Guster formed in 1991, and has since released 9 records, had a Top 40 hit, a gold record, played Woodstock 99, started the label Ocho Mule, and is still growing today. We sat down with lead singer Ryan Miller, who is also a film composer, sometimes writer for The Atlantic, budding Broadway composer/writer and a former host on Vermont Public TV. We talk with Ryan about managing so many spinning plates, running towards fear, parallels between a music career and entrepreneurship (iterating, failing, learning, improving, and then repeating), managing personalities and wants over a 33-year career, and so much more.
Guster formed in 1991, and has since released 9 records, had a Top 40 hit, a gold record, played Woodstock 99, started the label Ocho Mule, and is still growing today. We sat down with lead singer Ryan Miller, who is also a film composer, sometimes writer for The Atlantic, budding Broadway composer/writer and a former host on Vermont Public TV. We talk with Ryan about managing so many spinning plates, running towards fear, parallels between a music career and entrepreneurship (iterating, failing, learning, improving, and then repeating), managing personalities and wants over a 33-year career, and so much more.
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All music written, performed, and produced by Aaron Shafer-Haiss.
Hey, and welcome to today's episode of The Other 22 Hours Podcast. I'm your host, Aaron Shafer-Haiss
[00:00:13] Michaela: And I'm your host, Michaela Anne, and this is the second year of our podcast, and we are so happy to still be here. So thank you for being here with us.
[00:00:20] Aaron: a couple of quick things before we jump into today's episode.
First of all, we were talking earlier and we realized that a lot of us know about streaming and how poorly it pays, but I don't think a lot of people know that.
Podcasts pay absolutely zero dollars for streaming doesn't matter if ten people or ten thousand people listen You don't make a dime. And so with that we started a patreon you can go deeper into what we talk about on this show You can hear about upcoming guests so you can have your questions answered directly by them You can meet other creatives.
There's a whole conversation happening over there. There is a link in the show notes, if that's not for you at the moment, please just subscribe or follow on your listening platform of choice. That goes a long way, or simply just share your favorite episode with somebody that doesn't know what we do.
We'd really appreciate that.
[00:01:03] Michaela: And one of the things that we really on for this podcast is that we are working musicians ourselves. We're not journalists. So we consider these more conversations than interviews, like we're sitting around a table sharing the realities, the vulnerabilities, the honest truth of what it is to build a lifelong career around your art.
[00:01:23] Aaron: and as a lot of us know, there's a lot in that building that is outside of our control. And so we like to focus on what is within our control, being our mindsets or our habits or our creativity in general. And we'd still that down to the question, what do you do to create sustainability in your life so that you can sustain your creativity?
And we got to ask that question today of Ryan Miller from Guster.
[00:01:44] Michaela: Yeah. Guster is a band from Boston, Massachusetts that's been around since 1991.
have Had a little bit of personnel change, but for the most part have been the same three members for almost 30 years.
Is that right? Yeah. Doing my quick math. But Ryan has had an incredible career outside of Guster as well. And that's one of the things that we really appreciate. got to dive into was all of the different plates that he has been in as a film composer, as a writer of long form of essays published in the Atlantic, and even as a TV host for Vermont's PBS.
[00:02:21] Aaron: Yeah, one thing that I took away from our conversation and he said it a few times like, Run towards the fear. That was a big
[00:02:27] Michaela: theme.
[00:02:27] Aaron: Yeah. If it scares you, run towards it. Don't be afraid of failing. You're going to fail. relating it to an spirit of just trying things over and over and over again.
And, you know, we kind of distilled that down. to enjoying the process. rather than enjoying the outcome.
[00:02:42] Michaela: Yeah, and this is one of my favorite kind of conversations because Ryan was very generous with sharing some of what he considers his biggest failures, and I think that's a lesson we always need to hear.
There's no success without what we perceive as failures.
[00:02:56] Aaron: And it could take a while and just enjoy the journey and keep going. With that, here's our conversation with Ryan Miller from Guster.
[00:03:04] Ryan: it seems like all of you guys have a lot of different plates spinning beyond the band.
I think that's pretty accurate. we're pretty fully booked in this year in particular for me in the last I don't know, actually probably this year, I was thinking about it will probably be my craziest, I guess, extracurricular, non Guster, creatively fulfilling as far as my, all my work outside the band as an artist and storyteller or whatever you want to call it now.
I saw like a TikTok clip recently and David Lynch was talking to, I think it was Cher or something a long time ago, and he really freaked her out, it's crazy, the clip, but there's this one moment where he's like, sometimes it's all red lights, and sometimes there's yellow lights, and just sometimes you just, you get all green lights, and it feels like there's a lot of green lights right now for me, so that part's good.
I'm gonna lay down. I'm sorry, it's so lame, but I'm just gonna, Is this for just his audio, right?
[00:04:00] Aaron: Well, There's videos.
[00:04:02] Ryan: Oh boy. Fuck it, it's too late now.
[00:04:06] Aaron: You
[00:04:06] Ryan: tired. I've been on tour for a month. I'm tired. I got to lay down.
I'll pay attention though.
[00:04:11] Aaron: So some of the plates that you have you're creative director for some PBS shows for some Vermont public TV shows.
[00:04:19] Ryan: Not so much like my TV hosting thing was definitely like a big part of like my journey to. Being a creative person outside the band, the PBS, the TV stuff died basically, and has morphed into, I'm sure we'll get there, but like everything leads to something else. So I a big fan of just like saying yes.
And just getting exposure to new things and you never know where things lead. So an active project, no, the PBS thing, I'm no longer really like doing any TV stuff at the moment. I loved it. And it was a huge confidence builder. And I did 13 episodes with them of this show that we created called making friends with Ryan Miller, right when I moved to Vermont.
That was probably a decade ago. And then that morphed into Another PBS show where it was like a mashup basically of Austin city limits with kind of comedians and cars were. So it's like, it was like a big, expensive multi camera shoot of a show. And then I would interview do like a long form interview with an artist.
But like kind of offsite, the thing I learned from doing the making friends thing was they're like a, there's a face to face interview, which is like most, and then there's shoulder to shoulder, a shoulder to shoulder thing experiences, like you're both moving through and experiencing something together.
And I liked that as a. Conceit for an interview, because you're kind of in like real time, you're kind of reacting to something and it becomes more, I found it to be more conversational and less of like, so how did you get your name of your band? And what's the craziest thing that's happened on the road?
You'd be like, Oh shit, look at that. It's beautiful. And that reminds me of something. So it was super great. And I wanted to keep doing that, but they were really expensive to make. And then it Morphed into a bunch of other stuff anyway, so no I'm not doing any TV stuff at the moment
[00:06:08] Michaela: did that just fall into your lap or how did that opportunity come about?
[00:06:12] Ryan: Yeah, that one kind of did. I mean if I'm gonna trace the journey to the other 22 components of my life film composing thing was the first one and that was like the first time I kind of opened myself up to like oh I Can do something other than just be the singer of a band? and I think that was probably the second thing that happened, which was, I had moved to Vermont and this lady came up to me at a, bar and was like, Oh, I saw you do an interview with a little kid.
PBS is trying to do some digital stuff. Would you want to do a TV show, like a short TV show? And I was like, yeah, sounds scary. And I'm always like moving towards a fear. And, and I did it and I loved it. and I think I was good at it. And did 13 episodes. I met, I'm honestly like one of my best friends I met on the show.
It really like helped me connect with Vermont. Helped me felt like I was, it was when I had moved here. I didn't really want to move Vermont. My wife was from here. I didn't want to be here. super mad about everything. And that was the first like, I think I had made a decision. I was like, well, I need to start investing in my community here instead of just waiting to get out.
And that was the first thing that flipped. And then once I did that, then a lot of these other dominoes started to fall in terms of like creative stuff. A lot of the stuff that I was doing later, like long form writing and, Came later, but that was a big breaker of like, Oh, I can start to think of myself almost more like an artist or I don't want to say personality, and those shows weren't really about me either, which was nice.
Cause it it was, it was called making friends with Ryan Miller. But like when we did the music show Bardo and I was interviewing like Caroline Rose or tune yards or milk carton kids I was just trying to be a great interviewer and ask great questions. And it was so great.
It was so fun for me and, opened me up to some stuff. But yeah, that, that PBS show basically fell in my lap. But again, it's because I had done another interview and this woman producer saw it and was like, Oh, you're good at this. And then it just spiraled from there. Like all these things do.
[00:08:12] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:08:12] Aaron: Yeah. cause that was, It seems like a few decades into the existence of Guster, right? So how did that, branching out, stepping into, I mean, a complete different medium of creativity, how did that influence your relationship to the band, I guess, to songwriting?
Did it open it up? Did you think like maybe you were done with it? how did that change your relationship with it?
[00:08:33] Ryan: No, I mean, I tend to think of like, Gusser is the major bucket. It's definitely like the most prominent, you know, we just did this tour. We were out for a month. We just played on Saturday at the MGM. It was 5, 000 people. It was sold out. We just sold out a show at Red Rocks at the Symphony.
We're, we've got a lot of big things. And so I think that's my still in a way, at least at the moment. there's some other stuff I'm working on that could eclipse it, but like it's my biggest platform and it's also the most filling because, you know, we've been doing it for so long.
And this music means a lot to people. Like we just did this heiress tour, which was an insane. thing that was, a huge swing. There was no comp for it. there was no trail map for what we did in terms of having this theatrical underpinning.
So it takes precedent, I look at the guster calendar and I'm like, okay, let me see where I could fill in around this. And if there's something huge, I can be like, I need to block the state off. And I guess the other part of that question, Adam and I kind of started on this journey maybe he started on this before because he had started his nonprofit Reverb. He's a great person to talk to about this too. Not that you want to feature two people from the same band, but, um,
[00:09:43] Georgia: Yeah, we would love to.
[00:09:44] Ryan: Um, He really did it. Like he basically started a company that had 15 employees with his wife. They had exposure all over the world, doing world tours and least going into the reverb chamber because he would go in the back lounge and just take meetings all day and testified in front of Congress.
And I was never resentful of it. I mean, Sometimes I'm like, bro, you're, We're in Austin today, like you're going to spend the whole day in the back of the van, like we should, let's go get barbecue or whatever. So, But because of all the things that we've all chosen to do outside the band are somehow related, they all help.
It's crazy how much Adam's relationships with reverb, my relationships with comedians and filmmakers and actors, they all flow through the band and it makes this big soup. They were all very conversant with one another. So it never felt like it was in competition. and what we're doing, has a lot of integrity.
It's not like, Oh, I started like a, poker chip business or something like, I'm scoring films. I'm, writing for the Atlantic, I'm writing a musical and, all very conversant with one another, which I loved. And I think it doesn't have to have a direct correlation, but, it's a big confidence builder and helps us increase our, exposure to like a really interesting community of makers and artists.
[00:11:03] Michaela: I'm interested in, what compels people, some of us to be drawn to so many different artistic endeavors or mediums versus like, no, this is my one thing. I mean, we both feel very much like this. we've always done a lot of stuff. I'm a singer songwriter, but I'm really into writing essays and writing longer form and how a sub stack, we started this and I also do a lot of coaching for other songwriters musicians, but.
I'm always thinking about in those conversations people who are so fearful to try and do something that is not in their lane or, isn't their main profession or income and I'm always like why not you nobody told me that I could be a songwriter. I just started writing songs.
and I have to tell myself that when I get interested in something new, like writing long form essays, I'm like why couldn't I do that? can you speak a little bit to that of like the first time you composed a film? Is there ever any challenge of. Who am I to do this, or can I do this, or self doubt, or any of that stuff, or is it very open and free of, I'm excited to try something?
[00:12:06] Ryan: you touched on a few things. I mean, One word that I think you said that's a huge part of it is fear, and I think that's a big part of that question and I think the imposter syndrome component of it. is a really big part of it too, which is like, I've met a bunch of tech bro entrepreneurs over my time.
Just some were fans of the band and some when it was COVID and I was on clubhouse and it's funny, like the tech bro culture, like I have a lot in common With a lot of these entrepreneurs, we share a lot of the same language about this stuff and about imposter syndrome like, who am I to do this?
I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm just, every one of them is like, nobody knew what they were doing. if something compels you outside of what you're known for.
I mean, yeah, it's always, always, always go towards the fear you know, the metaphor I always use is you're not drowning, but you're not really swimming either.
You're kind of just like, you're paddling enough just to keep your head above water. Because if you get through that, then you're going to, Be okay, and you're going to be better the next time. So, I've been thinking about this a lot recently, but just because of the way things are all piling at this moment in my life.
But I was like, also thinking about all the things. That have failed that I've done. Cause sometimes on Instagram, I'm like, God, this feels so braggy. Like, well, I scored a film. Here's my cool thing. And I wrote an article for the Atlantic and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yeah, but I also like sold a podcast, worked on it for 18 months.
And then it just fell apart and no one will ever hear it. And I burned so much time and favors just to have it never happen. Or, I worked for a year. On this TV idea with our TV writer, and then we just stopped and it just never happened. And like,
Mm
like that are, frustrating.
But I think they're also just part of that process of like, well, that's why you go to places you've never been before. You you're not guaranteed of success. I learned a lot from both of those projects that just literally were failures. Yeah. Abject failures in a way, nothing ever happened but yeah, I think, the imposter syndrome thing is real. And the, I don't know what it was for me, but I think the idea of just like, I mean, I have two teenagers, right? So this is a discussion. That's comes up a lot about, I can't do that.
you know, I don't know what I'm doing. It's just do it. Just do it, make mistakes. Like all about making mistakes. It's all about iterating. It's. All about yeah, you're going to screw up. You want things to break. You want make a mistake.
So I really believe that. And there was even something recently when I was like, I really took to heart, when shit blows up, like that's an opportunity. Like I look for when things are kind of wrong way to be like, there's gotta be a way to make the most of it.
and especially, I mean, both of you as musicians. Understand that probably implicitly. Like it's the note you don't mean to play or hit or the chords you hit wrong. It's like, Oh fuck, I got to honor that. the mistakes are the things that end up giving all these things flavor.
the things that get you out of your pattern. So I try and embody that at this point. I think I'm. Pretty good at recognizing it. You want to move towards the fear and like that was a useful thing for me to understand as a concept, because what it did is it just codified it as a thing that everybody experiences. It's why I mentioned that I met tech bros oh, you're running a company and you start to meet these people and you're like, oh you're a ding dong.
You're a ding dong. That's making this up as they go along. And they're all ding dongs. They really are.
[00:15:37] Aaron: the thing that rang for me every time, But it's like, you look at these tech bros that have built these massive companies or any entrepreneur that's built a really successful company, and they've probably failed more than you've tried.
that fear of failure just inhibits us from starting so frequently that you just don't end up attempting anything.
[00:15:55] Michaela: But that's what I loved in what you just said, sharing specifics of things that you've, would call failures that didn't work out because we don't, culturally share those.
That's not what we post about on Instagram. And it's crazy how even so many of us who have an inside view with, other like high achieving, seemingly successful on the outside people and know that how much failure it takes. I think we still sometimes. Have to be reminded constantly of like failure is part of it.
if you play it safe you're never going to succeed and you'll never fail. And I think that idea of always go towards the fear. I agree with that too. But then I always think, why? I agree with you, but why do we go towards the fear? I still get stage fright and I get nervous every time I play a show and I'll be on tour and be like, why do I choose to do something that literally makes me like sick to my stomach?
Every night before I go on stage. I know why I do, because it is the most connective, fulfilling, satisfying feeling. But I'm always like psychologically and emotionally, why are some of us wired to want to go towards the fear?
[00:17:05] Ryan: I do think it's kind of a wired thing. I mean, maybe, Maybe it can be a practice. You know, I say this again, a lot to my kids oh, It's just practice. whenever I'm talking to people and I'm like, Oh, you know what your practice is, your practice is to pretend to not care when your mom doesn't call you.
that's what I mean by being iterative. It's like, you're not trying to solve everything or do everything at once. it's just about practice. So the practice of moving towards the fear of Being like, okay, I know this is really hard to go on stage, but I'm going to do it and there's something that compels you to want to do that.
Maybe that's because you want to make money, or you want to have sex with someone in the audience, or you want to share your music whatever it is that compels you to get out of your box. and explore. I'm an explorer by nature. I just I have been I always will. It's how I live my life.
I'm 51 years old. It's such a part of who I am at this point. if I've identified that, it's like, well, how do I support myself in that activity of just wanting to experience things and do things and share and learn and, fuck off and have fun and lose myself and all that.
it's the practice of pushing yourself out of those comfort zones. if that's the kind of life that you want to live I wouldn't say that that's how everybody needs to live their life. And if my kids are like, you know, I don't want to live that kind of life.
respect that. And I certainly respect people that don't. I mean, My wife didn't really want to do that until very recently. And now she's having her own kind of explosion in her own 22 hours. But I never judged her for it. You know, it's just like, oh, that's the kind of life that you want to have.
You want to hang out with your family and make little projects and raise these kids and then something snapped and now she's in this whole other stratosphere, but it's something had to click with her,
[00:18:52] Michaela: Or just different phases
[00:18:53] Ryan: exactly. Motherhood
[00:18:55] Michaela: children. Yeah. Yeah. And that idea of practice, I think about that a lot when you have, fear on stage or to write or to put yourself out there. That the more that you do practice it, the more you're, actually physically teaching your body that you're safe.
To do those things, like if my body is having physical response to the adrenaline rush of nerves or excitement or anxiety of going on stage and singing songs that I wrote in front of a bunch of strangers, the more that I do it, the more my body learns to react. Okay, I'm not in, fight or flight. Like I'm safe.
If I mess up, if I forget my lyrics up here, the more I do it, the more I start to teach myself, the world doesn't end.
[00:19:37] Ryan: you have,
[00:19:38] Michaela: me off stage. I'm okay.
[00:19:39] Ryan: you have panic attacks? Have you had panic attacks? Yeah.
[00:19:42] Michaela: Not full panic attacks. I'm definitely a, I'm like, look at Aaron and be like, what are you going to say?
[00:19:49] Ryan: He definitely looked at you too. He was waiting to see what you were going to say.
[00:19:53] Michaela: I'm definitely like, I run anxious. I've always been
[00:19:57] Ryan: Yeah, you're using a lot of the language. I'm not anxious by nature, but I'm very intimate with people who deal with panic and anxiety. And that's a lot of the language especially once you set it tight into the physical, right? And it's really hard for me to find Not sympathy, but empathy for that, because I don't understand anxiety like that.
I'm not an anxious person. I don't have panic very often. so I'm like nothing's happening. What's the problem? What do you mean? It's too. What do you mean? Stop being anxious. And you're like, but it is such a physical component. And it's funny to like, the few times I have had panic, Moments and maybe that's like I smoke too much weed or something and it happens in infrequently.
I'm Oh, this is what it feels like. I want to hold on, not hold on to it, but I want to pay attention to what this feels like. one of my darkest fears is Being trapped in my body as a, like a coma and you can't talk, that's just a dark fear. every once in a while I'll be like, what would I do? And I, or like if it's late at night, like in the bus has happened, like sometimes when you're on tour and you're like trussling around and you have that feeling, I'm like, what would I do? Dude, could I like talk myself out of panic?
and it's scary. I don't like it.
[00:21:19] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:21:20] Ryan: at those moments I flip close to that and I have an understanding of it. So it's not like you're speaking, Russian or something like, Oh, I know what you mean, but I don't necessarily, I haven't gone through the mechanisms to solve it in the same way.
I haven't had to.
[00:21:35] Michaela: well, I think even in the, experience of like, writing in a different form or composing a film where you're not like going on stage, but when you're you might have fear of like, how is it going to be received or whatever that the more you do it, you know, if you do get a negative response or a mean comment, I feel like Be in a similar way of teaching yourself it's all still okay I can work for a year on a podcast or 18 months and it can fail and that can be really disappointing but I'm still okay and on to the next thing I can grieve and be sad and try and learn from it and Then let's go
[00:22:10] Ryan: Yeah, it's the feel your feelings component of this, right? So, like, I think one of the people I know that deals with this was just like, had a parent that's like, everything's fine. Everything's fine. no one gave them permission to just feel your feelings. My kids got up.
Dennis appointment tomorrow, they got a shot were just talking about it before we got on here and like, I'm like, yeah, it's going to suck. It's not fun. I'm not going to tell you it's going to be fun. It's going to suck. It sucks getting shots in your mouth, but you got to do it. And that's the path. there's a little bit of that. I feel deeply for those people, but like you or, whomever who just have that as a, persistent as just part of their personality.
I mean, Thankfully, I'm not too worried by that. And then the more that you just, all these little things, and I can point to a few projects, like writing an article for the Atlantic, or I just started a movie that was like, so much anxiety around it. But Fuck, man, you get to the other side of that and you're like, oh, shit.
It just both of those things have just felt like they opened up entirely new universes when I got to the other side of it and writing an article, like I quit, there's a story at least that I feel is somewhat instructive about this we played Red Rocks during COVID. It was the first time we headlined. It was a huge deal. So just like such a triumph. And then COVID happened. And I was like, I feel like there's a story here. And I had never written anything ever, but I was. Yeah. friends with this pretty, big journalist and who's a friend and a fan.
And and I was like, I feel like I might want to write. It's like, I'll introduce you to some editors and introduce me to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic and pitch them the idea. Like, I want to write about this, COVID and being in a band. And he was like, okay, do it. And I was like, I'd never written anything in my life, The dog caught the tire and I was like, oh shit, now I have to do this. And I sat down to write it and it was just, I just sucked. And I, worked on it for a couple months and I was like, I couldn't do it.
I just could not figure out. I was like, this is stupid. I can't do this. I'm not good enough. I'm not the right person. And then I called him and he was like, Yeah, just do this thing. And he was amazing. And I just started and I got that first draft out, you know, like they say, get it out, just do the first thing.
And then at the other end of that, having done that and having an article published by the Atlantic, and then it was just like, Oh shit. I'm not going to be scared of anything anymore. And it's not true, but it really was super empowering into this. Yes. Anding with creative projects where I'm just like, okay, I'm smart.
I have thoughts. I can be articulate. I know I'm not a writer, but why couldn't I be a writer? My wife's a writer. She can make sure that I'm on, and it was incredible for my ego. And I don't mean that in like a, Miami vice kind of ego way. I mean, Just in terms of my artistic ego to be like, Oh okay. I can do this. And as a result, I wrote another article for the Atlantic and then I too was like, I want to keep writing. So, I pitched a series for the Atlantic. Arts Weekly here on Dive Bars and I started a sub stack and then I just ah, this isn't fun. So my sub stacks sitting there for like almost a year now, but I can always pick it back up and I just don't enjoy writing as much as I did back then.
But I felt like that was really instructive in terms of just like, I hit bottom. I'm done. I can't do it. And I gave up and I called him basically to tell him I can't do it. And he was like, I'll just do this. And I was like, Okay. And then I did. I was like this is fucking great.
[00:25:27] Michaela: Yeah. Mhm. Well, Learning that there can be like, a really hard aspect of it. That doesn't mean that you're bad at it. That just means you care and you're doing the
[00:25:37] Aaron: work. Yeah, that's exactly what I was gonna say. A lot of time I feel like the more anxious I get about a project, the more it's actually just my body saying like, oh, I really care about this.
I'm putting this on a pedestal or whatever it is, and I say I'm putting this on a pedestal like, as in something not to do, I'll catch myself like, oh, I'm putting this on a pedestal and it's just writing a thing,
[00:25:53] Ryan: are you a film composer? You work in film,
[00:25:55] Aaron: I've assisted on a few films.
I have a few friends that are, that's what they do. But I play on a lot of, scores and stuff like that.
[00:26:01] Michaela: And he does, sync stuff for TV shows. Yeah,
[00:26:04] Aaron: I write more
[00:26:05] Ryan: Yeah. Same. That's how I started doing this. And that's a weird thing too, because then you're, you're in the service of somebody else's vision, like, I just had a movie go up at Sundance, a couple of weeks ago and it was my 15th feature. as a composer, And that's 15 directors telling me what to do, whether I agree with him or not being like, yes, sir, they may have another, but there's a certain amount of joy in that too, being like, okay, I'm just going to be a vessel for the expression of your ideas.
And I'm going to try interpret what you mean. And do this and got fired from a couple jobs as a composer to like, just wasn't a good fit or it wasn't, actually good enough to get what they wanted. And
Mm Doesn't feel good. But again, it's sort of like I needed to go talk to other composers and be like, Oh, yeah, I've been fired 3 times, you know, to be like, Oh, right.
Okay. This is just like
[00:26:55] Michaela: Again, yeah, really helpful because nobody's like, Hey everyone, I got fired today.
[00:27:00] Aaron: Yeah. Yeah, that's like, actually writing to picture is something that has always been I guess, kind of a dream of mine.
[00:27:07] Ryan: You should do it, Aaron.
[00:27:08] Aaron: Well, it's, it's getting started in it.
And the more I talk to composers and the more I hear them like, oh yeah, like half of my score was replaced all of that. It's like, oh, okay. I get it. Yeah.
[00:27:19] Michaela: It sounds really true. We have two very close friends who are film composers and their wives are also just this is hell.
[00:27:28] Ryan: Oh, man. Yeah, I was sort of glad that these other things have, you know, surfaced as an expression outside the band, because it is, you have to be a certain kind of person and have a certain, you have to have to really love a lot of different aspects of it. And like, I love for me, like limitations are one of the biggest, moments of inspiration. I love a sandbox to play. And that was someone to be like, this is what you have to do within this confines versus being in a band, especially our band, where it's like, Oh, you can do whatever you want.
Just write a great song. And I'm like that sucks. I would much rather you'd be like, I want you to write a song about the day that the guy summited Mount Everest and there was 15 people on top, and then somebody died and Oh, that I can do, you know? So, that, I love about composing, but yeah, it's, hard to send those.
Things. And you must know the same feeling when you send it and you're just waiting for that email back and be like, yeah, it's not quite right. And he just was like well, I just spent six hours on that and I can't ever use that again. And I didn't go to lunch with my wife or I didn't hang out with my kid and fuck, it's a hard life.
It's a hard life to do that
[00:28:34] Aaron: It really is. in the film world, the most foreign thing to me is the timeline and the pacing and dealing with it. Film producers, I'm so used to the music world and I can kind of anticipate how fast things are, but like, you know, in the film world all of a sudden hurry up and wait.
you hurry to do this cue and then like you hear back and then you don't hear back for a while. Then all of a sudden it's like, Oh, we need to set it and set it, this edit, we need it like in like four hours. And it's just like, wow.
[00:28:59] Ryan: a friend of mine from college we went separate ways after school. He went right into the sync world and Did commercials at a very high level like? that's how he made his living and he and I started doing films together because he had that skill set.
First of all, he's always available, like he wasn't on the road and was just too many times I was on the road. Like I was one time I was like running through downtown Minneapolis with a laptop looking for a Wi Fi signal because I had to upload because I had cut the commercial guide track at 48.
Instead of 44. And it was just like, I can't, this isn't for me. I don't want this kind of thing. Like, I can't be putting myself in this position. So yeah, there's been a lot of lessons,
[00:29:44] Michaela: like you said sacrificing, you know, lunch with your wife or hanging out with your kid, it's really hard in So many aspects of the music industry to create personal boundaries and be like, no, this is what I need to do to maintain my, health, my family.
And I feel like you have to get to a certain place where you're just like, I'm okay with the consequences because a lot of times people in the industry or opportunities are like, cool, fuck you. We don't care about your boundaries. We'll find another person.
[00:30:10] Ryan: it's one of the more and more interesting things about raising kids right now, or even just being a person is just like this generation that's coming up is really It's just like, no, I don't feel like doing that today, boss. And you'll hear my generation, the kids today, you know what I mean? they don't want to work anymore. And I see it from both sides. You know what I mean?
hmm. Especially as someone that busts his ass a lot of times to do shit. but also someone that's like, of course you shouldn't be at your boss's beck and call and answering slacks at 11 o'clock on a Saturday, you know?
So like I have friends who own businesses. And they're just like, Oh, yeah, I can't get anybody to do anything after five. But like, well, doesn't always work, like, especially in a making shit doesn't operate on nine to five. So this idea of boundaries and like, what's happening generationally is fascinating.
And I don't know how it's going to play out because there's all these other factors. But man, This idea of boundaries, especially in a generational sense, it's just, it's so interesting to me. And of course it's always been shifting, but man, it's, I don't know how to distill it other than saying it's very interesting.
[00:31:20] Aaron: Yeah. Especially as an artist, especially as a musician, you know, I'm in my late thirties and it was probably like five years ago in the couple of years leading up to the pandemic where I was like, Oh, I can have like boundaries with my time in like responding to somebody, you know, I've never really been in a, long term band.
I've always been a sideman session guy, hired gun kind of thing. I used to say that like being a sideman musician was like being a doctor with less pay you're on call all the time because you know there'd be managers sending me texts at like 11 o'clock like hey like blah blah blah and I'd feel like this urgency to respond immediately and it's like man you can just respond the next morning more often than not it'll be fine but there's this anxiety of like I need to sacrifice everything and put this at the top
[00:32:01] Michaela: I don't know. I think there is something to be said for wanting to elevate personal time and like family life I'm like really in between because I'm, because as soon as I'm saying this, I'm like, yeah, I need to learn how to do those things too. But I also like, I grew up with a military father and like very much like, you know, your role, you do your shit.
my mom was even more militaristic than he
[00:32:24] Ryan: No wonder your an no wonder you have anxiety in your life. You're
[00:32:28] Michaela: But she was always like, what are you going to accomplish today? That was like, you got a few hours, a free time all of a sudden. Well, what can we accomplish? I'm like, mom, we don't have to accomplish something all the time.
But
[00:32:37] Ryan: right,
[00:32:38] Michaela: we both went to the new school in New York city. We met at jazz school I had an internship at none such records then they hired me my last year of school and I worked there for a few years and then I ended up. being in charge of the intern program.
So I was like hiring interns. They weren't getting paid. They were getting school credit. And I remember even that few year divide, maybe it's not generational, maybe it's like upbringing, whatever. I just remember some of these interns coming in. Being like so entitled well I want to be on like the main production meetings and like I want to be in with the president and like what am I?
Doing just sitting here and I'm like listen kid
[00:33:16] Ryan: Exactly. Exactly, exactly.
[00:33:19] Michaela: it's always walking a tightrope in my mind of just like hustling, working hard, being responsive being prepared and rising to an occasion when opportunity comes. And then also knowing that like so called success as we've culturally defined it of, big everything, numbers, money, fame, isn't actually what.
science shows or research shows is what really brings true fulfillment and happiness to people. So it's, a challenge, hence why we had, why we started this podcast. We started it because the pandemic hit and all of our friends were like, quietly like, I'm kind of relieved that. We don't have to tour and like life is nice being home and I don't feel FOMO maybe we should all live differently and then touring came back and everyone was like
[00:34:06] Aaron: slingshot.
[00:34:06] Michaela: Yeah, like
[00:34:07] Ryan: back on it.
[00:34:08] Michaela: Exactly. And then all of a sudden people were like, quietly at dinner being like, I'm actually like really struggling even though it looks like things are so great. I'm struggling financially because everything's more expensive than it was. Touring is financially harder to maintain.
Just like all of that stuff that we were like, why don't we just have, These conversations in the light it doesn't mean that you don't want to be an artist it just means like we want to try and be more honest about what it means to be an artist and Counter the age of social media that's only showing each other highlights and be like no actually there's a way to do this it looks so different for everybody and we think in this One size fits all mode of success.
[00:34:50] Ryan: Yeah, there's no map anymore. There's no route. There's no, if you want to get there, you have to go this way. That's completely out the door. That's for sure,
[00:34:58] Michaela: Yeah, I'm always curious about people who started one Also the fact that you guys have maintained a ban for so long so I guess I have two questions what that has been like personnel wise to stay together and on the same page and then to what it's been like to navigate the drastically changing music industry, the business aspect of it, of all the different mediums, platforms, all that stuff.
[00:35:22] Ryan: I mean, Yeah, like I said, I'm 51. I met Brian and Adam, when we were 18, we played our first show together. So, I think part of it, honestly, the biggest part of it is probably just got really lucky that those were really good dudes and now are good men, were communicative, we have Families that we care about. And we got lucky that like the people that I chose very indiscriminately happened to be really good people. And also we just grew up together. I mean, We literally grew up together. I've known them for 31 years.
I've, way more than half my life, two thirds of my life, more than two thirds of my life. So they're not my brothers. it's almost beyond that, like we make this thing together, we stand on stage, we create and then, you know, we got 10 years in, we got a fourth guy who was there for seven years and, Joe was in our band for like seven or so years, you know, Joe Pizzapia,
[00:36:20] Michaela: do. Yeah. He's a friend here. Yeah.
[00:36:22] Ryan: yeah, you guys would get along. Um, So Joe was in the band for seven years and then Luke Reynolds came in for, he's coming on 15. And yeah, the dynamics are not static, And we're all changing a lot, but we're also we're committed to this thing.
And thankfully, there hasn't been, like, any crazy addiction issues or any, you know, something that surfaced that was like, no one did anything bad. There's no like, cancelable things in any of our closets. and we're just really committed to this thing. And of course, our, yeah.
Relationships have changed a lot over the three decades and continue to change, you know, like, I'm sure that we're like, we're all mad at each other and we figure it out. And, even this tour was very stressful to put together. I mean, We were writing a play basically, and we had to learn lines and make props and learn blocking cues.
And none of us knew what the fuck we were doing. And we all have different levels of comfort for that. And. There was like rehearsals were pretty tense and it was just, it was a mess until the moment we got on stage. And then it came together in a way, like we'd never run the whole show until the night we did it in Austin And it was really tense and there was some shit. And like, even there was like kind of a mini blow up, during rehearsals. and then one of the guys was just like using all this very I hear what you're saying and I acknowledge you and I want to tell you how I'm feeling. And it was just all this very therapy influence language that was really helpful, you know, and just to be like, I hear what you're saying. And this is what I'm hearing. What I'm feeling is this. And we were able to like, and this very post, therapy, self care world, like work through this thing that might have derailed rehearsal for a day. and it wasn't me that started, or even using that language.
but this one person is like working on this shit and brought that into the band. And I was like, okay, I see that. And we were all able to kind of, yes. And that and get through it. And he's like, Oh, I feel like you're not really saying everything. I'm like, I'm not, here's the other thing I want to say, you know, and then you say it and, and then at the end you hug and you're like, okay, it's going to be all right.
You know, And that's, it's, it was kind of a magical moment of this tour to be like, all right, The flare ups don't happen that often, but when they do that, we have the tools to be able to like extinguish the smoldering or flare up. It's not even smoldering. It's just like a thing.
It I love and respect each of them like deeply
like,
mm hmm.
deeply. It's a crazy journey to be on together, It's a crazier thing than even being married. I mean, I'm saying it's more intense, but in some ways it is because you don't get to have sex or anything.
You just have to like, go and do this thing. And our identities are all tied in with each one another. And we have to agree about this stuff. And it's never, Oh, God, it's just the best. We love each other. We just want to hang out all the time. It's never that. And I don't even know if that would be good,
[00:39:17] Aaron: that mentality of, like
this is hard. This is going to be tough. This takes a lot of work. and that you're lucky to be doing what you're doing. Is that a mentality that's shared across the band? Yeah.
[00:39:27] Ryan: I mean, I think if you talk to the four of us, You would have a pretty similar interview in a lot of ways, like we're wildly different personalities in a lot of way, but our commitment to work and how we approach, like we had like a two hour meeting today with the band.
We meet every Tuesday with our managers and whatever we have to deal with. So we announced our festival today. and we worked on the rest of the year and a lot of shit was coming up. Do we take this week for promo? Do we say yes to this thing? What do we want to do about this?
And and we pretty much were all like, okay, I don't really want to do that, but I understand why we need to do it. And there was one big decision. And Brian was like, I know I'm alone on this, but I don't think we should do this. And and he said his piece and we're like, you're alone. And then he took it, you know, he took the loss and that's just what we do. it feels extremely healthy right now with the dynamics in the band. And a lot of that also just has to do with coming off something that It feels like it was such a crazy swing that worked again. It's like another one of those things where you like, it's a real confidence builder of like, well, fuck, what, what can we do now?
Like, Yeah, like let's keep our foot on the gas here. What do we do? How do we keep moving? Cause it feels really good to have. Pulled off something this ambitious we hadn't sold that many tickets inside in Boston and like, maybe ever, so like the bands, almost in a way, it's like stronger than it's ever been or, or it has been in Decades.
So That will help grease the wheels of this very easily when it's working. Right. I think the question may be, and probably something would be more interesting for you and your podcast is like, what do you do when the wheels start to fall off?
[00:41:08] Michaela: Well, no, I think you've, talked about that in a way it doesn't have to be like self destructive in a band, but like honoring that it doesn't always work everything you try, but that when it does work, it is really great kind of new energy to keep it going. I also wondered too, cause like we had Glenn Phillips from Toad the Wetsprocket on and, talking about all the different dynamics And I'm not well versed in both your band and Toad the Whet's Bracket's like timeline, but levels of success early in a career where like they were signed to a major label like by age 17 or something and sometimes I think about like when your brain isn't even fully developed and all of a sudden you're like Dealing with fame and all of this stuff and how those different dynamics can Maybe be a little bit more poisonous for a band
[00:41:57] Ryan: yeah. the fact that we've just kind of had this like this and plateau and little bumps and now a little bump up has been one of the reasons I'm really like my podcast. I feel like every day. I'm like, I have a thing. I'm like that's another thing I'll never do.
Just another business idea, another podcast. I'll never start. But like, I would love to talk to the bands who've been around for 30 or 40 years, and Tone, I think I, correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, I don't know that they've been making records consistently.
Like that's kind of a difference between us and some other bands.
[00:42:30] Michaela: They broke up they were done
[00:42:32] Ryan: broke.
[00:42:33] Michaela: Like by, I think Glenn said by the time he was 27, it was over. And then they got back together years later and now they're making records
[00:42:40] Ryan: They're making new records, making new music and stuff. But like, fact that we didn't have a lot of mainstream success is probably a huge component to the fact that we're still a band. I could see how it could be destructive in a million ways.
[00:42:53] Michaela: Yeah. That's what the, what, you know, the Wood brothers.
[00:42:55] Ryan: yeah, we did a whole tour with them last
[00:42:57] Michaela: Oh, awesome. I, toured with them, opened for them last year on a tour, but they call that their slow rise to the middle.
[00:43:03] Ryan: Yeah. there's something about that, about just being, the journeyman. And I think about that with even in my composing stuff I'm like, Look, I don't want to do a Marvel movie. don't even know if I like doing studio movies.
There's so many people that have an opinion and the people have opinion aren't necessarily don't have a good opinion. They just have an opinion because they feel like they need to. And I just don't want to. So being this kind of like. composer of doing these cool indies and things that go to Sundance and like these sub 5 million movies.
It's like kind of all my ambition is with that this probably a different conversation, but man, oh, man, am I glad I'm not famous? especially like, get a sense of me and how like, I like to explore. Like, I don't want to lose my anonymity.
I don't
Mm hmm. To affect every situation that I walk into. I don't desire that. listened to this podcast yesterday. This guy, PJ Vote he interviewed Molly Ringwald about how to survive fame it was pretty good. I It was more of like a chronology of her life and less about the subject, but I was so fascinated by that.
cause she kind of made it out the other side and she sounds like she's pretty together and a lot of
Mm hmm. And he asked like, how do you, and the answer She gave at the ending, which is kind of funny. She's like, I think I just wired There's just some people who are DNA. It's they can figure out how to get outside of it.
And I was like well, that's not very instructive
[00:44:25] Michaela: Yeah.
[00:44:26] Ryan: It's like, Oh, you have no choice. This is all nature. Sorry. You had no choice whether you're going to survive it or not. But yeah, no, that idea of being kind of a middle class musician or a journeyman thing is, it's very respectable to me and I feel like I kind of made peace with it too, because as I started to do all these other things, because I'm like, Oh, it all adds up to a very rich life.
And I think it felt very instructive. And even in terms of my kids, don't have to find the one thing that drives you why am I here? What's my passion? It's like, just have it all add up to a full life and like have some balance and boundaries and, that's great. it's a different thing than like, you know, that's a drag your parents into like, what are you accomplishing today?
which I do think it's important to have some drive in this obviously.
[00:45:14] Michaela: Also, just to defend my parents. They are very supportive of an artistic life and all of that stuff. But it's like, it is language that I was like, that's drilled into me. I have a day off and I need to accomplish things. Anyways.
[00:45:28] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:45:34] Ryan: but I'm just like, I want to lay down. I'm
[00:45:37] Aaron: at it. No, there was something you said about, talking to your kids and like that one thing that you have to chase.
that tied into something you had said earlier about all of the extracurricular activities that you have and that Adam and Brian have. And how they're all in a similar ecosystem with the band and all that. that's something that I've come to realize of late is that as long as you can kind of have an idea of like your mission or like what you're aiming for.
There's a thousand ways you can get there. don't have to take just one road, you can do all of them, you can write articles, you can compose for films, you can give talks, you can, keep making records, you can tour,
[00:46:13] Ryan: Yeah,
[00:46:14] Aaron: to kind of get to the, whatever that, lack of a finish line is.
[00:46:18] Ryan: I mean, I feel like the people that I'm really I've come to really admire in the last like half decade have been sort of those multi hyphenates and are called like slashers, this slash this, are you guys pals of Nicole Atkins at
[00:46:32] Aaron: hmm.
I played in Nicole's
[00:46:33] Ryan: Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. So like, Nicole did some dates with us. I've known her for a long time. I've known her when we lived in New York, I just love that she started that variety show over podcasts. And then she posts her art every once in a while and it's really beautiful. And, I'm like, Oh, that's what I like about.
she lives this life that we're talking about. And I just, I really respect that kind of fearlessness in approaching all this stuff of the multi hyphenate of the slashes. I'm just like, Nicole's just kind of an artist, and the more I kind of watch her unfold, like she's doing this Led Zeppelin thing and was like, Oh, it was so crazy.
And like, love it so much. I just love it. I'm impressed by it. and it doesn't take away from jazz musicians who want to just noodle and like be really awesome at their instruments because I've sacrificed probably like a million other things in order to.
Be able to do, you know, jack of all trades kind of thing. But at a certain point you're just like, the thing that you need is just fearlessness. I'm going to make this piece of art or I'm going to put on this concert. I'm going to start this podcast or variety show and you're going to figure it out.
but I think that there is a very Nicole Atkins nist All of it, even though one is putting on a cover of band show or drawing art or playing music, there's something that's Nicole about all of it. and that's I think what's been slowly coming that started with films composing and then with the writing and now maybe acting.
And I'm moments away from announcing this off Broadway musical that I'm working on. That's going incredibly well. And I'm just like, there's a thing that's through it that when I tell people like, Oh, I'm doing this thing. They're like, what do you mean you're, you starred in a movie?
And I'm like, yeah, they're like, I can kind of see that. And then to have done it and feel like, oh, I didn't actually fuck it up. oh, well now this is now part of who I am and I can expand the definition of what it is, but it doesn't feel completely off brand. It's not like, oh, that doesn't make any sense.
Like, why would you, I mean, I played myself in the movie, basically like a guy like me, so it's not that hard in a way, so hard. But anyway, it's just like, it does, it does make a thing. There's a body of work and people who do that just have an incredible amount of respect who can spit all these plates and just keep making shit and.
Have some plates fall and have some plates spin off into the universe. And it's, it's really, I love people like that. can't get enough of it.
[00:49:03] Michaela: It's beautiful to see people really following their curiosity and following like what could be fun versus I think like the Criticism could be, well, if you want to be career driven, focusing on your one thing to be the highest level and like, what about like your brand and focusing and everything and.
we got to talk to John Doe from the punk band X. He's also a published poet and an actor. And I'm like, how cool just like, pursuing a life of art and curiosity and passion versus how do I maneuver to try to gain something. Yeah. I think it's,
[00:49:40] Aaron: I see it in people that focus on the process and focus on the creation rather than focusing on like.
[00:49:47] Ryan: The achievement.
[00:49:47] Aaron: achievement, the accolades, whatever it is, you know what I
[00:49:50] Ryan: Well, I
[00:49:51] Aaron: focus on the process it inherently has them in it
[00:49:54] Ryan: and this is just a really, it's an interesting conversation to have with two working artists in Nashville. How long have you guys been in Nashville?
[00:50:01] Aaron: We've been here for a decade now
[00:50:02] Michaela: and we were in new york city for 10 years before
[00:50:05] Ryan: Nashville's definitely more of a company town, and, apparently we do know and probably know a lot more of the same people, when my, you know, we had our kids Brooklyn and my wife wanted to move and I was really gunning hard towards, I was like, I got to move to LA.
I'm just starting my film composing thing. Like, I got to meet people. I want this to work. I need to make money. And I was just a hundred percent shut down. There was no chance of me winning that argument, which is why I was dragged here. But I could feel the LA Pulling some bad parts of me out this sort of hierarchical underpinning of the town and the fact that everybody's looking over their shoulder and I think that doing this in Nashville where everybody's doing the same thing, or a lot of people are doing the same thing.
It's hard not to like, check them out and The more that you learn about this, the more you realize that you're on your path and it's not about looking and seeing what everybody else is doing, but it's a very natural response, especially like when you're a parent not fucking selling out Red Rocks.
You're like, wait, should I be quitting? Like, It's hard to be in Nashville or L. A. or New York and do this stuff especially I think at that Wood Brothers journeyman level where you just watch people blow by you or people with less talent the reason I bring this up is because I'm, I feel like I'm susceptible to that.
So Potentially one of the greatest gifts that I was ever given was being dragged out of those ecosystems to a place where my only peers in Vermont are like Mike Gordon from Fish, who's not my peer, you know, he's on a whole other level, or, Noah Khan, who I met once, or Grace Potter, who's on a different thing, but there's not a lot of me's here.
[00:51:53] Michaela: does does
[00:51:54] Ryan: Neis is such a yeah, she's an incredible and like the Broadway it's just such a fan of her and she wrote a book
[00:52:01] Michaela: and she's a mother. a huge fan of Bonnie Light Horseman. I got to open a couple shows for them in Europe this past summer. I love all of
[00:52:08] Ryan: that's cool. you know, Eric opened up for us this weekend.
[00:52:11] Michaela: awesome. I didn't see
[00:52:13] Ryan: And Eric's an old, one of my oldest music friends. And Josh Kaufman produced our record.
[00:52:17] Michaela: Yes, I saw that. They're all incredible.
[00:52:19] Ryan: those are my people. And Nance was the last person I met. And when the Broadway thing started to take off, I was like, she grew up with Luke, who was now the 4th guy in the band and has been forever, but I was like, I don't know her that well.
And we just started talking and I was just like, it was really fast. It was like, oh, we're going to be friends, but just I didn't realize the depth of all this stuff. And the Hadestown journey is just so instructive and. nuts. I was like, what do I, how do I do this?
She's handed me her book. And we didn't talk about Broadway for the rest of the time. We talked about our, like our relationships or something. And then I was like, I read the book and I was like, Oh my God, you're amazing. But anyway, I think that that's not an unimportant point.
And all of this and contextualizing this if you're hoping to be instructive of just what your environment is. Nashville is hard, man. L. A. is hard. And, And a lot of people like, even Michael Chernis, the guy that, my friend that I brought into this movie that brought all the real actors in, he's like, yeah, I don't like what LA does.
I don't like what it is. And I think the subtext of that might be like, I don't like what it does to me. And I don't know I think that would be hard. For me, I think I know enough about myself to be like, it wouldn't bring out the best parts of me always,
[00:53:29] Michaela: I think that's a really good point to make. I think it's great. It's incredible that you know that about yourself and that you shared it because I think a lot of people struggle with feeling that insecurity or jealousy or what about me feelings that can happen when you're in an environment where everybody's doing the same thing and you see everybody succeeding at different levels.
But then it's a really shameful secret of like, I'm not jealous. And the reality is that. We all experience those feelings of okay, happy for peers, but like, come I'm not getting that? Or where do I fit in? And it definitely can be overwhelming. And we would talk a lot about how we need some friends who are not musicians in Nashville because living, living, living in New York, we had so many different types of friends and moving here was like, it felt like we were in like Americana conference mode all the time.
And I think the last few years, especially the pandemic changing and having a child changed, obviously our, social life. We don't hang out at bars every night, like we used to, like we're not out talking shop at bars here and everybody's tour schedule. And so we've, we've been like very conscious.
It's about our intention that can be very hard, I think, and trying to keep each other in check of if we're staying here, because we built a recording studio, we own our house here, we feel a little bit stuck because we have like this very affordable, beautiful and studio, dream
[00:54:55] Ryan: You got there 10 years ago. You
[00:54:57] Michaela: Our dream is to exactly. But then we're like, so if we're here, really intentional about the community that we want to nurture, the type of community we want to be in, the environment, and the mindsets and, culture that we want to be cultivating around us and our child?
[00:55:14] Ryan: I will just say that was foisted upon me when I was made to move 14 years ago. And not that I was like, Oh, this isn't healthy for me. I need to get out of here. all I wanted to do was go to Nashville or L. A. and be around my famous and semi famous friends and go to cool parties and do cool shit.
and I still have that in me and I can justify it in a lot of different ways. And I think my justifications are mostly spot on. I'm like, I like people that make stuff but also like, yeah, I got here and I was like, for me, it wasn't even like, where are my musicians? It was just like, where are the people that are making stuff? where are the really ambitious people that are just like, Oh, that's what I'm working on. And this is that. And it took me forever to find them and because you don't move to Vermont to do that, but instead of having this very deep well of relationships here of like showrunners and actors and writers and comedians, the thread I'm on my daily text that has 400 messages is like a restaurant guy, a contractor, this dude that may or may not, just sell shit off of eBay, you know, like a marketing guy.
Like, Just like my breath is way more. And I think it probably was inflicted upon me, but probably saved me in a lot of ways I just call them my civilian friends. You know, it's just like, they're my civilian friends. And I love them. Capital L, I love them and I adore them and like a couple of them came down to the Boston show and I was kind of like, well, this is my day job, They know me as an insane person, but they don't know me as being this like dancing monkey in front of like thousands of people every night. And so I really think it helped me. So it's I don't want to misrepresent myself as being like so self aware that I was able to do that. I think it was just my wife smarts.
[00:57:06] Aaron: Well, Yeah. talk about creating in that framework. You brought it up with doing sync stuff, you know, where you get a brief and it's okay, here's your limitations. Like, what can you make with it? I mean, it kind of sounds pretty similar to like, Cool, you're moving to Vermont.
can you make with
[00:57:18] Ryan: Yeah, exactly. Oh, it did. And it's been incredible. And especially like raising kids here. And my wife is a state legislator now,
[00:57:28] Michaela: Oh,
[00:57:28] Ryan: happened. So she's in her second year of her first cycle. And so she's in it. And now I'm kind of like, Oh, wow.
Like you're the celebrity of my family now. everywhere we go, it's just like, she knows everyone. And I'm like do you know all these people? The idea of like, digging in and finding your people there's so many amazing people here and there's a lot of cool weirdos.
That's what my whole TV show was making friends with Brian Miller. Like the whole thing was like, where are the high functioning weirdos? it's kind of easy to be weird. And it's kind of easy to be really good at something, but it's hard to do both at the same time. And that's when I went and found these 13 people that were like, Oh, wow, you're a fucking, you're out of your mind, but you also make this cool shit, but they're not all hanging out at 3rd and Lindsley, you know what I mean? They're just, they're, one guy lives in Brandon, and one guy lives in fucking Richmond, and you never see him, you know? that part. Was and still is a little bit hard,
[00:58:21] Aaron: I get that from growing up in Maine. It's like things are, it, but you just gotta look for it. Tucked away. You gotta
[00:58:25] Georgia: find him. Yeah, find him in the
[00:58:27] Ryan: when you get there It's not like there's 50 of those things. There's one thing
[00:58:32] Aaron: Yeah, This is it. This is what you got. You got a weird ass general store that John Fishman opened up.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly that. And, John Surratt from Wilco. him and his wife bought a 150 year old summer camp and have like turned it into this thing.
[00:58:48] Ryan: In Maine
[00:58:48] Aaron: New England close to John Fishman, they're like 35 minutes apart. You know, that's like neighbors.
[00:58:54] Ryan: Oh, that's nothing. I drive that far to get donuts.
[00:58:57] Aaron: Yeah, exactly.
[00:58:58] Georgia: Yeah, man.
[00:58:59] Ryan: didn't know that about John.
[00:59:00] Aaron: Yeah.
[00:59:01] Michaela: Well, Thank you so much. I want to, I don't want to take up too much of your time since we're past the hour. But this was such an easy conversation and so many other things I know we could talk about. So hopefully
[00:59:11] Ryan: Yeah. When this one came across, I'm like, oh well, I got a lot to say right now. I'm sorry in advance. appreciate what I feel like is the undertone. said it out loud. It's not even the undertone, but like it does feel like there's a lot of flash and like self aggrandizing components and that there's real value and kind of, talking about failures and missteps and insecurities and anxieties there's a lot of power in that.
We mean, we've referenced that a lot in this conversation, This took me a long time too, you know, like my journey has been a long one and it's funny Like did another interview today and someone was like, oh, what's your favorite era? Cuz we're doing this eras tour and I was like, honestly, it's right now so I guess if there's anything that I could feel okay about walking from this conversation be like I'm fucking great.
I'm doing cool shit all the time and I know all these things. It's like I didn't for a long time, you know, I'm 51 years old. I'm having a great year right now. I'm getting a lot of green lights. It probably won't last, but you never fucking know. But it wasn't always like this. talked to me 5, years ago, and even gotten a very different answer.
Like, It's taken me a long time. And I guess. Maybe just to tie it all up in a bow. it really has to do with just the practice component of it, recognizing the things that will get you to where you want to go and being diligent about doing that and about staying scared and about things being iterative and not being afraid to fail.
All of that. There really are some results that you can show at the other end. If you really make that part of your artistic practice. And I'm feeling that right now. Like I'm feeling the results of that. when we played in New York and a lot of people who know me, people who I acted with who didn't even know me were like, Holy shit.
I'm like, yeah, it's pretty good right now. Like I'm feeling good. I'm not trying to be like, Oh man, it's cool. I'm not that, you know, I'm like, yeah, this is all feeling good, And who knows if it'll last, but I do appreciate that. It's been a journey. It's always a journey.
[01:01:14] Michaela: think that's a beautiful thing to share because as well, we want everybody to listen to this podcast, but we've said from the beginning, our target audience are other artists, musicians, creatives, because we want them to feel less alone. I think hearing from someone like you. That I'm still on the journey.
I'm 51 years old and it's like feeling like some high moments right now, but that it's taken me 30 years to get here. And it's still. Rising is really great I've always thought the age fear and time running out was singular to women, but it's not. I hear a lot of men also feeling like, Oh my God I'm, I'm almost 40 and I haven't hit it big yet.
And it's again, always reassuring to hear it can keep going. It can not get to the best spot 51 years old. Mm
[01:02:03] Ryan: The book is being written for sure. I think that would be a, that'd be a nice way to think about this for me. It's just like, yeah, still going. I'm a good one right now. And it's been pretty good, but I'm still like, I'm working.
[01:02:17] Aaron: Yeah. Just keep going. Cool.
[01:02:20] Michaela: Awesome. Thank you. So nice to meet
[01:02:21] Ryan: really nice to meet you,
[01:03:05] Michaela: