Rich
"Music has always been there".
Born a son to two music teachers, Rich Saunders, known professionally as Rich, can’t remember a time when he wasn’t humming along to classic pop-folk songs with his mother or making up silly tunes about his toys as a tot.
The thirty-something introverted musician says music has always been a part of his universe. Whether that’s through his early memories of gathering around his parents as they sang Joni Mitchell classics or when he first started messing around with the widely known production tool for early music makers, GarageBand, and posting his work on the antiquated social media platform, Myspace.
It wasn’t until his early high school days that Rich considered his passion as a potential full-blown career. For the next four years, his parents enlisted him in classical piano lessons. He hated practicing though. Instead he found he loved learning about various vocal styles and techniques, which is why he joined every choir he could find — jazz, classical, soul. His hand was in it all.
“Music has always been a part of my life,” he told me during a Zoom call. He glances off screen as he reminisces, speaking slowly as he chuckles. “Those early experiences seep into my music-making almost daily.”
With inspirations ranging from the Icelandic singer-songwriter, Björk, to early 2000s RnB princess, Brandy, Rich’s talent was beginning to span as wide as his vocal appetite.
By his latter college days, Rich was both talented and trained enough to join the vocal trio most people know him from; Thirdstory. This soulful boyband of sorts is known best for its rich harmonies. According to Rich, those very harmonies made their 2014 formation a no-brainer.
“We all got in a room together and immediately found that we could sing harmonies really well together. It just worked,” he said as he nodded to my knowing smile. “It felt like an artist boot camp. I learned so much. It was like artist university for me.”
In almost no time, the three — Rich, Ben Lusher and Elliot Skinner — were hitting the road with industry big names like Tori Kelly and Chance the Rapper, giving Rich his first insider perspective of life as an artist.
“It felt like an internship,” he joked.
Under Chance’s direction, the group released their first full album, ‘Cold Heart’, in 2018. It features classic hits like ‘G-Train’, a subtle nod to Brooklyn’s often unreliable and highly niche G-train, and ‘Grows Old’, one of their most popular releases to date.
Despite their early success and growing fanbase, Thirdstory hit a snag in 2019 when they were “sat on” by a major label company. The group was signed to Verve Records, a division of Universal Music Group, who currently leads talents like jazz’s modern golden boy, Jon Batiste, and Samara Joy.
According to Rich, their connections with artists like Chance the Rapper were their lifeline during these moments as the Hip-hop artist decided to not only keep them on but take them on tour.
“One thing I really appreciated about Chance’s whole team was keeping things completely independent. That was such a breath of fresh air in this industry. I found it so beautiful that it was just him and his friends creating music that they wanted to put out into the world,” Rich recalled, noting his admiration for musicians who maintain their production integrity despite the pressure record labels can put on creators.
After five years of striking melodic gold, Thirdstory made the heartbreaking decision to call it quits and pursue solo careers. Rich said their breakup is a lot less dramatic than most people think.
“Even before forming, the three of us knew we wanted to pursue solo careers and albums. Thirdstory was always a temporary project,” he confessed.
He delivered this heartbreaking news matter-of-factly, as if Thirdstory was nothing special or a group not worth remembering.
But why would he fret when he had tons of lyrics, songs and projects in his pocket?
Rich quickly pivoted from being a honey-smooth crooner in a trio to focusing on his electronic-pop duo, Refs, made up of himself and producer Zach Lipkins. According to the vocalist, Refs was an ongoing project that began before Thirdstory. The pair unconventionally met on Craigslist when Rich first moved to Brooklyn. Fans were digging the duo, but even better, TV crews and film productions including tech giant, Apple, featured their tunes. Rich said key moments like this “kept the ship sailing.”
No stranger to musical collaborations, Rich would never put himself in a box. In fact, he thrives on the idea of limitless ease and weightless effort. He’s worked in a trio. Produced in a duo. And now, he is primarily releasing music as a self-proclaimed ‘cloud soul’ artist, looking to evoke weightlessness through motivational lyricism.
“I hope listeners feel inspired. I hope they feel maybe a little more calmer than when they started listening. I hope it might feel like a therapy session,” he told me when asked what he’d like to be remembered for as a musician. “I want people to face the feelings they’re afraid to face.”
One of his most recent projects is evidence of that resolved bravery. ‘Foggy Morning’, an album written primarily at Mason Jar Music, a Bed-Stuy recording studio, tells deeply personal stories of daily living.
He said the creation of this album followed a simple rhythm. Nick, a friend and producer, would sit around a keyboard and ‘noodle’ around for a few minutes before taking clips of that noodling and cutting it up digitally to form a beat. Rich would then start thinking of melodies and lyrics that could accompany the base of the song.
“Gradually a song would come out,” he shared, stating the song would be three-quarters finished before either thought to alter a production detail. Together, the pair could churn out two to three demos a day.
Rich, head of lyrics for the album, often used real-life lows to create art. One of the songs on the album, ‘Cry on the Train’, was written about a time his mother shared what he thought was a sad story in passing as she was heading to drop him off for a train.
“I held in my emotions as she was telling me the story but, as soon as I got on the train, I just started bawling. I wrote those lyrics as I was bawling on the train. They came before I even had music,” he said. “I was in the studio with Nick and we started creating this beat that was a slower pace that kind of sounded like a train. It just felt like the right place to tell this story about my mom.”
His music is the best place for his vulnerability.
“One of my favorite albums is by Björk. When I listen to that album, I can’t help but think of vulnerability. It’s just so intimate. It’s almost heartbreaking how intimate it is. I strive to bring that level of heartbreaking intimacy into my music.”
With a journey far from simple, Rich continues to create songs that first make him proud and second connect with fans.
He’ll release ‘Foggy Morning’ on April 2 and then perform in LA on April 3.
He’s sung plenty of songs throughout his career but, his most important metaphoric tune is one of preservation and determination.
“I have moments of doubt almost daily, but I think what I am constantly telling myself is to keep creating. Keep putting it out there. That’s all you can do,” he said with a smile. “You have to just leap.”