Meet Salt Lake City's Ritt Momney, a rad band of teenagers making some great music

Ritt Momney are a group of teenagers based out of Salt Lake City in the US, who's latest double single Pollution/Disclaimer came across our ears and boy something just clicked straight away. It's one of the most intriguing pieces of music we've heard all year, and it's crazy to think these guys can't even legally drink where they're from yet. Anyone remember The Unicorns? Well these guys might just be the second coming of that incredible band, and you'd do yourself a favour getting amongst them ASAP:

Tell us about yourselves?

Ritt is a project out of SLC, Utah. I (Jack Rutter) head the project, writing/producing the songs and playing guitar/keys/vocals onstage. Alongside me are Noah Hamula on guitar, Jonas Torgersen on bass, Auden Winchester on keys, and Max Metos on drums. We’re all 17 or 18 years old, and we all met in high school or earlier on so we've been friends for a while. We love playing music together, and this whole experience has been super fun for all of us.

What kinda tunes we talkin’?

Originally, Ritt Momney was meant to be an indie-rock/garage-band kind of thing, so we recorded all but one of our first four songs in a studio as a full band. Since a band hiatus that lasted about a year, I learned to record/produce my own music in my room, giving me the ability to make songs exactly how I want them. The more relaxed, home-recorded, indie pop kind of feel of our three most recent songs is much more natural and honest for me. For future Ritt songs, though, fans can expect us to expand our genre/feel quite a bit. I hate the idea of trying to maintain a certain style, and I'm excited to challenge myself in that way.

Production/writing process:

Most songs begin with a chord progression or riff, usually on the piano, over which I'll write lyrics and a melody simultaneously. Sometimes I really feel the need to write about something specifically, in which case the lyrics come really quickly and easily. Paper News was like that, I wrote the lyrics in like 15 minutes because they were kind of just already there, if you get what I mean. When recording, I always start with the main instrument, either guitar, piano, or some type of keyboard, usually recording vocals simultaneously (I think I sing better when I'm playing an instrument, just cause that's how I always did it earlier on). After that, I track the bass, drums, and synths.

Once everything's recorded well, I start playing around with different sounds/effects. While production is definitely one of my weaker points musically, it'll always be my favorite part of the process. The fact that I'm able to take the time to make a song sound exactly how I want it to is the reason I like our self-produced stuff so much more than our studio-recorded stuff.

Can you tell us about your new single, Pollution/Disclaimer?

The two halves of the song kind of represent two drastically different stages I've gone through. Pollution was written almost a year ago when I was pretty depressed, while Disclaimer was written just a little bit ago, during a period of my life that's been much healthier and happier. I think it's my favorite Ritt Momney release so far, just because it reminds me of how much better I'm doing now.

Any shows coming up?

The Sardines, another Utah band and friends of ours, are having an album release concert at the Velour in Provo and invited us to play with them. Super excited about that, should be a party. In general, though, we're planning on laying off of the shows a little bit to work on upcoming releases.

What’s the rest of the year have in store?

We're working on a full-length LP, currently titled Her And All of My Friends. All of the songs are already written, so all that's left to do is record and produce. This album is super personal to me, and I'm excited to really get to work on it. After an ultra-busy few months with school and work and band business, things are starting to clear up, and spending a bunch of time in front of my computer and my keyboard sounds heavenly.

Where can we hear more of your music?

Our stuff is on all of the major streaming services. Check out our SoundCloud, too, for some acoustic demos of songs to come.

Follow Ritt Momney: FACEBOOK / INSTAGRAM / TWITTER