I go by Ricky Lake - I’m a musician based in San Francisco, California. I was first inspired to record music in high school while living in Nashville, Tennessee. From there, my passion for it only grew. After moving to The Bay, I was lucky enough to meet Patrick Brown and Tiffany Wilson over at Text Me Records, who opened doors for me to not only expand my career as a musician but to explore new sounds and genres I had never been around before.

 It was with Text Me Records that I was first introduced to Bobby Renz. We started working together a lot, either at Different Fur Studios in the Mission District or towards Daly City at Bobby’s own studio. He produced a few songs on my debut album “Last Summer Sucked” and our bond only became more solidified from there. We actually finished up this song the week that Covid lockdown started in 2020. The hook had been giving us mad problems - We couldn’t figure out what would really fit. But we knew the verses, the beat, and the vibes of the song were on point. Finally Bobby recorded himself singing something as a reference and sent it over to me. I tried to sing it myself but I soon realized the recording he’d made should just be the hook as is. This goes to show the kind of musical friendship Bobby and I created. We were (and still are) truly friends when we made this track and we worked together by bouncing ideas off each other, shedding our egos and letting our ears take control. 

If our memory isn’t failing us, Bobby and I both took a little bit of mushrooms before we started working on this song. For some reason my mind found itself at a 1980’s house party, surrounded by narcotics, amazing food, loud colorful clothing, and beautiful women. And it was this vibe that became the inspiration. This was the sparking point for the creative flow that would become the lyrics for “Scorched”. My favorite line of the song is probably: “I’m glad I wasn’t there - That police raid like Counterstrike - Smoked a Parliament and thought about the afterlife”. It captures the constant contradictions my life has consisted of. That time off Charlotte Pike in Nashville when the house I’d been selling weed out of got raided by the Sheriffs office - but luckily I wasn’t there because I’d recently made amends with my mom and moved back home. The fact that we are here one second and gone the next - but in the time we still exist we find ourselves thinking of “what ifs” and “what comes next?” instead of existing purely in the moment. This song is my ode to doing just that: not only existing in the moment, but appreciating every moment you have when you’re still free, breathing, and able.