I haven't been to Golf N’ Stuff since I was a kid, but Yot Club’s “u dont kno me” video is making me seriously nostalgic for the plastic putting greens and flashing arcade games of my youth. The new visual shows Yot Club’s Ryan Kaiser working a not-so-fun shift at the family fun center—but what starts out as a deadbeat day on the clock eventually turns into a crazed, competitive fever dream, as Kaiser zooms past patrons in a “Lit’l Indy” go-kart and crushes a round of Dance Dance Revolution in between vape breaks.
“The director Troy Lustick did a crazy good job illustrating the feeling of the song through the video,” says Kaiser of the production. “It’s about a guy stuck at work doing all the same things every day. To add insult to injury, he works at a family fun center and has to watch happy people having fun all day.”
“u dont kno me” comes on the heels of Yot Club’s recent Santolina EP and is the first single off his forthcoming debut album. The song is about outgrowing one’s environment—a feeling that Kaiser knows well, having relocated from Mississippi to Nashville last year. “I feel I’m falling back / To where I was long ago,” he sings in the track. The vibe here is less woozy and more driving than Yot Club’s breakout TikTok hit “YKWIM?,” channeling the lo-fi surf-pop abandon of Current Joys. And for a song about boredom, “u dont kno me” is actually really fun. Check out the video and read a Q&A with Kaiser below.
When did you move to Nashville? What’s your impression of Music City so far?
I moved to Nashville last May, so it’s almost been a year. It’s crazy just how fast it’s growing. Apparently over 100 people a day move here, and I’ve already seen so much new stuff get built since I moved. It’s just weird because everywhere I’ve ever lived is shrinking.
When and where did you write and record “u dont kno me”? What’s the song about?
I wrote and recorded that song when I still lived in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The song is about slipping into monotony and doing the same things every day. There wasn’t a lot of stuff to do in Hattiesburg, but it was a really social town and everyone knew each other. It was normal for people to go to work or class and then immediately go to the bar after. Once I graduated college, the whole thing felt kind of depressing and I wanted to get out.
Have you had any day jobs like the one in the video?
Oh yeah. I worked at a garden center for two years in high school which was honestly fun. Lesser fun jobs include Firehouse Subs, Lennys, two different golf courses, and a really bad local restaurant.
I love the shot of a portable CD player in a lunch box. Did you go through a portable CD player phase?
Yes, I had an actual Walkman as a kid. I don’t even know why I had it, because they were pretty obsolete at that point, but my parents had a huge CD collection that I would go through. Some of my [favorites] were The Lemonheads, The Proclaimers, They Might Be Giants, and R.E.M.
What are some of your more recent influences or inspirations?
I’ve been listening to a lot of ’80s and ’90s guitar rock like The Bats, The Cry, Galaxie 500, and Cleaners From Venus.
