Tuesday, August 5, 2014

People Profile: Jake Ryan.

I don't normally become instantly transfixed on a song but when I first listened to You'll Be... by Jake Ryan I couldn't help but lose myself in the rawness of sound. His voice projected emotion beyond his age and I felt as I listened that he was sharing something completely intimate. It is no wonder Jake can silence a room with one note, he has a deepness that can create a universal hush.
I am so glad I got the opportunity to interview Jake and take a further look inside his brilliant mind:

What first made you interested in music?  
I was born into a kind of musical family, my grandfather on my dad’s side taught himself to play guitar (four chords, I was given his guitar when I started playing and I can see the wear on the frets from where he played) and sang old Italian folk songs to family and friends, playing at weddings and stuff. My dad can also sing and taught himself bass and guitar, and was in a few bands in his younger days. I grew up harmonising with him singing Eagles, Peter Frampton and KISS songs, which is where I realised I could go pretty high and sing upper octaves. I guess this all I got my musical roots the day he said ‘yeah I used to play these songs in a band.’ I picked up a bass, then a guitar and I never looked back since.  

Where do you find inspiration? 
Everything. Other music. Film. Literature. Art. The greatest artists I feel can turn the simplest, and sometimes almost mundane and overlooked things in our lives into beautiful pieces of art and storytelling. Love, lust, happiness and sadness. Emotion inspires me, whether it come from my own personal experiences or things I see from afar, I just want to convey that emotion in my music. It’s a childlike type of deal, a brutal kind of honesty and passion I feel needs to come from music in order to connect to people. 

What is the one thing you want to achieve? 
I guess my dream is just play music to people who want to hear it, as well as to create art through different mediums and not just musically. I’d love to just create a career in it and be able to do something I love for a living, travel, gain respect from peers and create something not just for myself but for other people.  

What piece of advice would you give to someone? 
Do what you need to and want to do, regardless of the people and the opinions that want to sway it.  

If you could do something differently what would it be?
A few things, I wish I could go back a younger version of myself, grab myself by the shoulders, shake myself and scream at myself to see the bigger picture of a few things, to be happy and to love for myself.  

What has been your favourite moment in life so far? 
One thing that springs to mind right now would be when I wrote my first song (Reconcile). I was just kind of sitting there in a kind of shocked, paralytic, inebriated joy. I came up with the riff, the melody, the lyrics, the beat and basically the song as a whole in ten minutes. I sat there looking over at Dion, my bassist, with an expression that looked like I lost all connection to my central nervous system.  

What is your greatest struggle right now? 
Deciding which whisky is my personal favourite. I want to say Canadian Club but I feel like I’d change with a Jack. Maybe Year 12 as well.  

You definitely have your priorities straight Jake, I like your style. What is your favourite lyric from a song, (from your own or someone else's)? Why?  
My favourite song of all time contains my favourite lyrics of all time: Cold Desert by Kings of Leon. ‘I never ever cried when I was feeling down, I've always been scared of the sound. Jesus don't love me, no one ever carried my load. I'm too young to feel this old’. Or anything written by Bob Dylan. Seriously, even his shopping list.  

What is your favourite song right now?  
At the moment I’ve got two - Sia’s Chandelier and Ribs by Lorde. Sia has one of the most incredible voices I’ve heard in a long time, and this track shows it off so much. The chorus, the chorus. It’s a breath of fresh air to hear such vocal and instrumental dynamics in the charts. That whole record is fucking insane. Lorde is incredible too, 17 years old. I only listened to Pure Heroine all the way through about 3 weeks ago, and I was so frustrated that I heard it so late. ‘Ribs’ is a great pop song. Great beat, catchy kinda bittersweet melody. It’s definitely a 3am song.  

What is your favourite album right now? Why? 
Sticky Fingers – Caress Your Soul. I’ve been playing it constantly with all my mates for about 3 and a half months now? New Aussie music at its finest. From start to finish it’s just so great. Australia Street is a song that happens to get chanted walking down Flinders St. during a night out.  

Why do you think people connect so well with music? 
To put it simply, it’s universal. There are no obstructions; everyone loves a beautiful melody, and infectious beat and bass line. I’ve played music with people that couldn’t speak a word of English, I never knew them prior, never seen them afterwards. We played a 4 or 5 songs on a boat in Thailand, and we then smiled, hugged, shook hands and bailed. I don’t even know their names. People connect with music because it transcends any type of cultural or social barrier.  

If we interviewed you again in 10 years what questions would you like to have a different answer to? 
Hopefully I’ll have a few new favourite albums and songs that I’m playing and hopefully I’ll have a few new favourite and happy moments in my life as well. I’d love to have new goals I want to achieve if I achieved these ones. I mean ten years ago I was 8 and I wanted to be a Jedi I think, or a professional wrestler. Maybe when I’m 28 I’ll want to become a fireman or a deep-sea diver.




Listen to some more of Jake Ryan's music here and support him:
TripleJ Unearthed: https://www.triplejunearthed.com/artist/jake-ryan
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/jakeryanofficial
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jakeryanbreh
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jake-Ryan/578291938889273
Instagram: http://instagram.com/jakeryanmusic

-A

1 comment:

  1. JAKE RYAN, THE MAN! Shouts to my favourite song performed by him and the fellas in Indigo lake, "Reconcile" - Dion the bassist, shouts to your recommendation of Bok-Choy Tablets!

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