Rising Stars: Meet SHRiNKRAY

Today we’d like to introduce you to SHRiNKRAY. They and their team shared their story with us below:

SHRiNKRAY simply began as a group of friends making noise in their living room. Originally located right off the campus of SDSU, we took advantage of flexible college schedules and our neighbor’s high tolerance for late night pandemonium to host nightly jam sessions. At the time, we could not even begin to comprehend how impactful this space would be in not only breeding our combined love for music but also embarking us upon a remarkable and rather wonky journey of a lifetime. 

The three members of SHRiNKRAY are Eric Sigler, Hunter Avery, and Zach Brosi. Both Eric and Hunter are San Diego locals, meeting each other at West Hills High School in Santee. Meanwhile Zach hails from small town Illinois, and moved to San Diego to attend SDSU. Eric and Hunter then met Zach through a mutual friend while hanging around SDSU, and we quickly all became devoted friends.

Desiring to take our jams out of the living room, we worked up the courage on a random Friday to lug our gear to the boardwalk of pacific beach and engage in an entirely improvised performance. Both shocked and adrenalized by how well our music was immediately received, we began making these performances a regular Friday occurrence.

Everything seemed perfect. We were great friends with a unique musical style and a growing fanbase. Except we quickly ran into a major issue: We did not have a band name. When people asked what we were called, we would almost always reply with a sarcastic, nonsensical name, usually inspired by inside jokes or objects in our nearby vicinity. We went on with this fantastic escapade all summer of 2021 long, making great connections within the local scene whilst collecting various amounts of rather disheveled street money – all without a band name.

Alas, we eventually found it. The name SHRiNKRAY is inspired by the shared human experience of oftentimes needing objects or even your physical self to be shrunk down into a much smaller version. This feeling can be brought about by numerous mundane and, at times, unusual circumstances. Do you sometimes encounter enraged feelings when circling the block countless times for a parking spot? If only you could shrink down your car to pocket size! Ever standing in the crowd at a packed concert, wanting so badly to fight to the front, you wish you could just shrink down and leisurely stroll your way to the front? Ever just buy too much stuff online? Simple, use a SHRiNKRAY.

SHRiNKRAY, over time, evolved into something much more than a name – it became its own universe. Wanting to provide something more than just the music, we design our shows as experiences, planning everything in fine detail.

This looks like us dressing up in lab coats and “experimenting” upon the patrons of our shows by targeting all their senses through narrative plot-based sets, mythical characters, trippy visuals, and bizarre yet groovy sounds.

Today, you can find SHRiNKRAY performing one of their unique experiences at local venues around town!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

Despite being a rather young band, we have absolutely encountered struggles along our journey.

I (Zach) was unfortunately critically injured last year in a motorcycle accident. Sustaining a brain bleed, I was quickly rushed to Scripps La Jolla emergency room, where I was immediately treated with a craniotomy. Having a rather large chunk removed from my skull, the doctors could not promise my survival, let alone my physical and mental state if I did.

This led to my bandmates desperately hoping I would make it out alive and undoubtedly assumed our days of making music together were finished.

Against all odds, I made a full recovery and am still here making music today. This experience has given me an entirely renewed perspective on my own life, all while teaching me its precious impermanent nature. I am limitlessly grateful for the support and care I received from my medical team, as well as the loving, compassionate nature of my friends and family

– I would not be here without you.

At the same time this was occurring, Hunter was preparing to leave home for an auspicious job opportunity based in Scottsdale. Seeking a fresh start and chance to kickstart his professional career, he left San Diego and began a new chapter in his personal life. This, however, did not mean he was giving up on the band, which he assured us in certainty, but rather ready for a change. Despite admittedly being nervous for this change, we chose to whole-heartedly support Hunter throughout this journey, as above anything he is our friend before bandmate.

When I eventually recovered from my accident, we accepted and tackled this shift head-on. We created new schedules and systems based on our now long-distance circumstances. This looked like meeting weekly over the phone to discuss business and Hunter visiting at least once a month to both practice and spend quality time with each other. Because of our efforts, productivity surprisingly had never been higher, and despite Hunter’s move and my accident, we played our biggest show to date six months later.

I am very proud of how well we adapted to these changes. I believe this speaks volumes to both our passion and drive but primarily to our deep level of friendship. We all grew tremendously from these shared experiences, and now, looking back, I would not change a single thing. As of this past month, Hunter has readily returned to San Diego, and I am back to my normal life since my accident.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work? What sets you apart from others?

A major component of SHRiNKRAY is providing an immersive experience for our audience. We strive to make every show different, and hope fans come to our show with a sense of anticipation for what’s in store this time.

Whether it’s shrinking various items on stage, traveling through time, or losing control of an experimental gorilla; the possibility are endless in the SHRiNKRAY universe. I feel this sets us apart from other groups as we put forth the extra effort to fully engage with our audience. Our main goal in providing these experiences is to captivate fans within the present moment in hopes they forget about any personal struggles – if only just for 50 minutes. Through this process, they become a part of something much bigger than themselves, forming a true community within the endless bounds of music.

Another difference in SHRiNKRAY is the way we go about promoting our shows. Instead of merely putting up posters around town or posting on social media we instead choose to engage in public displays to market our shows. This looks like dressing up our friend in a gorilla suit and chasing us around town or setting up our “broken” cardboard time machine on the beach boardwalk and enlisting San Diegans to help us fix it. Promoting our shows in this nature has proven effective in getting crowds to our shows but more importantly enables genuine connection with the beautiful people of our city. We absolutely love when people come to our shows and tell us: “I’m here because you made me smile with that stunt you pulled at the beach.”

In this age of vast virtual marketing it’s been super refreshing to instead cater to this style of in-person promotion. This sense of authenticity deeply resonates with the SHRiNKRAY brand and is something we are excited to continue cultivating in the future!

Lastly, the most fundamental ingredient to our music is our level of friendship. The chemistry we share on stage could not exist without the connection we’ve cultivated outside of the music. This was seen early on, as onlookers from the beach boardwalk would often comment: “We can tell how good of friends you guys are just from watching you perform.”

Having this relationship with one another has been crucial in our expedition thus far.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?

We have our own secret language called Anglanch – you basically just replace the end of each syllable of a word with “an.” For words with only one syllable, simply say “an.” Remember to provide context clues when speaking to provide clarification.

– Example –

English: “Hi, my name is Zach.”

Anglanch: “Han, man, nam an Zan”

– Example –

English: “Welcome to SHRiNKRAY Laboratories”

Anglanch: “Wancan tan Shrank-ran Lan-bran-tan-rans”

Try it, you’ll get the hang of it after a while!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://shrinkraymusic.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shrinkraylabs/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shrinkraylabs/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@SHRiNKRAYlabs
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/26xO9iNXF7GSm0rG3DsmkW?si=_mFK1affSOSNBazwEt71NA