Cincinnati Musician Richard Ringer Will Hypnotize the Crowd at His Upcoming MOTR Pub Show

Richard Ringer will be playing MOTR Pub on May 27. Photo: Courtesy of Richard Ringer

It’s 6:30 p.m. on a Monday, and I am being hypnotized by Richard Ringer. The musician — known locally for his prior project Injecting Strangers — has returned from Los Angeles to the Queen City to raise his daughter, establish his career as a clinical hypnotist, and launch his new eponymous music project.

Ringer’s bicoastal music career started out in New York City, had a layover in Cincinnati, and landed in Los Angeles. After disbanding his Cincinnati project Injecting Strangers, he was eager to form another band. Although he couldn’t get a full band together, he did meet Gareth William Schumacher, a Los Angeles-based engineer.

“I said, ‘Let’s just us start doing something,’” Ringer told CityBeat. “I had some songs I’d written and everything, and he added to those songs.”

The result is an 11-track album, set to release on vinyl at the end of this month. Crown of Worms is part psychedelic, part 2000s indie rock, conjuring artists like Beck, Grizzly Bear, and Devendra Banhart. Ringer includes a number of reverb-drenched acoustic ballads, like “Middle of the Night,” a song about his daughter’s inconsistent sleeping habits. But he’s not afraid to go heavy, as demonstrated by his latest single, “The Whip.”

As for the album’s name, Ringer says worms have long been a part of his art.

“For a while I’ve had, like, this thing with worms,” he says. “For whatever reason the ‘crown of worms’ thing just, like, hit me like a flash. I saw what the album cover should look like, and what it should be called.”

He’ll release his debut album Crown of Worms and play his first show as Richard Ringer & the Hypno-Cowboys at MOTR Pub on May 27. Oh, and he’ll be hypnotizing the entire crowd during his show.

“I’m going to get a group of people in a trance state, and then once there I will do embedded commands,” Ringer tells me, shortly before guiding me into a trance state of my own. “I’ll give them certain triggers that will have them respond to signals. Then when the signals happen, they’ll consciously remember that and it will come out.”

The “it” that will come out? A call-and-response sing-along that the hypnotized audience will be able to perform, even without knowing the song.

Ringer makes it clear that this is all “above board” and that “it will only be those who volunteer to do it.”

Hypnosis is a slightly contentious subject. Although it is used in clinical settings to address things like phobias and anxiety, it borders on the occult and is taboo for some people. That’s what attracted Ringer to it in the first place, when at age 12 he secretly bought a book on hypnosis and tried it on his friends, much to the dismay of his religious household.

“I did all the stuff that the book said,” Ringer says. “Then I had [my classmate] feel his hand getting warmer, and I remember I said ‘can you feel your hand getting warmer?’ and he said ‘yes,’ and I was like, ‘Whoa! This really works!’”

I had a few questions before we began my hypnosis. First, I wanted Ringer to promise that he wouldn’t set my hand on imaginary fire. But most of all, I wanted to know, would I feel in control? After Ringer assured me that there’d be no unexpected tears, no secrets revealed, no clucking like a chicken, I acquiesced and closed my eyes.

The process was straightforward and relatively pleasant, almost like a guided meditation. Ringer gave verbal cues to relax my body, and had me begin to countdown from 100 to relax my mind. I was instructed to let each number “fade out of my mind,” a process that Ringer called “wiping the slate clean.” Ringer says that clinical hypnosis starts with this process of “quieting the consciousness so that you’re more directly talking to the unconscious mind.” Then, the hypnotist can address whatever the client wants to focus on, whether it’s smoking cessation or building confidence for a speech.

Ringer does take clients, but likes for it to be the right fit.

“Everything starts with conversation,” he says. “I like to do stage hypnosis and stuff too, but as far as one-on-one hypnosis sessions, I don’t want it to just be like ‘Here’s me, flashy!’ I would rather it just be, like, people having a conversation.”

Richard Ringer & the Hypno-Cowboys play MOTR Pub on May 27 at 10 p.m. They’ll be joined by Kappa Kappa and Chris King & the Gutterballs. More info at motrpub.com.

To learn more about Ringer’s work as a clinical hypnotist, visit ringerhypnosis.com.

Listen to “The Whip” by Richard Ringer: