Midway through Quinn Ayers’ woozy, acoustic cut “801/970,” he receives a voicemail from an old flame.
“I wish things could’ve turned out differently between us. But I was never able to understand you on an emotional level, because you never allowed it to happen,” a woman says over the line. “I want you to know that showing your emotions with people isn’t always showing vulnerability. It’s so necessary.”
That message, Ayers says, inspired the title for Necessary Emotions, a confessionally charged project that sees the Las Vegas musician battling with bouts of anxiety and the emotional entanglements of his past. He recites moments from raw memory, as though prying open an old locker he hasn’t allowed himself to touch for some time.
“I don’t feel like I’ve ever really been a journaler, but I’ve always treated my music as such. Every song is an entry, and the date may vary on it,” says Ayers.
If that’s true, then Ayers’ story as a musician—and former baseball player who started cutting demos in his dorm at the University of Northern Colorado—could fill pages. Everyone expected the third baseman to follow in the footsteps of his father, who’d attended UNLV and been drafted to the Chicago Cubs.
“But I just kind of fell out of love with baseball,” says Ayers. “I hit a crossroads of, did I want to do it professionally? And I just didn’t. Outside of baseball, it was always music for me.”
Already a natural writer, Ayers picked up music like a familiar, broken-in glove. In 2019, he released the sunny hip-hop track “Lemonade,” followed by a string of finely produced singles that have evolved with his tastes. His style varies by the project, with some cuts like “I Hate You I Hate You,” recalling all the languid trap-pop of Post Malone’s Hollywood’s Bleeding; others like “Ilyaways!” delivering a catchy, pitched-up house party vibe; and “Want You Need You” placing Ayers’ melodic cadence over marching percussion and warm acoustics.
The singer-songwriter dips in and out of genres with an admirable amount of ease, having grown up listening to everything from Coldplay and The Fray to the Ying Yang Twins and Ray Charles.
“I don’t think anyone has really found their sound until they’ve experimented with everything,” Ayers says. “I don’t ever want to close that door, because I like so many types of music.”
Ayers is currently working on a new alternative project, tentatively titled If You Even Care, and prepping for his next show at Swan Dive on January 18. If he continues at this rate, 2025 could be his breakout year. But he’s adamant about letting it happening organically.
“There’s a lot of artists that buy numbers to look the part. I’ve always been a big advocate against that. I’m not doing this s**t to get fame and get a bunch of likes and get a bunch of comments,” Ayers says. “When I do a show and I see someone singing the lyrics back that obviously resonated with them, that’s the best thing ever about music. We’re sharing the same moment. We’re singing a song that you know and that I created out of nothing. That’s where music is the most beautiful to me.”
QUINN AYERS With Jae Douglass. January 18, 8 p.m., $15, Swan Dive, swandivelv.com.
Click HERE to subscribe for free to the Weekly Fix, the digital edition of Las Vegas Weekly! Stay up to date with the latest on Las Vegas concerts, shows, restaurants, bars and more, sent directly to your inbox!
