Diandra Interviews Cannons: Becoming Your Own Dream

How do you become your dream? For most people, that is a question with a material response. I become a singer when I am making millions and selling out world tours. Yet, for Cannons, becoming your dream is moreso a spiritual or behavioral act. With chill, ethereally bent vibes and personalities, they are focused on making a sound that embodies them because music emboldens them, and who does not want what they love to reflect who they are. In our interview, I talk to Michelle and Ryan of the trio, and we discuss making art really does make you see how you make yourself.

Diandra: What has writing love songs taught you about how you love?

Ryan: I think it has definitely taught me to be more aware of red flags in relationships and that no matter how hard a relationship could be, we are all swimming to the same shore and we all want to love and be loved.
Cannons – Fire for You (Official Video)

Diandra: With that same idea, what have you realized are the things that most attract you versus most push you away from a person?

Michelle: Compassion, understanding, good communication skills, and adaptability are very attractive in another person. Something that pushes me away would be rigid thinking. I think rigid minds block success in relationships and creative endeavors.

Diandra: What is the most valuable thing friendship has taught you about life and yourself?

Michelle: Friends are the family you choose and when you choose to develop close friendships, with people who love, respect, and enrich your life, it becomes crystal clear why the right friendships are so important to your wellbeing and success.

Diandra: What are 3 truths about love you feel your music reveals in its story and lyrics?

Michelle: That love is a choice, a decision you make every day. Love is a verb. Love is an action and takes work, and, lastly, love requires being present.
Cannons – Shadows (Official Audio)

Diandra: What is a movie you feel would be a great concept album, and how would you go about converting it?

Ryan: I don’t know but I am going to flip the script, and I am going to tell you what album would be a good movie or Broadway play and that would be Lou Reed’s “Transformer” album.

Me: WHOA! That is really good flipping!

Diandra: When you think of the music you have made since Shadows, where do you see your future sound and themes going?

Ryan: We see it going a little bit towards an organic texture, experimenting with instruments that we have not used in the past, but still channeling what feels right to the core of Cannons.

Diandra; What is your favorite childhood memory with music?

Ryan: One favorite childhood memory would be listening to Kraftwerk, “We are the Robots,” and totally cracking up with how unusual it was to hear a robot singing a song for the first time. Another memory would be creating and recording VHS home videos with Paul and his brothers with black lights and strobe lights to old school, heavy metal songs.
Cannons – Bright Lights (Official Audio)

Diandra: What aspects of your personalities do you, literally, hear in your sound?

Ryan: We are all dreamers, and we try to achieve the most ethereal, chill music landscape for our listeners because we want to be taken somewhere. We want an escape from reality and be taken out of our element.

Diandra: What are 5 facts about you that you say, “If you don’t know this, you don’t know me.”

 Cannons: Michelle’s half Trinidadian and Ryan’s half Armenian.
 Ryan and Paul have been friends since 1992.
 Michelle used to run track for Florida State University
 Ryan’s previous career was a hair stylist.
 Michelle, Paul, and Ryan used to live in the same apartment complex together.

Cannons – Baby (Official Audio)

Diandra: What are 5 songs and 5 films you recommend to stream? What is one thing they all have in common with each other?
Ryan:

Songs:
1. 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins
2. Somebody by Depeche Mode
3. Ashes to Ashes by David Bowie
4. Miami Memory by Alex Cameron
5. I am only sleeping by the Beatles.

Movies:
1. Pulp Fiction
2. Lost Boys
3. The Burbs
4. Indiana Jones
5. Willow
They all make me feel nostalgic and they move me.
Cannons – Love Chained (Official Audio)

Diandra: Who are the people in your life that most keep your “fire” going? What is their best advice for living life?

Ryan: For me, it would be my significant other; she always keeps my fire going and her best advice was always to continue doing what you love and not lose sight of your dreams, “ don’t dream it, be it”- Dr. Frank N. Furter from Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Diandra: What is the sweetest thing someone has done for you, and if you could title that act as a song, what title would you pick?

Ryan: The sweetest thing someone has ever done for me would be my significant other having stuck by my side through thick and thin, and the song’s title would be a hiphop song called, “Thick and Thin” and (I love em’ all).

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