Meet Richard Wygand | Darth Rirou – A conspiracy of one

We had the good fortune of connecting with Richard Wygand and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Richard, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
When I was 23 years old I realized if I kept going to college working on a regular job I was going to kill myself. Directly or indirectly, but I had no idea what I wanted. I had a dream of being a professional athlete so I thought until I win something and get sponsors I need to survive somehow. Since I have lost 100 pounds I realized I could have my own training company, this way I would have time to train, race and pay the bills.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I do Punk Rock songs for kids of all ages, which can vary depending how active your inner child it is. However focus is kids because the songs are inspired in my kids. During the day I am a full time dad, I am my son’s caregiver and we basically do the songs together. At night I go to my studio and create. The idea of doing punk rock songs for kids is: 1- punk rock in general is very inclusive, 2 – kids only have 1 speed fast, so its a great way of spending energy and keeping then active. 3 – be the change you wish to see in the world, because one of the main cause of my depression was hearing over and over again that I was going to burn in hell for my eternity for loving rock and roll. Doing Punk rock songs with focus on kids and making my inner child dream of being in a band was the best revenge I could think off. I went through hell to get here, I had to overcome my depression, luckily weed in Colorado is legal and that helps a lot with my depression and adhd. My book is a true story, and is very spiritual because is mainly about 2 dreams, 2 real dreams I had that actually became true and it connects with my son’s Luke path. I wrote the book because my 2 kids are spiritually sensitive like I am, and rock and roll lovers, and I want to prevent them from getting depressed. I guess my brand is about being the change you wish to see in the world.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I am a cancer for zodiac sign, I love to stay in the house and keep it simple. However, in our house we are always rocking. For sure we would have in the house BBQ, I will take my friend to my favorite skate parks around: Broomfiled, lafayette and boulder skate parks. Smoke some weed from, starbuds, and luckily an awesome concert would be happing so we could go and get into some mosh pits. Other than that hang out under the sun with my family and for sure a visit to the mountains.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Other them me? LOL. I mean, I had to go through hell to find myself. Literally hell because what I was fighting was a spiritual trauma, but I didn’t know what it was. So I went to look for answers in my dreams, and I had to fight a lot of society values in order to follow a dream, because the truth is society does not understand the value of a dream, which is greater than anything in life, luckily there are crazy people in this world. I crossed my path with a few of them. My brother deserves a lot of credit he was my first sponsor when I started this search. My wife, first person, from outside of the family circle, that believed me from day 1. She is also a former triathlete and knew it how hard it is to be a professional ironman. Now that I am following a bigger and higher purpose dream, a big thanks goes to school of rock and all the instructors that helped me (there are a few). To my wife again, for supporting my craziness, and my kids for the inspiration to do the work I do now. It’s a very long story which became a book, an autobiography called Punkaste. That is a book that I want to thank the most, because writing was the hardest and most painful thing I did in my life.

Website: www.punkaste.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/punkaste/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-rirou-wygand-b6a77b113/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/punk_rocker_dad

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richardwygand16

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7ThG5HbI9MA12UXLkVid0Q

Image Credits
My wife, she always take great pictures.