“Here’s comes the razor of doubt, here comes the falling out,” Matthew Ryan sang on the opening track of his first album, May Day, released seven years ago. That particular song, “Guilty,” has summed up the majority of his feelings he has touched on since: living with the doubts that life deals you. Matthew Ryan isn’t a happy songwriter. He’s a human being.
The last few years have confronted Ryan with a chance to deal with loss. Loss of a dear friend to cancer. Loss of a brother put behind bars for 30 years. Loss of a complete family.
But not the loss of the ability to write a song.
“We all reach those points, whether we like it or not in life, where we’re confronted with impermanence and pretty profound changes. I think those things can really make a better human out of you if you handle them the right way, and I think that’s what I was trying to do,” Ryan says, talking about the making of his newest album, From a Late Night High Rise.
“These things become a part of you, and you kind of tell yourself, ‘I’m never going to feel that way again’ or ‘I’m never going to let something just kind of slide,’ whether it’s just a conversation or a promise. I do think in some ways it’s kind of wishful thinking.”
From the opening “Follow the Leader” to the closing “The Complete Family,” From a Late Night High Rise plays like one cold take of a man coming to grips with changes that he’ll never shake loose. But rather than try to forget them, he instead chooses to be honest with his humanity and celebrate life by making music. Glide recently had a chance to speak with Matthew Ryan about songwriting, his fans, Lucinda Williams, and growing up in Chester, Pennsylvania.
How have the events of last couple of years affected your songwriting?
You know, every record is personal. In the last few years I’ve spent a little more time…I used to write solely on acoustic guitar, but now I try and create some kind of cinema by sitting with a guitar and some people. So I just try to build an atmosphere and it’s weird the way that can build a conversation with your subconscious, because it will start to evoke things. But that’s part of the process of wanting to keep yourself focused and creative. The things that have happened, I think they have changed me and probably more important ways as far as again being human.
The song “Gone For Good” is perhaps the most chilling track on your new record. What’s going through your mind when you’re performing that for a live audience?
Well, it depends on the night. I don’t know…it’s tough…geez…when I play it, people seem to like it (laughs). It’s kind of tough, because I’m just starting to get to know my audience, really. I know that there’s a trust thing there that happens with an audience. I think with me, for most people, I think that it takes two or three times to get that this isn’t fashionably morose or postured sadness, because it’s not really about being morose or sad. The audiences that I’m getting to know, that understand where I’m coming from, everything is kind of a revelation and there’s redemption in confronting something like that. The worst monsters are people who don’t confront the history and the present.
You originally were going to name your new album For Her. Why the change?
Because it made the story singular, which I really didn’t want to do. I was joking with a couple of friends the other night that this record on a lot of levels is dealing with mortality, and because of the pressures of trying to have a career and…with entertainment nowadays, entertainment is now viewed as something that should have a happy ending. But I was joking with friends saying that this isn’t something that happens every once in a while, as far as mortality goes. So, I can’t feel…(laughs)…I can’t feel apologetic for this. I think it’s an artist’s job to try and find something useful in it.
What do you miss most about your friend who died of cancer?
(pause) I think the thing that I miss most, really, is just knowing where she’s at. I don’t really like to talk about it because to make it about one person…it’s dangerous because I don’t want to exploit her, anyway, so I think that would be true…well it is true, and that would be what I miss the most.
Where do you live now?
I live in Nashville, I actually just bought a house outside of town I’m hoping to get in soon. I’ve been living here a long time now, I can’t believe it.
You’ve worked with Lucinda Williams, who used to live in Nashville. Do you like teaming up with other musicians in Nashville?
I tend to avoid other artists. I prefer to be around real people. But at the same time, you like some people and you like being around them. I really admire Lucinda, and my goal is to be an artist like she’s been. You know, there comes a point with where I’m at, and with my audience being clearly relatively small to lose, I can’t tell if I’m making a contribution. That’s a dangerous thing to step into, because you wrestle with ego and all that stuff, but there’s no doubt that Lucinda’s making a contribution, because enough people know what she’s doing and it’s becoming a part of their lives. I really want to make a contribution like that, I don’t want to be David Koresh (laughs).
How do you know people are listening?
Earlier this year I was in a band called Strays Don’t Sleep and I sang a song for that band called “For Blue Skies.” And that song—not to everybody—but to a bunch of people, the song had a life of its own. And you could feel it moving. And it’s no different than when you’re doing a show that becomes bigger than the room—you can feel it. So I guess you can measure those things by a few things, you can measure it by sales, you can measure it by e-mails and letters, or people coming up to you and saying stuff about what you’ve meant to them. I don’t know exactly how I would measure it, but I do know that whether it’s a show where a room explodes or where it’s a song that creates a life for itself, you can feel it. A lot of times I feel like I’m in the wilderness, and I’d rather not feel like that.
How scary is it trying to make a living only having a small following?
Well, you don’t really make a living from sales, I think that’s common knowledge now. Where you make your living is from shows and touring. And also the sense that you actually exist (laughs). There’s nothing to be ashamed of from making a living. And I’ve seen my audience, in some cities, that the shows are getting bigger and more people are coming, because they are familiar with where I’m coming from. But I really want to take that further, and I really want to play in larger rooms where more people are feeling the same thing.
Talk about growing up in Chester, Pennsylvania, and how that has affected your life as an artist.
If you’re dealing with any sort of emotionalism, it’s not that much different from Nashville, but the main thing about Chester was the end of something. Chester is a town that used to be a really thriving little river community on the Delaware River. It was clearly a beautiful city at some time, so growing up…it had all the kind of rust belt cinema, plants, row-homes, and privately-owned Italian, Ukranian, German, and Irish restaurants. And also a large community of poor black, and all the things that come with that.
When I was growing up there it was definitely the end of something and turning into something else, from fights to crime and all that stuff. In some ways I wouldn’t change a thing, but I do feel lucky that whatever compass we have, I just wasn’t attracted to the things that could have kept me there. And I guess in so many ways it was rock ‘n roll, and I know how cliché that sounds, just like there’s a lot of…to be a white kid in Chester, my heroes came from other places, whether it was Joe Strummer or Bono. Oddly enough, I don’t share the John Wayne aspects of those guys, but they really inspire me. And it’s not much different than what you hear and read—and I want to be clear here, because this isn’t in any way a racist thing—but it’s a lot like you hear minorities today and black kids today that see sports as their only way out. And it was the same thing, for me a guitar felt like a better future.
My parents worked really hard and got us out of there, but that really stuck with me. I grew up with an incredibly-read, Democrat, blue-collar Dad who had really strong feelings about Reagan and trickle-down economics. I’ve had to kind of come to my own conclusions, but I tend to agree with him, and maybe there’s comfort in that. Because, you know, we had Bob Dylan playing around the house and Leonard Cohen…and to me, that struggle for equality or that struggle for social justice for a lot of people seems futile. But I think it’s unacceptable to say that there are some men that have to be below and some that have to be above. So as an artist, I think it’s important to say something about opportunity. It’s an overwhelming subject, one that people might view as naive or useless, but I think that’s bullshit.
The last track on your new album is a spoken word track about your brother, who is currently serving 30 years in prison. Why did you choose to end the album that way?
Honestly, it was something that was never intended to be released. It was something I did for myself and for my parents as well, with how my brother’s choices has affected all of us. I did it for my own reasons, but I felt that the record didn’t have an ending and I knew that it needed one. I’ve left some records open-ended, because I was afraid to say what I really wanted to say at the end. And it’s personal, but it’s not unique. As far as a melody goes, with what I had written, I didn’t see any reason for it, I thought that there was an internal melody.
It’s surprisingly effective.
Well, it’s dangerous. Van Morrison has a spoken word song that when I first heard it I really felt uncomfortable. Then it came on a couple more times—it’s from Hymns to the Silence—and then I found myself just listening. I used to love to sit and listen to what my Grandfather had to say, when somebody kind of gets that rhythm when they’re telling you a story, you know? Sad or happy or funny or whatever, when somebody does that, when somebody
tells a great story, it can really be effective.
Jason Gonulsen is a writer who lives in the St. Louis, MO area with his wife, Kelly, and dogs, Maggie and Tucker. You can e-mail him at: [email protected].
