Riker Lynch on Moving From R5 to Riker and the Beachcombers

Hey. How's it going?

It's going, you know, hanging in there.

We're happy to have you back on Young Hollywood. A little different this time.

Yeah, I know, right? Normal studio. Thanks for having me though. I'm happy to be here as well. I got my coffee, feeling good.

You've been up to in quarantine.

Um, lots of writing. Um, and you know, a lot of people think writing songs, which I've been kind of dabbling in a little bit, but I've actually been writing uh screenplays.

Oh.

Yeah, I directed my first short film last year. And just put it up on YouTube uh just a little thing and uh I so I've been writing another one that I'm hopefully going to shoot as soon as uh I'm allowed to.

Oh, that's so exciting though. I assumed songs. I'm not going to lie. I assumed you just met songs.

Yeah, you know, I for some reason I just don't find uh songwriting very intriguing for me. Um I I would rather have people that I think are really good songwriters kind of do it and then I can kind of construct it and work it into fit my realm, you know, changes a lot of lyrics uh usually. but Yeah, for the most part I I love writing um, I love screenplays. I'm a I'm a big movie buff. So I'm just uh yeah, I'm sort of transitioning into director world, which is exciting.

That is exciting. And is there any tea a little bit of hint of what you're writing about that you can spill?

Um, I'll say it takes place on Halloween.

Okay. Well, that's fun because the costume, that's a good time to do it.

Yeah, so it's a, you know, it's a comedy for sure. There's a little bit of a romance and it's just fun because I'm an actor as well. So I I write a character in for myself and I have a lot of actor friends and we actually uh over over quarantine, we actually have had a table read on Zoom with um some of the cast, some were obviously sort of testing out and uh testing the waters to see if they could play the part. but my buddy Kurt Mega from Glee, who I met on Glee years ago, uh really, really good friend of mine. He came to my wedding and everything. Um he's going to play the other lead apart from me and he was so funny. I just was it was the table read on Zoom was hilarious.

I can't even imagine how Yeah, just wait till you guys are in person together.

Yeah, it was it was truly funny and and so fun. So I've been doing that and um lots of sunshine walks just through the neighborhood. Just trying to keep my immune system good with some nice sunshine and vitamin D, you know.

Mhm.

Um, yeah, and swimming, I've been swimming a lot.

Okay, so the the song Escape from quarantine that you're about to drop, was that was filmed right at your house. That's your pool.

That's my parents' house actually. So, um, so we were supposed to be on tour. I was supposed to be out on tour with my brother's group, the the Driver Era, like this whole year, pretty much. And so that whole tour got postponed and rescheduled. So, uh, I moved out of my house. My wife and I, we were like, oh, well, we're we're touring, so let's kind of travel through the tours. Like literally we were supposed to be in Greece right now. Um, and you know, the whole thing just rescheduled and postponed. So yeah, I moved out of my house. So I've been living with my parents.

Mhm. How's that how's that been going?

Honestly, I love it. Um, I have really great relationships with my parents. Um, like my dad and I make coffee together in the morning. We go on a walk. My um, my mom and I love watching series and movies together. So actually yesterday we just watched just for uh walk down memory lane. We watched the uh R5 Live at the Greek DVD, which came out in 2015, I think, 2016. It Oh my gosh, just watching that was just like the memories that like shot back into my head was insane.

Oh my gosh. Well, how your mom reacting to it? What was she saying?

Oh, she was like, I bring, she was like, take me back. Because we were all like, you know, just early twenties and yeah. and late teenagers. And so we are all kind of babies still and just, you know, not entirely sure what we were doing, still figuring it out. But it was such a huge tour. I mean, we played the Greek Theater. Like that is a huge venue. Like I don't even like looking back, I didn't even realize how huge it was until now.

So nice that you have like time, because you wouldn't have probably normally done that if you would like life was all normal and everything. So it's cool to like reminisce and kind of bring that all back.

It was great. It was uh it's so nice to sort of it's it's good to kind of remember like where you've been, you know, where you come from and um, you know, that was uh it was such a huge part of our lives and the fact that so many of those fans have like transferred over into the Driver Era and Yeah. Beachcombers and all of our, you know, Ross and I's acting projects as well. I mean, we we've grown with this really dedicated fan base and um, that's the craziest thing to me. I I cannot express my gratitude enough for that. It's truly amazing.

Mhm. And now we're here, Escape from quarantine dropping. What what was it like filming the video like while you're at your house and like the pool and just keeping it in a very close space. Like what was the inspiration behind doing it?

Um, well, the inspiration was I was out here walking around the pool. Just playing acoustic guitar. Um I think I had like a couple of acoustic performances kind of like on Zoom and like live chat stuff coming up. And so I was just kind of practicing. And I was walking around the pool and I just all of a sudden my director brain clicked on and I was like, oh, if we could just film this and then like pass this way and like have all this movement. And I was like, it could be a it could be a one take. I'll I'll tell you one funny story. So we had six bottles of champagne only and each take took one bottle. So we had six takes. six takes. That was it. To get it. Yeah. And so I think it was the fourth bottle. So we had done three takes and we're like, all right, that's pretty good. You know, we're fine tuning timing little things. And I'm walking back to towards the chair where I'm going to sit next to my skeleton and Rocky's going to hand me the bottle of champagne. And I'm walking, I'm looking at Rocky and he pops the champagne like way early. And we're in the middle of the take. So I kind of tilt away from the camera so you can't see my voice and I'm like, get another one. So he runs into the garage where we have the fridge of the champagne, grabs another one, has to take the the metal aluminum thing off, unscrew the thing and have it ready for me to pop. And he got he got the timing. It was crazy. And uh that's not

I bet you're just like going through like doing it and you're like, oh my God, like just dying on the inside. Like is it gonna happen? Is it gonna happen?

Yeah. And then there was like times where like I'm diving onto the tube to try to get to the other side of the pool and I'm like almost falling off. It was it was fun. But we got it. I think it was literally the last take, I think, is the one we used. So we got it on the last one.

That's all that matters.

Yeah.

It's been one of your favorite songs to perform and write.

Oh, uh, I mean, something very, very special about my girl Rita for me. Um

That's a vibe and a half. I love that one. Even the music video. It's so vibey. It's so fun. It just makes you want to be in tanning on the beach.

Yeah, that's the whole point of this project really, is just to make people want and feel like they're on vacation. But yeah, there's something about that song, like the first time I ever played it, I was opening for um Oh my gosh, I can't remember the name. I was opening for these guys in um San Diego. It'll come to me. Um and I it was the first time I ever first time I ever played the song live and it was just acoustic. And uh somebody grabbed me right immediately when I finished the set. They were like, hey, that Margarita song, that's your song. That's it. That's your that's your Yeah, it's it's the story about how it came about with my my friend John, another guy from Glee, John Hall, um, really good friend of mine, uh, you know, he was just like, I got this idea and I think it'd be perfect for you. He's like, it's my girl Rita, but it's saying like Margarita. And I was just like, let me let me put you with my producers and just work it out, man.

What is one thing you're most looking forward to doing when this is all over?

Um, skydiving for sure.

Is that Done before?

I have. Yeah. I've done um, I'm almost A-licensed, so I can jump by myself. I've done uh what was the number I was? I think I've done 15, 15 skydives. So the first one was with you know, tandem, so you're attached to somebody coming down and then the next seven were with instructors. And then my eighth skydive was totally solo.

Is that so scary? That has to be so scary.

Yeah, no, the right up is twice as scary because with with instructors, you have like, all right, they're asking you all these questions, making sure that you're prepared to do what you need to do. And when you do that first solo, nobody asks you anything. You're just in the plane. You know, the instructors have other students that they're worried about. So that was pretty freaky. But the coolest part was after you get a certain level with uh instructors, you can I my dad is uh D-licensed. So my dad has over a thousand jumps. So I can actually jump with my dad and we jumped uh together for the first time. That and there's a couple of photos on my Instagram, I think of it. It's oh my gosh, it was that was an experience, man. Like jumping out of the plane, getting stable and then my dad was like, my dad's pro. So I'm really excited about that and um going to the movie theater. I love my wife and I go to the movie theaters like once a week.

Really? That's what you guys love to do together?

Oh my gosh, yeah. Date night, movie theater, like all the time. And so I'm definitely missing that.

Oh, that's so true. Is that close? Oh, there you go. Sorry, my brother's trying to Riley's trying to FaceTime me. It just came over my iPad.

No, you're good.

Well, no, we just want to, honestly, if you need to take the call because I just wanted to find out everything about the escape from quarantine video dropping and what you've been up to in quarantine. That's pretty much it.

You know, working on these screenplays. Um, I recorded a new song for Right on the Beach Combers on Monday and um, going to do another one uh or touching up touch-ups on that this coming Monday. So

When will that jump? Is there a date for that?

That's coming out as soon as I get that one finished because that one's called Remedy and that is uh that's kind of, it's like the song's about I'm I'll be the remedy for everything that's going on and everything that's bad. So I really want to get that out as soon as possible because I think it's kind of relatable to what's going on and people just, you know, struggling. I'm even struggling like I've since I was 18, I've had a plan. I'm doing this that's going to lead me to this. And we're doing this, we're doing this tour. I'm shooting this movie. I've had a plan. I've had it all, you know, like scheduled out. And I right now I don't have a plan. It's so hard. like no plan. I'm freaking out.

Yeah. Yeah. That's exciting the song dropping Remedy. We'll keep an eye out.

Yeah, so as soon as it's done, it's coming out.

That's going to be a good time. That's going to be a good time. We'll keep an eye out and yeah, thank you so much for talking to us today.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me anytime.