Logan Miller 14:57
But, yeah, we've heard that from other artists, too. Dustin Bird kind of said the same thing about his latest single. He was obsessed with the first conception of it and just kind of went from there.

Owen Riegling 15:09
Yeah.

Jenna Weishar 15:10
It's not that easy all the time, though. It can't be.

Owen Riegling 15:12
No, that's true. I mean, the first time is like, you're following your gut, right? This feels right in the moment. You don't know what you're making yet. You're just going with something. I can hear this. You know what I mean? You're going with it. But then after you've heard it 10, 15, 20, more like 100 times, you start to lose some creativity because you're just focused on what's already there and you can't really hear it another way. So then that's when you start wrecking it, I find. Because you're trying to find something that it doesn't need. You know what I mean?

Jenna Weishar 15:44
Yeah.

Owen Riegling 15:44
I don't know if that's making sense.

Jenna Weishar 15:46
No, it isn't.

Logan Miller 15:47
Yeah, it makes sense to us non producers.

Owen Riegling 15:50
It does.

Jenna Weishar 15:51
So smoking actually was like a big thing. Your local crowd. First of all, your local crowd is the most supportive I've ever seen.

Logan Miller 15:58
Yeah. Before we move on, I have to say, anytime that there's something that's mentioned about you on Front Porch, the website basically sees the most traffic ever. There's been twice now where the website has gone down because there's been so much traffic to the site. Okay. I said agenda the first time that she mentioned to you, I had no full transparency. I had no idea who you were. And I was like, yeah, sure. Posted to the site. And then the site went bananas, and I was like, does this guy just have a lot of friends and family? Like, what the hell?

Jenna Weishar 16:33
I didn't reward him anything at all. I just sent him the piece and was like, this is Owen. It went pretty nice.

Logan Miller 16:42
It also helps that smoke, man. The song is banging. Like, I love it. Yeah. Talk about your fan base. Your local fan base is fierce.

Owen Riegling 16:56
Yeah, they're awesome. It's just a small town thing. There's not too many musicians around here. I don't really know of that many country artists, per se, which is kind of weird because we're kind of out in the country.

Jenna Weishar 17:12
The whole premise.

Owen Riegling 17:15
But I think it's just because there's not that many musicians. Maybe I'm just the only guy that can.

Jenna Weishar 17:19
I have no choice to support you.

Logan Miller 17:22
You have a monopoly on the area.

Owen Riegling 17:24
Yeah, exactly. There's a bar.

Logan Miller 17:26
You're playing at it.

Owen Riegling 17:27
Yeah, that's true. I was playing at a bar last night in Mild May. Harley's, shout out. Harley.

Jenna Weishar 17:32
Harley's is like your hometown spot. You shouted out in part of me, I feel like you shouted out.

Owen Riegling 17:39
Corner bar.

Jenna Weishar 17:40
Yeah, corner bar.

Owen Riegling 17:41
Yeah. Good call.

Jenna Weishar 17:43
I could tell you all the streets in Mile. Me too.

Logan Miller 17:47
I'd say I should come visit it.

Owen Riegling 17:49
You should. So far away sometime. Maybe we'll do, like, a live podcast. That'd be fun.

Logan Miller 17:57
Okay. Yeah. Let's make it a business expense and then I'll be there.

Owen Riegling 18:00
Yeah.

Jenna Weishar 18:00
And you can help us set up next time, because you know what we do.

Owen Riegling 18:05
I'll be so keen for that. That'd be fun.

Logan Miller 18:07
We won't have as many audio difficulties. Being from a small town, I would have assumed that country music was kind of in your veins. But earlier you said that country music wasn't really your thing growing up. So. Do you know, can you pinpoint the point when country music became a point of interest to you or when you became a fan, or when you realized that you enjoyed writing country music?

Jenna Weishar 18:31
It was all Eric Church. That's where it.

Logan Miller 18:39
Interview you about Owen.

Owen Riegling 18:40
Yeah, I'll just log off.

Logan Miller 18:46
We don't even need you here.

Owen Riegling 18:48
Yeah, I wouldn't say that I wasn't into country music. I preferred listening to. I don't even know what you'd call it. I mean, it was always around. Like, my grandpa loved country music. We'd listen to Am radio all the time. It would always be on in their kitchen. You know how you have, like, the grandparent that just leaves the radio on? I'd say my love for, like, modern kind of sounding country music happened when I was in high school and, like, going to high school parties. Everybody's cranking country music, and it's like the classic, like, the Eric Church stuff, the older stuff, like the Chief record.

Logan Miller 19:27
And that's such a great record.

Owen Riegling 19:30
That's my favorite one for sure, because that's just the one that. Well, I guess that's the one that sent him. And, yeah, I just have a lot of memories tied to that album. And Springsteen was the song. I think Jen already knows that. That's the song that I heard. I was like, this is cool. I want to make this kind of music.

Jenna Weishar 19:47
Yeah.

Logan Miller 19:48
Actually, now that you say that, I can kind of hear the influence, especially with Local Man, for sure.

Owen Riegling 19:55
Eric Church is the biggest influence on me, for sure.

Jenna Weishar 19:59
Your brand doesn't necessarily outlaw country, but it almost is. You're also, I don't know how to say his last name. Tyler Childers. Yeah. You're a fan of that guy, right?

Owen Riegling 20:08
Oh, yeah.

Jenna Weishar 20:09
It's pretty dope.

Owen Riegling 20:10
I think I'm just a fan of what's different. That's the kind of stuff that I don't really make music like Tyler. I write lots of songs, and I try to be like that, but I wouldn't necessarily say that's my Lane, but I'm really into what he's doing and just awesome.

Jenna Weishar 20:27
Yeah. I feel like you're creating your own space because you're also not something we hear everywhere we go. There's a particular brand, if you will, that is Owen Regling. And you can hear exactly where your influencers are from, but it's still, like, uniquely you not to blow your head up too much here, obviously.

Owen Riegling 20:46
I appreciate that. That's actually, like, such an awesome compliment, because I don't even know what I'm doing.

Logan Miller 20:55
I feel like, you know, a little bit what you're doing.

Owen Riegling 20:56
I know, but when I'm writing a song, a lot of times I'm like, what did I just write? It's not country. I don't even know what genre this is. And I ran it by my band, and I'm like, what even is this? They're like, I don't know what this is.

Jenna Weishar 21:07
But we dig it, right?

Owen Riegling 21:08
As long as I'm the one singing it, it's just me, right? Yeah, it's country. There's some influence from other stuff, like this new stuff that I'm working on right now is, like, very different, but I'm excited for it.

Logan Miller 21:24
I said earlier I didn't grow up with country music. My only thought of country music was the stereotypical. Like, my dog died and all that kind of stuff. That's what I thought country music was when I was a kid. And then I started working in country radio, and then that's when I started getting really immersed into the world of country. And now that's all. Obviously, that's what I love. But what I love so much about the genre and why it drew me in is that the writing is all stories. The emotion and the storytelling in country music is what kind of really drew me to it. And your music really fits in. That whether it's, like, traditional country or outlaw country or whatever, country it is, it tells a story. And that's what country music is, in my opinion.

Jenna Weishar 22:06
It's kind of cool through this huge change, I want to say, because if you asked me three years ago, I would be here listening to the rating. This isn't even country. What are we listening to? But I think there's a cool change that's happened for many of us. There are still some people who are going to say country died in the year, whatever.

Logan Miller 22:26
We get that comment all the time, which drives me nuts.

Jenna Weishar 22:29
But it's cool because it's expanded significantly. And I think the learning behind where the country genre was built out of is kind of helping us to realize, like, it's not about a particular guitar, it's not about a particular sound. It's not about this traditional whatever. There's so much that went into building that original country and Western music, and it was already influenced by so much that you can't just hold it to something now that would just be ridiculous. It has to grow, too, and it has to change and if you don't agree with me, I don't really care.

Logan Miller 23:01
Well, I mean, all music has changed. Pop music has changed. Rock music has changed. All music has changed. So I can understand why people appreciate the old country and want it to stay that way. And I love when new artists have influences of traditional country. I think it brings a new sound to it, but to expect it to stay the same, it would have gone stale, and it did go stale for a while. It did go sale for a while. And then I think it was the 90s, when there was, like, a country revolution. I think I just made that up. But when country started to become a lot more popular and more pop, it really kind of expanded the audience, which kept the genre alive totally, 100%.

Owen Riegling 23:42
And like you said, if it just stayed the same forever, it would literally just die. Nothing stays the same forever. It's always evolving as humans.

Logan Miller 23:50
It would suck if it's evolving.

Owen Riegling 23:52
We're always trying to make something new, right? So it's going to happen just the way it is.

Logan Miller 23:59
Exactly. I mean, there are some songs that make it to the radio. I'm like, why is this on the radio? But someone likes it, and that's fine, too.

Owen Riegling 24:07
That's what I love about music. Those songs that are weird. And you're like, why is this? You find that they sometimes grow on you? Because it happens to me. I'm like, what is this.

Logan Miller 24:20
Going to say? Walker name.

Jenna Weishar 24:21
Fancy, like, ridiculous. That song should have died in a corner. I love it, and it's catchy, and I can hear it in my head sometimes, and I hate that for me. But everybody I freaking love that song has a life of its own.

Logan Miller 24:36
I hate it. The first, like, ten times I heard it, and then I was just kept hearing it on Tik Tok. And then now I love it.

Owen Riegling 24:41
That song was definitely built for TikTok. They're like, this is going to be big, and it is huge. And think about how many more songs that's going to influence an artist. They're like, this is what's going to happen, and it's going to create this whole, like, you know what I mean? That's just how it is.

Jenna Weishar 25:05
Speaking of Tip Taco, you put this really dope, like, 1 minute of John Mayer on there, and I'm not the only one who wants to hear full cover.

Owen Riegling 25:15
But we can do that.

Jenna Weishar 25:17
Please deliver.

Owen Riegling 25:18
We can make that.

Jenna Weishar 25:18
That was dope. Have you heard of Logan, or are you a fake fan?

Logan Miller 25:24
How dare you. But no, I haven't heard it.

Jenna Weishar 25:29
It's actually quite good. It's pretty consistent, too. I texted you when I found your Tik Tok. I was like, I've just got here.

Owen Riegling 25:42
I got to post some more videos on there.

Jenna Weishar 25:44
Yeah, grow that interaction space.

Owen Riegling 25:47
I don't know what to post on there. I'm just trying to think of stuff because I feel like Tik Tok is, like, huge right now. Everybody's posting on there, right? Yeah, but I don't know. I'm not the type of person to, like, I'm not good at thinking of what to post. I can't think of something that's going to be catchy or something that's going to blow up. I just can't.

Logan Miller 26:07
Well, thirst traps always work.

Owen Riegling 26:09
Thirst traps. I see you're doing some TikTok stuff there, Logan.

Logan Miller 26:17
You were going to say you've seen me doing some thirst traps. You have not.

Owen Riegling 26:21
I don't even know what a thirst trap is.

Logan Miller 26:23
Well, we don't have to go there. Yeah, I'm enjoying TikTok. I mean, I spent the majority of the pandemic just scrolling through TikTok, and then I was like, I need to do something productive with my life, and maybe instead of just scrolling, maybe I should contribute and try to grow the front porch audience on there. I don't know. I tried a few things, and then we kind of came up with some ideas for some features, and it's super fun. I really like it.

Owen Riegling 26:51
Yes.

Jenna Weishar 26:51
Awesome.

Owen Riegling 26:52
It's a great way to grow the business, you know what I mean? It's a great way to grow the page. There's so many people on TikTok. There's so many country music fans on TikTok. If you can find a market on TikTok, I think it's probably well worth your time.

Jenna Weishar 27:03
If you can shoot a narrow and hit the right algorithm, it's a good thing.

Logan Miller 27:08
Yeah. There's, like, a whole lot of luck involved. What is your relationship with social media, Owen?

Owen Riegling 27:13
Not good at it. That's going to be my New Year's resolution. Be better at social media. Try to.

Jenna Weishar 27:19
That's the opposite of everybody else. Everybody else is like, I need to get off. I need to scroll less. I need to set timers on my social media, and you're just like, I need to find my way.

Owen Riegling 27:29
There not that I'm not on it all the time. I'm always scrolling, and it's just, like, meaningless. I pick my phone up, and I've deleted it so many times and delete it, and it's not on my phone for, like, two weeks, and it clears my head, and then I get it back, and then it's right back to just, like, picking my phone up, going through Instagram every five minutes. It's insane, but I'm not good at actually posting stuff on there. That's something that I want to work on, like, maybe trying to post something every day or. You know what I mean? I've told myself that before, and it lasts, like, four days, and then I'm done.

Logan Miller 28:06
Yeah. Social media has an interesting space in the music industry, in every industry, I guess. But artists are just, like, expected to be there all the time in order to get those streams. And I don't know, it seems exhausting for an artist.

Owen Riegling 28:21
Yeah, for sure. But I guess that's just the way you've got to be in today's music industry. I think it's just as much about marketing yourself as it is. Being a good musician kind of sucks.

Logan Miller 28:33
Did they teach you any marketing or any social media stuff in school, or is it all based on audio and production?

Owen Riegling 28:42
All based on mostly just audio.

Jenna Weishar 28:45
You don't feel anything about social media in your business program?

Owen Riegling 28:49
Oh, maybe business. Like I said, I didn't go to very many classes.

Jenna Weishar 28:52
You probably did and you missed it.

Logan Miller 28:54
No, but I mean, specifically for the music industry. It's the same radio school. Still. Apparently they don't teach you anything digital or anything like social media or marketing, really. And it seems like it's almost a bit of a disservice to the artist.

Jenna Weishar 29:08
Yeah, because what artists out of the gate can afford to hire somebody to manage their social platforms and market them and pay for PR. That's crazy.

Owen Riegling 29:15
Yeah. I think having a good personality and not being afraid to show it on social media is, like a really good quality to have. That's what people connect with. You know what I mean?

Jenna Weishar 29:25
We can set your goal for next year. Putting your personality on the Internet, maybe.

Owen Riegling 29:30
Who knows? I mean, I don't really have a good personality. I'm just kind of quiet. I don't really say much. Yeah, I'm going to try to. Maybe you'll see some more posts from me in the new year.

Jenna Weishar 29:38
We won't hold you to it if you don't, though.

Owen Riegling 29:39
All right. Yeah, you should hold me to it, actually. Maybe that'll right.

Jenna Weishar 29:42
Never mind accountability.

Owen Riegling 29:44
I get texts from you every day. I need a post today on Come on.

Logan Miller 29:47
That's the actual goal of this podcast is just to make Owen post on social media every day, every week, from the hearing out, we're going to call you out.

Jenna Weishar 29:56
We're going to put you as a collaborator on every single post that we put on the Internet. So you have to post it, too, even if it's just not even remotely related. That's the alternative. You posted about yourself or you post what we're doing and you become like a channel for our purposes.

Owen Riegling 30:11
That sounds good. Sounds good.

Jenna Weishar 30:15
Okay, let's talk a little bit about your music. We had your EP. Well, we had Smoke Man, and then we had your EP, and then we had Part of Me. You released that early this year, right? I'm trying to put the timeline back together. I kind of forget. But you haven't put anything out recently.

Owen Riegling 30:34
Wait, I released the EP in Part of Me in 2021. That's the only song I've released this year.

Jenna Weishar 30:43
I actually bragged to the locals. When I had your EP via voice notes or whatever you sent me, I was like, hey, look what I got. Because everybody's like, I want to beat click. And I'm like, look what I got.

Owen Riegling 30:54
Yeah.

Logan Miller 30:54
Jenna really loves being the first to have things.

Jenna Weishar 30:56
I am obsessed with having it.

Logan Miller 30:58
First, we'll get some songs to the front porch inbox and she's like, can you send it to me? I want to hear it.

Jenna Weishar 31:05
Yeah, we got one yesterday. And I was like, the number of people that have heard this is so small. I feel so cool. That's what I live for.

Logan Miller 31:12
That's awesome, Jenna just love to be preferential treatment.

Jenna Weishar 31:19
That's not easy.

Owen Riegling 31:20
Ahead of the curve.

Jenna Weishar 31:21
You didn't have those friends who are like, have you heard the song? I listened to them first. I'm the first one to hear it. And I was just like, not. I was quiet, but I was like, I heard that three fucking months ago. Where have you been? I was like, Actually, I'm not the person, but I'm like, I heard it first. I totally heard it first. And now I'm just like, I get to hear it first. That's the big, greatest joy of this job is hearing things first. Listening.

Owen Riegling 31:49
I know what you're saying. There's a lot of bands or people that I listen to that are just starting out. And I'm like, this is awesome. And then everybody else comes, and then it's like their thing and said, no, this is my thing. I know it actually happened. There's a couple of bands. Do you know who Kalio is? Kind of. Maybe you don't know who that is.

Logan Miller 32:11
No. And now I feel like Jenna is really upset that she doesn't know who it is.

Jenna Weishar 32:15
I'm actually kind of upset. Why aren't you passing me these wrecks?

Owen Riegling 32:19
Yeah, maybe that's how you say his name. I may have said his name wrong, but I've been listening to that artist for a long time. And then my buddy last night were listening to it. I was like, no way. They're telling me, have you heard this song? I'm like, yeah, man, I've heard this song. Don't worry about it.

Jenna Weishar 32:33
Don't worry about it.

Logan Miller 32:34
I think that's why Jenna and I get along so well. We're both kind of like music hipsters. We just like to have our finger on the pulse of what's coming out.

Jenna Weishar 32:44
You can't call yourself a hipster. It has to happen naturally. That's literally the whole point. You just are. You can't just claim yourself to be a hipster. Owned a hipster. He heard it first.

Jenna Weishar 32:55
Literally.

Jenna Weishar 32:56
People are listening to me. I'm a hipster six months later than him. He's wearing an Orange hat. He's literally sitting in a shed right now. That is hipster as fuck if I ever heard it.

Owen Riegling 33:06
Is that the definition of a hipster right there or what?

Jenna Weishar 33:08
I just made it up. Yes, period. It is.

Owen Riegling 33:11
Yeah.

Logan Miller 33:12
I don't even know if there even is a definition of a hipster.

Jenna Weishar 33:14
That's the whole point.

Logan Miller 33:17
I'm so annoyed with this conversation right now.

Jenna Weishar 33:24
All right, back to your action. What's up? What's going on next year? What are you making right now? What have you been working on? You said your new sounds or your new stuff is going to have a new sound. A little bit you're really excited about it. Give us a tease.

Owen Riegling 33:34
I'm not going to release anything until I know it's like what I want it to be, because that's something that I have done with pretty much everything. I've released it's like I got this song, I'm going to record it, and then I record it, and then I put it out, like, literally the next week, just like, there it is. And then it's too late. It's already out. And I want to just take my time with what I'm doing now, make something that I know I'm going to be proud of because I don't know, it is different, too. It's not necessarily that country, but I don't think smoke, man, that country either. It's kind of like along those lines. You know what I mean? When it's there, I'll send you a sneak peek.

Jenna Weishar 34:07
I bet. I expect that every time from you now. Yeah.

Logan Miller 34:10
That's the only reason why Jenna does this with front Porch. She just wants access to early music.

Jenna Weishar 34:15
That's what I do.

Logan Miller 34:16
And to interview cool people.

Jenna Weishar 34:19
Yeah, that's not you we're talking about other cool.

Logan Miller 34:30
That's freaking rude. For the record, you're a cool person.

Owen Riegling 34:37
Podcast.

Jenna Weishar 34:40
If you've seen Owens, like, live crowd, the people love him. He knows he's cool. It's rowdy. I've seen. I have watched from behind the crowd.

Owen Riegling 34:51
Yeah, we've seen you at Queens Bush. That one gig. Yes, there was that I played.

Jenna Weishar 35:02
I don't remember that one bit.

Logan Miller 35:05
Why? Because you were drunk.

Jenna Weishar 35:06
You probably saw me flat out on the ground. I went from fine to not fine. Couldn't tell you a single song you played other than the first dance. And then I went inside and took a nap. That's how that wedding went for me.

Owen Riegling 35:24
That's all.

Logan Miller 35:27
Wild.

Jenna Weishar 35:28
I don't claim to be.

Owen Riegling 35:30
Yeah. Hopefully now that mobile is kind of over with, we'll get the chance to maybe link up in person at some shows. I want to go to a bunch of shows this year. That's my resolution of mine. Just go to a bunch of live events and go to everything they can.

Logan Miller 35:45
Yeah, same here. I'm so excited for live music to be back.

Jenna Weishar 35:48
Yeah, live shows next year. We're going to all of them.

Logan Miller 35:51
Every single one.

Jenna Weishar 35:53
Yes. Count me in when you tagging along, Betty.

Owen Riegling 35:56
Oh, yeah. I'm totally in. I'm going to a couple here. Coming up, James Barker band, CCMA Weekend Bahamas show. Ariel Posen is opening, and I'm pumped for that. That's the following weekend. Atlanta music.

Logan Miller 36:11
Nice for hot second. I thought you meant you were going to the Bahamas for a show.

Owen Riegling 36:15
No, I'm not going to the destination, but I'm in Ontario.

Logan Miller 36:21
Well, Owen, we're coming to the end here, so where can people find you?

Owen Riegling 36:26
They can find me at Owen Wriggling Music on Instagram, Facebook, all that stuff. I'm on YouTube, too, but I don't think I got a new videos up there right now. Yeah, Instagram is a big one I'm going to be posting every day in the new year.

Logan Miller 36:43
Us and everyone else listening is going to hold you accountable to that one.

Owen Riegling 36:46
All right. Sounds good.

Logan Miller 36:48
Well, thanks so much, Owen.

Owen Riegling 36:49
Yeah, I appreciate you guys having me up. It's been great.

Logan Miller 36:52
Yeah, of course. We'll talk to you soon.

Owen Riegling 36:53
Yes. Cheers, guys.

Logan Miller 36:57
Thanks so much for joining us on the porch with from Porch music. I love talking to artists and digging deep into the world of Canadian country music and I'm so excited you joined. If you liked this episode, please write, review and subscribe to this podcast. That's the easiest way for you to support this show. You may even get a shout out. So we'll see you in a couple of weeks. Next time on the porch on the porch with front porch music is hosted by me, Logan Miller and Jenna Weishar. The theme song was written, produced and performed by Owen Riegling.