The Unconventional Ascent

The Unconventional Ascent: How Ren Has Captured Our Hearts and Redefined the Indie Landscape

In a music world flooded with autotuned hooks, recycled beats, and artists chasing clout more than connection, Ren, (Eryn Gill) stands out like a much needed thunderstorm in a drought. Run is raw, wild, and impossible to ignore. The rise of Ren hasn’t followed the formula, and that’s exactly why so many of us have gravitated toward him. For me, and I'm sure countless others, Ren isn’t just an artist we listen to. He’s a force to be reckoned with. He is a truth teller. Ren is a mirror held up to our chaos.

The Man Behind the Music: Ren's Story

Born in Wales, March 1990, Ren’s story isn’t one of luxury or manufactured fame like most success stories. Ren's story is one of pain, resilience, and transformation. In his early twenties, at the height of his first breakthrough with the band The Big Push, Ren was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, a debilitating illness that brought his life and career to a screeching halt. For years, he battled the medical system, navigated complex physical symptoms, and wrestled with the mental toll of being stuck in a body that seemed to betray him. Ren has walked through hell, and those of us who have as well can sense that about him. He is not just a survivor; he is a fighter.

Ren disappeared from the public eye not by choice, but by necessity. In that darkness, he found something he thought was stolen. He found his voice. His real authentic voice, the one that doesn’t come from record label pressure or performance hype. It was the voice that comes from the pit of your soul when you’re not sure if you’re going to survive, but you have no other option try, or die.

On top of his physical illness, Ren has been open about his struggles with mental health, depression, isolation, and intrusive thoughts. He draws attention to the kinds of demons most people are too afraid to name, let alone expose to the masses. Yet Ren does, and not for not for a pity party, not for spectacle, but because it’s the truth. The truth is the cornerstone of everything Ren creates.

The Moment I found my (Anti) Hero

I still remember how I was introduced to Ryn and his music. I was doing my livestream on Meetme, just vibing with my friends on stream, when one of my favorite (honestly,the illest) viewers told me, “You’ve should check out Ren,” and so I played the first song that popped up by him on YouTube. It was The Hunger.

That viewer was a "sick boi" himself , someone else who really felt Ren’s story. Another soul who has walked through hell and made it back out. I believe Ryns music reflected his own battles with health and pain. But when I watched that video, something else happened. I felt Ren on a whole different level. I had NEVER seen anything like it before in my life. He wasn’t just making music, he was pouring out his soul, bleeding onto the track. It was like he reached through the screen and grabbed me by the throat. To say I was choked up would be an understatement. That was almost 2 years ago now. (Late 2023) Just like that, Ren became one of my favorite artists of all time, legit overnight. I have never heard one of his songs I don't LOVE. Every one of his songs is a story that needed to be told, and his videos are pure one of a kind performance.

Raw, Real, and Unfiltered

The thing that sets Ren apart is how unfiltered he is with his approach. There’s no mask covering his ego trip. He has no corporate polish and he doesn't try to package himself to be more marketable or easier to digest. He is who he is, messy, brilliant, vulnerable, and so fierce. You get the feeling that if he couldn’t make music, he’d explode from the weight of everything he carries in his mind and heart. That kind of honesty, it’s rare in this world, making it sacred, because it’s real. We live in an era where image is everything, where brand matters more than message. Artists are manufactured in boardrooms and unveiled through ad campaigns. But not my boi Ren. Ren is not a brand, he’s a person, a soul, a conduit. He brings the kind of intimacy to his music that makes you feel like you’re reading someone’s diary . . . only it’s your own thoughts, and somehow, he got the pages.

He’s Not a Sellout. He’s a Self-Made Storm.

No label propped Ren up with no industry exec curating his image. Ren put himself on. He battled chronic illness, mental health struggles, and everything the world threw at him, and still found a way to rise. He wrote the music, he produced it, and he even directed his own damn videos. He built his following one hard truth at a time. That kind of independence just hits us different. I believe it's probably because you know everything you're hearing is his, no filter, no compromise. Every syllable is sweat earned. Every visual, a reflection of his own vision. Ren makes you see it his way.

Ren doesn’t chase the algorithm. He doesn’t dumb down his art to appeal to the masses. He makes what’s real to him, and we, the fans, rise to meet him at his level.

“Hi Ren” — The Performance That Shook the World

When “Hi Ren” dropped, everything changed, as it went viral and Ren finally saw the light he had been chasing. " HI REN wasn’t just a song. . . It was a theater piece, a raw confession, an exorcism of self doubt. It cracked thousands of people open. For nearly 10 minutes, Ren held the internet in the palm of his hand, just him, a guitar, a hospital gown, and his inner demons on full display for all the world to see and personally relate. You can watch hundreds of reactions to the video on YouTube, and see full grown men turn to mush as their anatomy is torn to shreds with inner truth. It’s a song about mental illness, self-doubt, and internal war. But it’s not sanitized. It’s not framed in some “you’ll get better if you just try harder” cliché. It’s painful. It’s uncomfortable. It’s haunting. It's RAW. This song will leave you questioning some of life's most important aspects, it’s a necessary wake up call to several people.

Sometimes, or, most of the time we should say, healing doesn’t look like a sunset or a yoga pose. More often than not, it looks like screaming into the void, crying on your bathroom floor at 3 a.m., battling with voices that aren’t yours but live in your head rent free anyway.

As someone who lives with CPTSD, BPD, and depression, I felt seen in that song. I did not feel pitied, not misunderstood. I felt seen and for the first time, validated. Like maybe, just maybe, people like me have a voice, a purpose, a place, and most of all. . . a chance. Ren made me feel like I wasn’t broken beyond repair. Like my mind, messy as it is, still has value, still has strength, and that's the kind of representation you don’t find it on the radio. You won’t hear it in the club. But you hear it in Ren’s voice, through his music. For that I am forever grateful.

He Speaks for the Voiceless

The thing about Ren, he’s not just singing his truth. He’s singing ours. He speaks for those who feel invisible. Those who’ve been dismissed, overmedicated, misdiagnosed, and told to tough it out. He speaks for the addicts, the survivors, the neurodivergent, the chronically ill, the poor, the weird, the broken. He speaks for the ones who never quite fit in. The misfits. . . And he doesn’t sugarcoat it. He speaks the uncomfortable truth, the stuff most artists are too scared and too polished to touch. He gets in the mud with us, down on our level. He doesn’t just make music for the people. He is the people. He’s the people’s champ.

A Universal Voice in a Divided World

I’m an American. Ren’s not. Honestly? I love that. I love that he’s from another country, and that was honestly part of the lore that originally drew me in, immediately. That he brings a different lens, a different energy, a different background that I'm used to, to the table. But what floors me is how much of what he says still resonates across borders. Pain is universal and so is healing.

The issues he speaks on. . . the corruption of institutions, the dehumanization of the mentally ill, the murder of mother earth, the alienation of the young and the poor . . . these aren’t just British problems. These are human problems, and Ren’s ability to make those experiences feel shared, not siloed, is so powerful. Ren has bridged that gap. He makes all our stories global, and in doing so, he reminds us that we’re not as alone as we may think we are.

Genreless. Fearless. Limitless.

Musically, Ren defies category. He’ll drop into a spoken word monologue, explode into rapid fire hip-hop, then fall into a haunting, stripped down acoustic moment , sometimes all in the same track. He’s genreless. He’s fluid, he’s emotional and technical at the same time. It keeps you guessing and it keeps you feeling. Ren doesn’t follow trends . . he sets them. Sometimes it feels like he’s five years ahead of the rest of the music world. Like he’s already where the culture is going, and the rest of us are just catching up.

The Favorite Track: “Seven Sins”

If I had to pick a favorite? “Seven Sins.” That track is something else ... it's dark, poetic, symbolic, electric. It doesn’t just get stuck in your head; it echoes in your soul. It’s raw and mythic, a confrontation with shame and shadow. If you listen closely, it’s not just about sin, it’s about human survival.

But honestly, it’s hard to pick just one song. Every song Ren releases is a chapter in a larger story, and each time you listen, you catch something new, be it a hidden lyric, a deeper meaning, a quiet scream buried in the layers.

The Ren Effect

That’s the Ren effect, he doesn’t just make songs, he makes experiences. His fans, The Renegades, aren’t just listeners. We’re witnesses to something rare. Something that’s not supposed to exist in an industry that rewards fakeness and fast hits.

We’re watching an artist who’s building an empire on truth. That empire is growing, not through ad campaigns or radio spins, but through authentic organic connection. Through honesty. Through word of mouth. Through people like me, like you, like my sick boi viewer who introduced me, passing the gospel of Ren from one hurting soul to another. When Ren says something like “Maybe I’m made of sin, but I sin so gracefully,” it doesn’t sound like a lyric. It again, sounds like human survival. It sounds like someone who clawed their way out of darkness and turned it into art. Alchemist. If you’ve ever felt like you didn’t fit in, like the world didn’t get you . . . Ren makes you feel like maybe that’s okay. like maybe that’s even your personal power. He proves that it CAN be.

No Labels. No Lies. Just Ren.

That’s why Ren matters, and that’s why he resonates with so many folks. That’s why, almost 2 years after I first hit play on “The Hunger,” I’m still riding with him. Ren didn’t never sell out. He showed up and he bared his soul. He created a space where the broken could breathe for the first time, possibly ever. That kind of artistry? It doesn’t come along often.

Ren is not just redefining indie music. . . he’s reminding us what it means to be an artist. More importantly, what it means to be human.

And damn, to me, that’s everything.