Interview with Ryan of Ryanhood
On November 7th 2019, Ryanhood returns to the stage at Seaside Rep Theatre. (Read more about there here.)
The duo takes their name from, well, themselves. Cameron Hood and Ryan Green’s vocals combine into magic. To plagiarize myself from a Beachcomber review: “Ryanhood have continuously honed their harmonies and melodies to a place where they exude an effortlessness that only comes with endless hours of work.”
Ryan Green was nice enough to answer a few questions about the area, their milestones, and what’s next for the group.
* Can you tell me a little about your impression or experiences with the area? Favorite moments?
We love it there. The sense of community, the kindness of people in the area. The intimacy of The Rep. Not to mention the walks on the beach. We are always excited to come back.
* What prompted you to release ‘Early Best’?
We wanted to put together an album that featured all of the audience favorites from our first three studio albums. Some of these songs have evolved quite a bit over the fifteen years that we’ve been a band, so this also gave us an opportunity to include updated live versions of several of these songs, in their newest, most fully-realized forms.
* It seems rare for new Christmas songs to be written – what inspired y’all to do so?
Well, when it comes to the classics, we didn’t particularly feel the need to compete with Sinatra, or Bing Crosby, or Michael Bublé for that matter. We felt like our greatest asset was our songwriting, our camaraderie, and just being ourselves. We wanted to make a Ryanhood Christmas album, and wanted it to be a breath of fresh air during the holidays, and I feel we’ve really succeeded at that.
* What song always seems to garner the biggest audience reaction?
Second City, a song of ours about the Great Chicago Fire, always brings the house down. It’s a heartbreaking, yet inspiring song that anyone who has forged through difficulties can relate with. And it has some pretty heavy mandolin riffage in it, which certainly doesn’t hurt.
* If you could open for anyone dead or alive – who would it be and why?
My top choice right now would be to open for I’m With Her, or The Highwomen. Both female supergroups who are just incredible. It would be a blast, and make for a really fun evening.
* Is there anything else in the pipelines that I should include? (New releases, videos, promos, etc)
We are about to release a string of singles on Spotify. The first being our cover of The Beatles’ classic And Your Bird Can Sing, originally a twin electric guitar song, which we’ve sped up and reimagined as a blazing mandolin and ukulele duet. It’s a lot of fun. That will come out on Nov 15th.
Learn more about the duo at:
http://www.ryanhood.com
http://www.ryanhood.com
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