Culture
Branding breakdowns: talking with Brady Reis of ENMY at Louder Than Life 2025
By: Bradley Cunningham
Posted on:
LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (WOUB) – When I was 20, I interned at Huffy Bicycles, where I often looked up to designer Brady Reis—not my boss, but someone I admired for his music taste.
Almost a decade later, life comes full circle: I’m interviewing him as he takes the stage at his first Danny Wimmer Presents festival, Louder Than Life, with his band ENMY. Life is crazy, and the world is small.
Find a transcript of our conversation, edited for length and clarity, below.
Bradley Cunningham: I just learned this is the largest rock and metal festival in the U.S. How does that feel?
Reis: It’s insane. We heard that through the app you can check schedules and see who’s planning to watch each band, which is such a cool feature. I saw some bands with 17,000, 19,000 — almost 20,000 people marked to see them. Then seeing updates from Danny Wimmer himself, saying this was going to be one of the top-attended festivals ever — it’s just so sick to be part of that.
You started this band in Cincinnati, Ohio — how did that come about, and how did the city and the Midwest shape your identity as musicians and what you wanted to do?
Reis: Yeah, so we actually just posted a throwback recently showing where we started in our first bands compared to where we are now. Music has always been a huge part of all our lives — it’s shaped who we are and what we want to do. I think the coolest thing about our band is that we make the music we actually like to listen to. So when we’re out there playing, we believe in it 100% and push it as hard as we can. And coming from Ohio, where so many bands have blown up, it’s cool to think maybe we could be part of that legacy one day. For now, we’re just doing everything we can to spread the word.
Your music has such rich textures and layers. When did you start focusing on that in your process, and what inspired it?
Reis: Our production team is top-notch. For example, in Broken Man, they used an acoustic guitar recording that was done on an iPhone. At first, it was just a demo idea, like “what if it sounded like this?” But they ended up using the actual file in the final track. We didn’t even know that was possible, but if anyone can make it work, they can.
Another example is our song Damn. I had this idea for a part that sounded like a Speak & Spell — just a count-in for the next verse, “1, 2, 3, 4.” We bit-crushed it so it felt blown out. I recorded it quickly on the built-in mic of my laptop, sent it over, and they were like, “Yeah, we’ll just use this.” So that’s literally me on my laptop mic in the final product.
So I obviously know you — we’ve worked together. You’re a graphic designer. Tell me about the shift from graphic designer to frontman. Does your design background influence your approach to music? Do you think visually first?
Reis: Yeah, I mean, it’s all part of it. I feel like the more people in your group who do music-adjacent things, the better. When we first came up with our band name, I already had a vision for how I wanted it to look, so I designed the logo. Mike [Quinn, guitarist] and I also trade off on different design work, like band flyers and merch. That’s all part of branding — how people perceive you and take in your media. We want the visuals to match the audio, and I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that so far. I’m curious to see how that transforms over the years as we keep going.
That’s another thing I love about you guys — you can see that it’s meticulous and purposeful, connecting the visuals with the music. I think part of that is because I know you and I’ve seen you work design-wise, so I can tell it’s calculated. As someone witnessing it in real time, I love that.
Reis: I think it’s really cool. Like today, Bring Me the Horizon is playing, and I see a lot of updates from Oli [Sykes] — he has such a heavy hand in working on their merchandise. That’s inspiring. At the end of the day, creatives just want to create.
We used to work at Huffy designing bikes. And now you’re fronting this band. What was the turning point where you said, “I want to leave this behind and be a frontman, create music?”
Reis: It’s always been about balance. I love designing — I’ve worked in those programs for so long, and there’s something about getting into that flow state that’s really enjoyable for me. But music has always been a big part of my life. Even way back before I ever thought about singing, I’d sit in on my friends’ practices thinking, “Man, it’d be cool to be a backup singer.” I never once thought I’d be the lead singer.
Honestly, one of the biggest things that pushed me from designing full-time into focusing on the band was when Trevor — our bassist — came back from the Navy. He was in San Francisco, and when he came home, I was part of his welcome-back party. He said, “We’re starting a band.” I hesitated, said I’d been taking a break, but he was like, “No, we are.” And if you’ve met Trevor, you know he’s got an intoxicating personality.
So it happened. We were even living in the same apartment for a while in Miamisburg, Ohio, and some of the first songs we ever wrote came out of that time. Maybe some of those tracks will be re-released one day if we can find a way to massage them into our current sound.