Mike Nobody

Mike Nobody (a.k.a. Ronnie Michael Sullivan, born September 15, 1973) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, composer, visual artist, and creator of experimental custom-made instruments. Diagnosed with major depression and anxiety disorders, he is regarded as an outsider artist–musician by his contemporaries in the fine art and alternative music scenes. Known for his broad-ranging style and diverse projects, his sound incorporates a variety of music genres, both popular and experimental, with a predominantly Lo-Fi aesthetic. Much of his work consists of ultra-limited, handmade cassettes recorded alone in his home, with whatever means that were available at the time. His visual work consists primarily of stream of consciousness drawings, comics, and mixed media paintings, while occasionally venturing into film & video. With an eclectic and irreverent style, he creatively layers a number of multidisciplinary techniques together he sometimes refers to as Outsider Pop Surrealism. Creating in near anonymity since the 1980’s, most exposure to his work has been primarily in the form of mail art packages, ad-hoc self-distribution, and a few local retail outlets. He gained some notoriety in the Metro Detroit area, beginning in the 1990’s, and has collaborated with numerous musicians across the sonic spectrum. Whether people were listening or not, however, Mike continued to compulsively produce music and art pieces. Exponential growth of the internet in the intervening years has given Mike new opportunities to reach an audience, unavailable to him before. Potential listeners may be bewildered by the sometimes disastrous, but always hypnotizing, performances of an unpolished Mike Nobody. Over the years it has become apparent that fans appreciate his idiosyncratic creativity. If you can’t get past his unusual playing, singing, sonically experimental style, you may not be a part of the audience who loves music as Mike does – not written “for” a music industry, but for himself. He appeals to those who share the love of art as a passion and not an enterprise.