Many people the world over struggle with mental health issues. Depression and anxiety are just some of the problems most people deal with every day. These then escalate into other evils in society and may even result in death. However, music heals, and that’s the motivation behind musician Dylan Leonte’s art.
Dylan’s journey in the entertainment industry began at a young age. He was only 12 the first time he starred in a reality TV show. Three years later, he was in another show, called “Dr. Drew’s Lifechangers.” The show gave him good publicity and promoted his newly formed metal band, Over Gravity.
In 2014, Dylan added prank videos to his resume. He’d shoot the funny videos and post them on his Instagram page. These videos went viral and attracted the attention of Kyle Forgeard and Jesse Sebastiani of the popular prank group Nelk Boys. They invited him to join their group and thus began another phase of Dylan’s career.
He ended up living with them in downtown LA for 5 months. Over the next 3 years, Dylan and the Nelk Boys shot around 30 videos together. These videos include the “Coke Prank on Cops” video, one of the most viral police pranks of all time. The video has 115M+ views on social platforms so far. It has a viewership of 46M on YouTube alone.
During that period, Dylan started making music with his new band, Dylan ‘N’ Alice. As his fanbase grew from the prank videos, he utilized it to showcase his music. Within a short while, the music attracted big players in the industry. One of them was Matthew Knowles, Beyoncé’s father and former manager. He worked with the band for the next four years.
For Dylan, music goes beyond the sounds of the guitar and the quality of the production. It’s about touching a life and making it better than it was. That’s why he touches on topics that others may shy away from. His music brings awareness to serious topics like teen suicide and domestic abuse. His aim, as he says, is to cater “to people who are pissed off and need an outlet to let that sh*t out.”
He adds that the music has such a vibe that “you can scream along with the song, jump into a mosh pit at one of my band’s concerts, or crowd surf. Either way, it’s all a good way to let it out and have fun.” Dylan’s goal is the same with both the prank videos and the songs he creates: He wants to make people laugh and forget their troubles for a while.
A while ago, Dylans’s band released their most popular song and music video to date. It is a domestic abuse awareness and prevention video called “Lonely Hunter.” The video peaked at #27 on the UK iTunes charts and has amassed 1M+ views on YouTube so far.
Dylan has bigger dreams for the future, and he is working hard to make them a reality. Outside the studio, he is an entrepreneur in the Esports gaming industry. He runs Raw Creations Gaming, which has over 600K followers on social media. He uses most of his songs in the organization’s videos. Dylan is also looking forward to launching his own TV network on Roku & Amazon Fire TV soon.
