Music • Podcast • Bio • Newsletter • Booking & contact
Finally, a reason to learn how to read.
My new book gleefully disregards reality and many of the rules of storytelling. It’s a heavily footnoted, 154-page ride that – despite its title – provides no helpful tips for obtaining refunds.
Get your copy from the K Composite Shop in paperback or hardcover. The paperback is also available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
My latest single
“How We Got This Way” is my latest single. You can download it today or hear it on your favorite music service.
🚀 Merch is available here.
Follow along with Instagram, Bandsintown, Songkick, Apple Music, Spotify and my newsletter.
For booking, get in touch using the contact form at the bottom of this page.
Music
Here are two more releases, In Love With Night (single, 2021) and The Kentuckian (EP, 2019).
Both are available for purchase online, or you can listen to them on Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, SoundCloud, or wherever you underpay for music.
Here’s the Tower
The audio adventure series from Scott Ritcher
This is my short-form podcast called Here’s the Tower. Every episode is a different story and most are just one minute long.
Catch up on more than 115 action-packed episodes free in Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Acast or online at kcomposite.com/tower.
Hello, my name is Scott Ritcher
I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. I lived in Providence, Rhode Island, in 2001 and 2002, then Los Angeles in 2003, before returning to Louisville. I moved to Stockholm, Sweden, in 2009, where I am today.
I have had dual citizenship in the United States and Sweden since 2015. I like both places very much. I am an Honorary Kentucky Colonel and a Certified Bourbon Steward.
Here are some of the things with which I have kept myself busy:
Music
I have made music with the band Metroschifter and under my own name. You can get that music at metroschifter.com or from your favorite streaming service. The band played hundreds of shows from 1994 to 2000, and dozens more in 2008 and 2009.
As a solo artist, I have also toured and played hundreds of shows. I embarked on several solo acoustic tours in Europe in 2019 to promote my record, The Kentuckian. More recently, I released In Love WIth Night and How We Got This Way as singles. In 2023, I completed completed tours of more than 50 shows in Europe and the US. You can get notified of upcoming dates here.
In the early 1990s, I made music with the band Sunspring. Our work is available on popular music services or you can download some Sunspring here. Other bands I have recorded with include Jazzbrunch from Stockholm and Best Actress from Louisville.
I ran an Independent record label in Louisville called The Slamdek Record Company from 1986 to 1995. A 21-song compilation of highlights from the label is available here and you can find more music released by the label on streaming services or for download here.
Bedtime Bourbon
Several years ago, my friends Carla Jacob, Joel Jacob and I turned our enthusiasm for great bourbon whiskey into our own small batch product. Bedtime Bourbon is a series of straight bourbon whiskeys which debuted in 2017.
Each batch is unique, very limited, minimally filtered and available only in Kentucky. We released our sixth batch of 90-proof, minimally filtered, straight bourbon whiskey in June 2024.
K Composite Magazine
I began publishing my own magazine in 1991. K Composite Magazine generally consists of interviews with my friends and other non-famous people. It was published as a Xeroxed fanzine from 1991 to 1997 and as a full-color magazine from 1999 to 2008. You can buy books of the paper issues.
K Composite was reborn as an iPad app from 2011 to 2015, and a companion iPhone edition joined it from 2013 to 2015.
I published more than 100 interviews across 27 issues of the magazine.
The magazine’s website at kcomposite.com was launched in 1999 and that’s where new interviews and stories are occasionally still appear. The site also has an online shop with some funny items.
I served as design director at Bonnier Magazines in Stockholm, and in other capacities, for about seven years starting in 2010.
Podcasts
I began producing a short-form audio series called Here’s the Tower in 2018. Each of the 100+ episodes is a different adventure and most are just one minute long.
You can listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or in a web browser at kcomposite.com/tower. You can listen in any order, but there are some recurring jokes and characters, so it might be more fun if you start at the beginning.
In 2020, Here’s the Tower released part one of an audio play called Smart Home Merle Haggard about a guy whose country-themed smart speaker begins interfering in his personal life.
From 2014 to 2018, I produced 24 episodes of a podcast with Karin Olli-Nilsson called Snuggling With the Enemy. We talked about the American, Swedish and British cultures and their languages. We were joined by sound effects, music and a laugh track. You can listen to that on Apple Podcasts, Spotify in a web browser at snuggling.se.
I have another website that is also called Snuggling with the Enemy where I post things I think about. Some might call it a blog, but it would be a really poor and inconsistent one.
Books
I am very excited that my latest book was released in summer 2023. How to Get Your Fucking Money Back is an absurd, heavily footnoted, 154-page ride that gleefully disregards reality, the rules of storytelling and, occasionally, some common respect for the English language. You can get your copy as a handy paperback or a special edition hardcover.
After I closed down the Slamdek label, I wrote a book chronicling all the releases along with stories from Louisville’s punk and indie music scenes during those years. Slamdek A to Z is available from Apple Books. The website slamdek.com has some excerpts and other info about the label and the book.
I published another book in 2004 that was a collection of the best hate mail I received while selling merchandise decorated with a picture of Bill Clinton dressed as Jesus. Letters to Saint Clinton is available from Apple Books or you can get a paperback copy here.
Acting
I have done some professional acting and voice work, primarily during my time in Sweden. I have appeared in a number of television commercials including Direkto, Boxer, Svenska Spel, Tele2 and Nordea, an audio drama series about a Swedish zombie apocalypse called The Dead and Dying, the award-winning short film Psyket! by Moa Junström, and voiceovers for MagPlus, IKEA and Volvo.
My smallest role – but the one I most like to brag about – was as a newspaper photographer in the Michael Mann film The Insider, nominated for Best Picture.
Politics
In 2008, I ran as an independent candidate for a seat in the Kentucky State Senate. Despite the outcome – my ass was handed to me by the establishment candidate – it was an irreplaceable experience. My campaign site is archived online at Ritcher.org.
Ten years prior to that, in 1998, I got my political feet wet in a run for Louisvile Mayor. I lost that election as well, but it was also very much worth doing.
Newsletter
Sign up for news about my projects.
Contact me
Or send me a postcard:
Scott Ritcher
Pelargatan 4
121 47 Stockholm
Sweden
Find press materials here