A Conversation with Matthew Ryan (continued)

PM: I'm late to the Matthew Ryan party, but this latest record definitely makes me want to go back and check out where it came from. So for my benefit, and for the readers who are not familiar with your work yet, maybe you'd walk me briefly through the discography, what got recorded when, and how the records are different or continuous. How many of them are there?

MR: Well, there's four or five. I guess this is my sixth--seventh record.

PM: And they began in the mid '90s.

MR: Yeah. '97, my first record came out. And that was May Day. And that came out on A & M. That's really just like a rock 'n' roll record, kind of jumping in head first.

PM: So was that a Nashville record or a Philly record?

MR: A good deal of that record was actually written up in Philly, and then I came down here and got signed, and all that stuff.

PM: Well, first of all, you got signed to A & M, once you got to Nashville?

MR: Yeah.

PM: How did that come to be? Were you gigging a lot around town, or you just shopped the tapes you had?

MR: No. Craig Krampf--do you know Craig?

PM: Oh, yeah, I know Craig, sure. [A great L.A. session drummer and producer who played on scores of records since he came to Nashville, a major musical spirit and a rare mensch.]

MR: Craig had really taken me under his wing, and he was playing drums with me, actually. And we were doing some shows. And then unfortunately Craig and I had a falling out because I was young and absolutely sure of everything I should do.

PM: Yeah, that happens.

[laughter]

MR: But it was one of those situations where I did one of these Nashville show case shows when they had the Nashville--the NEA. Remember that?

PM: Sure.

MR: It was like a smaller South By Southwest. So I did one of those shows. It turned out that there were a bunch of people there. And a woman from A & M signed me. Pretty much called me the next day and said she wanted to do it, and it was wonderful.

PM: Wow, that is amazing. So after May Day in '97, then there was--

MR: Then in 2000 I released the fruits of my megalomania.

[laughter]

MR: East Autumn Grin, where I decided that I would produce myself and make my opus. And honestly, it's just a very ambitious record. A lot of love letters to heroes on there, but I was coming from the right place. I think it's a good record.

PM: And that was 2000?

MR: Yeah. And then I got promptly dropped. [laughs] But they had gotten bought out when Interscope took over. So there were a lot of reasons. It was a really hard time because the industry was so clearly changing. And I felt like I was--it was kind of like your folks getting divorced when you're three. I was a toddler. But anyway, I put out another record on Will Kimbrough's label, on Waxy Silver Records, just kind of really wanted to make like a really stark folk record. And that's called Concussion.

PM: Right. And I didn't get up with it. I heard a couple of songs when it came out, and read incredible reviews of that record.

MR: Yeah, yeah. I think that was the first record where--as far as my critical story so far, where they started to realize maybe--

PM: The cat had something.

MR: Yeah.

PM: And is Will Kimbrough playing on that, or producing that, or anything like that?

MR: He just basically let me go in there and make it. And I had some friends come in. A lot of people bought that record because Lucinda sang on it with me.

PM: Right.

MR: And she did a great job. And that was when I first became friends with Lucinda Williams.

PM: Yeah. And I understand that when she's your friend, she's a pretty damn good friend.

MR: She's a really good friend. She's amazing, actually.

PM: So then after Concussion came--

MR: Well, the nature of Concussion was that it was a really, really stark interior record. While my critical story was building, I went on some kind of like a two-year darkness as far as labels may have been concerned...

[laughter]

MR: Just because of the nature of that record. It was clearly not meant for everyone, and had no ambition to be. And it was really just trying to make what I thought was a great folk record. And folk wasn't particularly cool in 2001.

PM: Right. And I can imagine what your take on folk might have been, anyway.

[laughter]

MR: Yeah, yeah.

PM: It wasn't a Pete Seeger record.

MR: No, no. Eight or nine people died on that record.

PM: [laughs] Well, that's folky enough, but yeah. It's how they died, and how many of them.

[laughter]

MR: So I've released some DIY records after that, like I did it myself on the internet, and actually was really shocked. I got orders from all over the world. And it really made me feel good that I'd actually--my work did really exist. It was the first time I felt like I actually existed as an artist.

PM: Right.

MR: Because it can get kind of creepy and "David Koresh" if you're not careful.

PM: Big time.

MR: Because you're paying too much attention. But at the same time, I became aware that some of these people wanted to subsidize what you were trying to say. And not only that, but it was important to their lives, because they had direct contact with me. Now, since, I've had to kind of withdraw a little bit, because I'm very suspicious of any sort of cultish implications.

PM: Right.

MR: But that was really an amazing time. And I got signed again to another label.

PM: Which one was that?

MR: That was a label called Hybrid, which was some of the folks from A & M that put together. I put out Regret Over the Wires with them.

PM: Right.

MR: And Björk's label [One Little Indian] had also--at the same time in the UK--had reached out to me, and they put out Concussion and a record called Happiness over there--

PM: Wow.

MR: --around the same time as Regret Over the Wires came out. So that was a really exciting time.

PM: Absolutely.

MR: It kind of showed like if you're your own engine, it shows that that that can mean something, and I mean, in the ways that making a living means something. You know what I mean?

PM: Absolutely.

MR: And then we put out a Strays record [Strays Don't Sleep]. And that was a side project that I did with Neilson and the guys. And that was just entertaining some of my more esoteric stuff.

PM: And who wrote the tunes on the Strays record?

MR: Well, Neilson wrote half and I wrote half, and we wrote one together. We tried to treat each of them as if they were something we had done together. And it really feels consistent to me, I think it's a very good record.

PM: Wow.

MR: And then while we were getting ready for that to come out, that's when my brother was sentenced, and I started writing this stuff From A Late Night High Rise.

That's a long story.

PM: But it's a good story, and it's the story. So I appreciate you walking me through that thing. That's just exactly what I was looking for.    continue


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