Ricky Montgomery

Ricky Montgomery was born in Los Angeles. His mother was a teacher, and his father was a gaffer.[1] When Montgomery was young, his parents got a divorce,[3] and, in 2005, he and his mother moved to St. Louis, Missouri.[1] At the age of 14, he began to play in various bands.[2] In 2014, he gained a following on Vine, a short-form video service, posting comical original songs.[4] He found the site the day after the app had launched from a CNN news article. He saw the site as a potential "springboard for a possible music career."[3] After finding success with Vine, Montgomery released his first EP, Caught On The Moon.[1][4] Soon after, he dropped out of college and returned to Los Angeles to pursue a musical career.[2]

He has a sister.[3]

In LA, he released his first studio album "Montgomery Ricky" on April 1, 2016.[2][5] Montgomery founded indie band The Honeysticks with a childhood friend of his[6] to experiment musically.[2][4][7] The band name was derived from a snack Montgomery ate every Saturday morning when he was a kid, made of sticks of honey.[3] In 2018, he took the year off from making music and started social media marketing companies to earn more money. By 2020, he considered quitting making music entirely.[2][4] However, in mid-2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, his two singles—Mr Loverman and Line Without A Hook—went viral on TikTok.[2] With his explosion in popularity, he was contacted by "virtually every single major label A&R in a matter of months."[4] In December 2020,[4] after a large bidding war, Montgomery signed with Warner Records.[8]

I think because we had a really traumatizing year, these songs kind of found a moment, because they're all, in their own way, about traumas in my life.

— Ricky Montgomery[6]

Since then, he has remixed two songs in 2021 from his debut album with fellow artists Chloe Moriondo and mxmtoon respectively.[4][6] Montgomery came in contact with mxmtoon after finding her perform one of his songs on the streaming platform Twitch, learning that she had been a fan of his Vine content before it shut down.[4] He found Moriondo from a song cover of Out Like A Light.[9]

Montgomery released his second solo EP, “It’s 2016 Somewhere,” on April 15th of 2022.[10][11] Upon announcement of the EP’s title, Montgomery hinted at more content being released in the near future.[11]