Austin Yoder. When the name comes up, Yoder’s annual appearance at the JV show may come to mind. He’s known for his hilarious stand-up comedy routines and hysterical YouTube videos, but most people wouldn’t expect to hear music from him. Yet, that’s exactly what he just released.
“I’ve always been known as the funny kid and I wanted to be known as the creative kid too,” said senior Austin Yoder.
Austin Yoder has been creating songs with his guitar and computer software over the past year and decided to introduce it via Twitter. Austin and his friends started to hype up the release of the album, My Name Is Yoder. Finally, on August 26, 2016, Austin released the SoundCloud link to his album on Twitter.
“Once he released it everybody was tweeting about it and you could just tell he was so proud of the work… he was always brimming with joy when people talked about it,” said friend Viraj Suri.
Twitter blew up immediately. Austin’s followers created a hashtag, #MyNameIsYoder. The support was instantaneous.
“I’m really really grateful for all the support. It’s just a really great feeling,” said Austin. “It’s been my secret pride and joy. It was something that I didn’t tell anyone. It’s just really nice because it’s something that I’ve been really committed to and it’s been met with a lot of support.”
“I was very proud of Austin because he worked so hard for so long on this. He devoted most of his free time to making these songs,” said Andrew Coulson, a friend of Yoder’s.
The album has ten tracks and they can be found on Austin’s SoundCloud. The album includes these songs:
- Alarm Clock
- Punk Rap
- Sunny
- King of the Castle ft. LloydThe2nd
- Dazed
- Unloved ft. K-Yall
- Home
- Recess ft. Flynn Yoder
- Today Is Going To Be Great
- Long Road
“The whole thing is a combination of a bunch of types of music that don’t normally go together, but what unifies the whole album isn’t a genre, it’s a mood,” said Austin.
Yoder also had other artists featured in three of the songs, including two rappers from the area, K-Yall and LloydThe2nd, and his brother, junior Flynn Yoder.
“I had nothing to do. I didn’t have a project and I always feel like I need to have a project. I’ve always played guitar and I’ve always liked rap music and so I found a way to combine that,” said Austin.
For his song, “Punk Rap”, Austin filmed and edited a music video. The video features Yoder’s siblings and friends.
The George Mason students you may recognize from the video include seniors Ryan Calabrese, Riley Marcus, Eduardo Pacheco, Viraj Suri, Edward Ramos, Andrew Coulson, Christian Miceli, Marvin Majano Contreras, Patrick Lin, Reed Kellett, and junior Flynn Yoder. The video also included a cameo from Austin’s sister, Phoebe Yoder.
The video replicates the very unique vibe of Falls Church. Yoder wanted the album to represent the Little City as he feels like the uniqueness of it hasn’t been represented in this type of art.
“I’ve always wanted some piece of art that represents Falls Church, this leafy suburb with a lot of different types of people. It’s just an odd place… I kind of just want this to be a snapshot of my life,” Yoder said.
Yoder was known as the funny stand-up comedian who performs at every JV show, but he says that now he’d like to change that up. He hinted at performing some of his “punk rap” music at this upcoming JV show.
“I said punk rap, but I wanted to kind of branch off on that a little. What I mean by that is that my album doesn’t really have a traditional genre. It combines lots of genres. All the songs are united by the suburban, outside, Falls Church-y aesthetic. I think music is just expressing moods and I wanted to prove that you don’t need to be confined to a single genre to express a single mood,” Yoder said.
