An updated Electronic Press kit for 2024 music releases.
Beginning in July, I’m releasing the title track and singles off the new album I’ve been working on. Request to use the allocated resources below with a simple DM here in Substack and briefly summarize the indented usage.
Bio
Mark “The Ram” O’Donnell is an independent American musician and visual artist based out of Carlsbad, CA. He can be seen performing original Southern California rock under the stage name, the Ram with a cast of local musicians.
His last album, “Songs of Wanderlust” (2023) was a love letter to the nomadic American heart. In 2024 the themes are closer to home, inspired by friends and family. For more information about the Ram and his music, go to www.TheRamMusic.com
More Information
I currently use DistroKid to get everything out to the streaming platforms, Disco for all sync requests, Bands In Town to list live shows, and Substack for just about everything else.
Q&A
What’s your background?
If my story is a reflection of my surroundings, then the cityscapes we’re talking about are Philadelphia, New York City, Bar Harbor, and San Diego. I was drawn to these cities like a moth to a flame, they represented high adventure to me. They were everything I was not, I was raised a farm boy. Cities tamed my wildness for a time, their great museums, cathedrals, urban architecture, and transit systems set my imagination on fire. From a rural background, going to NYC was the spiritual equivalent to climbing Mount Everest.
While I am made up of all things from the country, America’s cities have housed my dreams and ambitions. Here in lies my path to a life in art and music. Probably the first steps were on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Followed by a walk through the living heart and the planetarium at the Benjamin Franklin Museum. Seeing Prince’s Purple Rain tour at the Spectrum didn’t hurt the journey.
What’s your interests?
Finding inspiration is a constant exploration of people and the world around me. Like most people my interests change and evolve. Art and music are just expressions of who I am and what I see. Surfers have the physicality of ballet dancers, and draw lines on waves like visual artists. When we find inspiration, it’s only natural to share it with others. To tell a story. What better way to share our experience with others than through music, art, and film? For me, it’s an easy choice, and today the tools we have at our disposal puts us in a creative renaissance of invention.
Any discipline we choose to undertake opens a community, as well as universe of potential learning. Those of us who are students at heart, can get lost in the technical underbelly of our pursuits. Right now, my life revolves around snowboarding and sound engineering. 10 years ago, my mind was preoccupied with surfing and software development. The only thing guaranteed is perpetual change.
What was the impetus to this year’s songs?
This year especially, everything started with the feeling you get being home and being around family. It’s a good feeling. Everything I do tracks back to building and being an active part of a vibrant community. I come from a large American Irish Catholic family from the East Coast, you can call it what you will, a clan, a tribe, a gang, a mob, a red hot mess (laughing), but it’s given me a sense of belonging to something bigger than myself.
Family has taught me that I’m only as good as those around me, we help each other out and we rise together. See the best in your surroundings, and be the best for those who depend on you. This translates directly to being a bandleader and taking care of the musicians that help me in bringing my own music to life. It makes it easy to look at each song as a thank you for being able to live a good life, and to play music with interesting human beings who just so happen to rip on their instruments.
Everything
About the Song
The title track of the Ram’s new album ‘Everything’ was written close to his family home, in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Surrounded by friends and family, it was in between holiday celebrations when he would settle down and get to work writing. Thanks to the room, in the old Pennsylvania log cabin house, a new album will be released in 2024.
Quote
I put pen to paper in the front room of the old family farmhouse, where my brother Tommy left me a guitar to use while I was in town. In that room, lives the memories of my ancestry and the friendly ghosts of my past. So much has happened in that house that it overflows with soul. All those acts of unconditional love, like condensation gathering.
Places like these are where songwriters belong. A place where the mind swims in a river of inspiration. It saturates the heart with ancient emotion. That room has millions of songs in it, all you have to do is take a seat and listen to your heart.
Our ability to find beauty in the world around us is a gift. It’s the very definition of art, and at the core of thinking that translates tragedy, pain, and loss into something that helps us grow. ‘Everything’ is a nod to this gift, written for those who see riches where others would only see nothing and the creator in every single one of us.
Design Library
Here are the visuals, a lush, throwback vibe evolving out of live concert videos I’ve been making. Looks like I’m playing the Cotton Club in the 1930s. When you download and use any of the imagery on any media, credit the photographer. All music, video, and designs are owned by OD Soul, Inc.
Landscapes
Everything single release horizontal graphic with text. Photography by Mark O’Donnell | Instagram: @therammusic
Everything single release horizontal graphic with no text. Photography by Mark O’Donnell | Instagram: @therammusic
Everything album cover release horizontal graphic. Photography by Mark O’Donnell | Instagram: @therammusic
Everything album cover release horizontal graphic with text. Photography by Mark O’Donnell | Instagram: @therammusic
Portraits
Live Ram. Photography by Daniel Hernandez | Instagram: @drhphotsd
Grid Squares
Everything album cover release. Photography by Mark O’Donnell | Instagram: @therammusic
Everything album cover release with text. Photography by Mark O’Donnell | Instagram: @therammusic