About: KTowns
Born April 16th, 1996 in Evanston, IL, and having begun studying and practicing at the age of five, KTowns, loved music before he even went to school. His father's disdain for music after having been a musician before him almost intensified his thirst for more, with his love of singing blossoming between school choirs and good, old-fashioned karaoke. Experimenting with instruments lead him to learn to play piano, guitar, bass (guitar and upright), and cello, but also to play the bassoon at an advanced level for the duration of his time as a student. He eventually grew to graduate New Trier High School in 2014 and receive a near-full-ride scholarship for music performance from the University of Iowa. There, he faced newfound realities of adulthood as well as many demons. He was no stranger to the weight of the world, but this was the first time in his life it weighed so heavily, and he dropped out in under a year, leaving in April of 2015. The events surrounding that time took a part of him away forever, and to his dismay, he hasn't picked up a bassoon since then.
He spent his next chapter re-centering and re-focusing himself. He worked his way through many consequences of his prior failures and poor decisions, and grew as a person, discovering how to accept what happened, how to move forward better from it, and how to fulfill his hollowness. It was so obvious, but he had never put it into words before, so he officially set his goal: to make his career doing what he loved, creating and performing music, so he could do it forever and always. He worked hard to handle every aspect of his life after that, working heavy overtime at work, working out after work, and working on his music any time he could in between. In that time he attempted an ill-fated punk fusion collaboration with his good friend still to this day, Sir-J, and finally started working as his current solo moniker, KTowns. He created project after project to experiment with his sound, most of which were never and will never be heard. However, as much progress as he had made, his demons followed him. He found his way into multiple marijuana possession charges in that time, and later his first DUI charge in Chicago, winter of 2017, threw a wrench into his momentum. He faced consequences over weed, he faced consequences even over a dismissed drunk case, but he kept his stride and managed to barely miss a beat in his quest to center and focus his energy and motivation. Reflecting on the implications of that legal-studded track record, he realized he needed to make a change. Weed helped him work through problems without bias or frustration, and alcohol was something he couldn't seem to escape with his social circle. Under a year later, roughly three years after his college disgrace, he had finally saved up enough money and ambition to make a move. Somewhere he could continue to grow with more peace and tranquility and less distraction, more clarity and perspective and less social obligation. So in August of 2018, he began his chapter in Colorado.
With finally enough freedom of mental focus and time available, he settled in to originally Greeley, CO, shortly thereafter Loveland, CO, and got to work, setting up his new space with the best equipment he could afford and finally focusing on a multi-track EP. His debut project, "Playin' with Myself", came out just under a year later, in July of 2019. His classical concert training in tow, he lets his love of all genres detail his style, but at the core you'll almost always find his favorites - rap/hip-hop layered with rock/punk/metal, with notable alignments to EDM, as well as the occasional reggae and jazz. Of course, to call it even Lo-Fi is generous. He had yet to work in a professional space with high-quality gear, and it's evident in his mastering, as is the trepidation with which he delivers his first real musical endeavor since his college burnout and his first ever hip-hop attempt. For now, he wants to let it sit there so you can thoroughly hear his growth from then to his current work, though he is planning a 10 year anniversary re-release with better mixing and mastering, better recording quality and delivery, and of course bonus tracks! It was right around that time that he met Travis, a.k.a. L(of)8, and started working on what would soon become their staggeringly impressive partnership, KLOV8 (pronounced "clove", 2019-2023). That was also right about when he started meeting other local artists, local promoters, local venue and business owners, etc. and started creating his network for the moves that would follow. He started attending CO-OP open mic sessions hosted by Dugan and Nick Sanville at Hodi's Half Note in Fort Collins (later closed during COVID) and Moxi Theater in Greeley regularly over his years in Colorado to get his performance chops up, to catch up and keep up with other underground artists in the scene, as well as to stay honed and polished once he had gotten locked in a solid level of performance quality again. In the later stages of the CO-OP series, he even went on to headline a few of those showcases he came into as a relative rookie. He has performed almost non-stop in that time, appearing quite often in Denver, Greeley, Johnstown, Fort Collins, and his home base of Loveland, but also out of state as well, seeing Salt Lake City, UT for a number of festivals and many of the nearby states when he toured with Stoner Jordan. In that same time, he has been booked to share the stage with other notable names like SCUM, Kutt Calhoun, Wrekonize, MAYDAY!, A.F.R.O., R.A. The Rugged Man, Godemis and UBI of Ces Cru, Rakim, Eternal of the Wu-Tang Killa Beez, Token, and many other incredible local talents. Since 2020, it's been almost all about performing and single releases, with a lot of time and effort going into collaborations for an upcoming mixtape series, the tour and festivals and other major shows in that time, building a label and promo business of his own to finance his career, as well as a forever unreleased KLOV8 album.
His few chronologic releases during that time all mark significant leaps in his writing quality, his recording quality, and his mixing quality, though he plans on doing the same 10 year re-release with his second EP "Beat UP" dropped under a year after his first (May 2020) for similar reasons to the first. His "Anno Domini Legion Mixtape" series was due to release Volume I out of V a while ago, but he has changed that expectation to "eventually" given struggles with the follow through of collaborators, as well as the demons that follow him to this day.
He dealt with his first CO charge and only DUI conviction shortly before releasing his second EP (part of the reason resources were tight when it came time to finish that project and why he plans on re-releasing it). It made it difficult to put investment into his process, which largely impacted his multi-track mindset into settling for a more disjointed mixtape playbook. Once more, he wrestled his identity, but fortunately for him it crushed his wallet more than his spirit. Still able to see his worth, he went on to land all those aforementioned big-time events, put a lot of good writing into action for a lot singles in his mixtape series, and continued to hold his own for himself and his brother, Manny, without whom he couldn't have lived up to a lot of what he set out for. And when he leaned on his brother too much and it became critical, he landed a gig closer to his goal of building a career around his greatest passion than ever - albeit making regular income as a local KJ instead of performing, but it will suffice for the time being.
Almost ironically, what goes up must come down, and the devil on his shoulder lead him to another DUI charge in June of 2022, just months after he took that job. While the case was dismissed over improper procedure and insufficient reasonable suspicion, the DMV revoked his license for that one, and that was the one that broke the camel's back. He rounded out the year-long 2022 schedule for his business, Lyrical Desecration, and practically retreated once it was over, going back to a base functionality of work, eat, sleep, reflect, repeat. A bundle of negative emotion, self-loathing, and self-doubt resurfaced. A plethora of signs that told him he wasn't good enough stood before him, and he finally started believing them again. He faced demons he believed he'd left behind all over again. It was old, and he was tired of it. And he felt that all his friends, in or out of the industry, were jumping ship too. That played a huge part in the last year of his inactivity, his least productive and least inspired self in the last 7 years. Yet, he realized he can't keep taking years to work through a down swing, so he took it back to the only thing he knows will work every time: his beloved music.
For now, despite his overdue mixtape series still being incomplete, his current main focus is a debut album, "I Hate to Love", to really stamp his style and his identity into the hearts and minds of anyone who listens. Not only will it be a more honest and true project, but he believes it is what he needs to do to get his momentum back. As has been a common goal of his past music, he is using his art as a way of dealing with darkness and heavy feelings, channeling it as a mechanism to work through them, and he hopes to connect to his audience and inspire the means to relate to one another and overcome those obstacles with that very music, almost in a sense of "I got through it before, I'm trying to do it again, you can too". In order to achieve that, he writes his demons into life, tackles difficult emotions with blunt honesty, and wrestles the gripping pressures of the intellectual decline of modern pop culture and the reflective nature of societal standards as an underground artist. And all the while, he still tries to have fun with the art he has grown over so much time to truly appreciate, respect, and admire.
His last 7 year swing of productivity brought him very close to breaking through, and he can't wait to show you all how much farther he can reach with this next chapter! His up and coming music label, Lyrical Desecration, will feature his own music as well as many more of the talented artists he has met and grown to know and love along the way. Hosting events in Denver and Northern Colorado, he always has something going on to stay looped in for. Come back and visit the site to stay tuned in for KTowns and LD updates and announcements!