Washington High School is known for their sports programs, student sections and State titles. WHS also happens to be full of talented students, including our very own junior Ryan Gratzer.

“I’ve been writing songs for a while but I just never quite finished them,” Gratzer said. “Only a couple months ago I started taking it really seriously.”

Along with his grandparents, who played piano for a long time, Gratzer says that Jon Bellion plays a big role in his music making.

Gratzer describes his style of music as pop with a little of hip-hop mixed in, which led him to look up to Jon Bellion as a role model for making music and writing songs.

“I started to listen to him (Jon Bellion) a long time ago and I would just say that I am mostly inspired by him.” Gratzer said.

Writing songs and producing music isn’t easy, especially when you have to balance it between school, sports and a job.

“It’s difficult mainly because I usually don’t get home until really late,” Gratzer said. “I do my homework really quick and then I just focus on music for the rest of the night.”

Although Gratzer only has two songs out on Spotify as of right now, he does take a good amount of pride in his music and has confirmed that he has been working on writing more.

“I have been working on a lot more music,” Gratzer said, “and plan on there being an album released sometime next year.”