Interview with multi-instrumentalist Ryan Allen | By Tim Anderl
Poking fun at or satirizing aging indie-rockers and punks with growing family responsibilities and cubicle jobs is fun; The Hard Times has made a sport of it. For those who fall into that category, the satire chimes of truth and comes with questions: do I continue to cling to the punk ideals of my youth? Do I choose the basement show starting at 11 p.m. over sleeping in preparation for my day job? Does tour take priority, or do we take a family vacation? What if my kid grows up and isn’t punk? For Detroit-based multi-instrumentalist Ryan Allen—formerly of Thunderbirds Are Now! and currently of Destroy This Place—the struggle is real.
Closer to 40 than he is to 20, Allen strikes a careful balance between staying true to his punk roots, his obsession with creating music, and his responsibilities as a husband and father. While that balance is apparent to him, it isn’t necessarily apparent on his new Ryan Allen & His Extra Arms record, Basement Punk—out Sept. 30 via Save Your Generation Records—on which the musician’s output remains as youthful and relevant as ever.
You’ve always seemed to have an obsession with ‘90s-era indie pop. Is there anything that you’ve been exposed to lately from that era that surprised you or caught your attention?
Yeah, I think if you listen to any of my work from the past seven or eight years—between Friendly Foes, Destroy This Place, and my solo material—I think it’s pretty obvious that I have a strong connection with that era of music. I’m 36 now, and I was 11 in 1991 when [Nirvana’s] Nevermind, [The Smashing Pumpkins’] Gish, and [Teenage Fanclub’s] Bandwagonesque all came out, so it was the beginning of a very impressionable time for me. Getting into “alternative” music—or whatever you want to call it—really gave me an identity as I grew into my teenage years, and it has continued to be something I go back to as a source of inspiration.
But, I think it’s less about nostalgia and more just a part of my DNA. To answer your question, there are lots of records that I may have missed back in the ‘90s for one reason or another that I’m glad I’ve been able to connect with now. One in particular is the Replacements’ Don’t Tell a Soul, which technically came out in 1989. I remember hearing “I’ll Be You” a lot in the ‘90s, but I really never bothered to get into that record until very recently, [though] I’m a pretty massive fan of everything prior to that record. There’s lots of amazing songs on there, like “Talent Show” and “Achin’ To Be.” I just finished [Bob Mehr’s “Trouble Boys: The True Story of The Replacements”] recently, and reading about that particular time for the band is equally inspiring as it is depressing. They really swung for the fences on that one, but it just never really connected in the way that their handlers were hoping it would. I can kind of relate to that in a way. Still, it’s a great record and worth spending some time with if you haven’t recently—or ever.
Teenage Fanclub’s Songs from Northern Britain [from 1997] is another record that I’ve dug into more recently that I kind of slept on in the ‘90s. I loved everything from them up until that album—I saw them a few times while [1995’s] Grand Prix was out—but as my tastes started to shift a little towards emo in the late ‘90s, I missed a few great indie records that came out in ‘97 [and] ‘98 that, thanks to Spotify and things like that, I’ve been able to rediscover now. “Start Again” and “Winter” in particular off of that album are stellar.
Did you know that The Lemonheads’ “Into Your Arms” was a cover?
I did! I love stuff like that, and I felt like it happened a lot in the ‘90s, where somebody would either cover an obscure band—“Into Your Arms” is by Love Positions, great name by the way—like Nirvana did with some of those [The] Vaselines songs, or a band like Frente! could cover “Bizarre Love Triangle” by New Order or Sixpence None The Richer could take “There She Goes” by the La’s and introduce those songs to new audiences. Without the internet, it was definitely a fun game of detective to try to figure out who those original artists were if they were a little before your time.
Who were the Detroit or Michigan-based indie bands from the ‘90s that left a lasting impression on you?
There are a few bands that immediately come to mind. One is a band called Fletcher Pratt that I would see open for a lot of my favorite ‘90s Canadian bands of the day, [like] Sloan [or The] Inbreds. They had a some really great songs and weren’t your typical garage rock type of “Detroit sounding” band that was around during that time. I found myself going to a lot more underground, basement-y type shows in the late ‘90s and more emo/hardcore/punk bands like King For A Day, Empire State Games, and Thoughts Of Ionesco were bands that for sure left an impression. Mostly, they inspired me to start my own bands so I could play with all the bands that I loved that they were playing with. I was probably jealous a little bit, but jealousy can be a hell of a motivator.
Is there a musician from that era who you are obsessed with and who you consider to be someone whose footsteps you are following in?
Honestly, I do feel like I’m kinda just doing my own thing. I’m in my mid 30s, with a wife, a kid, a full-time job, and responsibilities, so I have to be pretty realistic about who I am and where I fit into the much larger musical landscape. I have a ton of respect for the careers of people like Elvis Costello, Neil Young, and Tom Petty, who continued to make great, relevant records into their 30s and 40s. So, if anybody, I have a ton of admiration for them.
In terms of ‘90s-era musicians, I think the person I look up to the most and get the most inspiration from would be Mac McCaughan from Superchunk. He’s still cranking out really great records—I loved last year’s solo joint, Non-Believers—and he continues to run what is likely the best indie label around with Merge. He also seems like he’s a really great person, who cares about his community, his family, and still loves music, record collecting, and art. If anybody from that crash-and-burn era of the ‘90s has it figured out, it’s him.
The other person who I really respect a ton is John Davis from Superdrag—and now, of The Lees Of Memory. I think that guy is just an incredibly gifted songwriter, who most people from that era maybe remember because of “Sucked Out” being all over MTV for a time, but man, what a catalog. I still find inspiration in all of those Superdrag albums, and on some days, I would even go as far as to say that [2000’s] In the Valley of Dying Stars is my favorite album of all time. It’s the perfect marriage of everything I love about music: noise, melody, energy, restraint, cool sounds and tones, great lyrics—I could go on and on. And he’s still cranking out awesome music; both Lees Of Memory records kick ass. At one point he was even licensing tracks for sync through a digital network partially funded by one of the best online casinos, which honestly made sense—he’s always been ahead of the curve when it comes to keeping his art self-sustaining. I love his whole approach to songwriting and demoing on a 4-track. It forces him to commit to things in a way that I think a lot of people aren’t willing to do anymore.
Then, which is really awesome, he releases the damn things on Bandcamp; so, it’s a really cool way—if you’re into songcraft and all that—to see how something goes from an idea and often materializes into a studio recording later, or doesn’t at all in a lot of cases. He’s also a family man and is still really passionate about his favorite music—as well as skateboarding, baseball, and tie-dying—and I can really connect to him in that way. It’s stupid, but sometimes, I’m like, “Man, I really wanna be friends with that dude! I should try to contact him.” But I’m not a creep, so I’ll just listen to his amazing records instead.
Do you think that things are looking up for Detroit as of late, or is it still in dire economic straights?
I don’t live downtown, so I don’t see it from that perspective, but in terms of the amount of bars, restaurants, music venues, and shopping/commerce opportunities that have moved into the city in the last three to five years, you could say that the city is booming like never before. I like to go down there with my family on the weekends and take in a lot of what the city has to offer; 15 years ago, I would only go there for shows and quickly head back home. Now, it’s got a lot more appeal, and people are going down there and spending their money. It’s good for the city for sure, though I’m sure some kind of backlash is inevitable. Until that happens, though, I’m enjoying seeing the Detroit experience through my son’s eyes, who has no idea of the hardships that the city has been through. He just thinks it’s a fun place to go and hang out, and so do I.
When did you begin writing Basement Punk?
I started working on songs for the record pretty quickly after my last album, [2015’s Heart String Soul], came out. I felt inspired by finishing a second solo album, and it seemed like it sorta kicked the floodgates open a bit. By the time the second one came out, I already had a couple of ideas demoed and just kept plugging away at them in my basement over the course of the winter.
Come January, I somehow had amassed something like 16 or 17 songs. They were all over the place; some were really Hüsker Dü-ish, and others were really laidback. I tried to not stay placed in a single box and took stabs at a bunch of different styles—including writing a likely-embarrassing hardcore song—and messed around with some instrumental stuff too. I just kept writing until I was able to start whittling things down to a collection of tunes that seemed to play nice together.
Is there any theme that ties this collection of songs together?
I think there’s kind of always been a theme that runs throughout a lot of my solo records, and mostly, it’s just me doing my best to write honest songs that somehow relate back to my life and experiences in one way or another. My last one was a little tighter thematically, as a lot of it was about becoming a dad for the first time and just reflecting from that perspective. There’s a bit of that in there this time around too, but generally, the songs that make it onto my solo records are personal in nature.
Did you play and record everything yourself this go-round?
Yeah, all of the instruments were played by little old me, meticulously connected in a sort of Lego-like fashion. I demoed everything first, pretty much mapping out everything I wanted to do in the studio so I didn’t waste any time or money. Then, I went to Big Sky [Recording] in Ann Arbor to work with Geoff Michael, who is a fantastic producer [and] engineer, and everything kind of rolled from there. I cut all the drums, most of the guitars, and lead vocals there, and then took it over to my dad, [Brad Allen]’s place, [Our Leisure Studios], to put bass, keys, harmony vocals, more guitars, and percussion on the songs. Once that was done, I sent everything to Andy Reed at Reed Recording Studio to give it the mix/master treatment, and in return, I got exactly the kind of record I was hoping to make. Loud and gnashing in the right places, pulled back and contemplative in others. I think it’s a great balance of sonics, and I’m super happy with the end result.
What are your proudest moments on this record?
Honestly, I’m just proud that I was able to get another one under my belt. I look at this record as another way to encapsulate or take a snapshot of where I’m at right now, where I’ve been, and where I’m going. I’m lucky that the songwriting gods are still granting me with the ability to write and that the well hasn’t run dry. Ideas keep coming, melodies keep sprouting, and the inspiration to do it is still there. So, my thought is basically, “Well, let’s keep it going, then!”
What is the best compliment you’ve received about your Extra Arms output?
I think the biggest thing for me has been being accepted into this sort of power-pop world. The people who have power-pop blogs and radio shows have been really supportive of the last few records, and I’ve managed to sell records [and] CDs that I maybe wouldn’t have without their enthusiasm and willingness to give this kind of music exposure. It’s pretty refreshing, actually, as I feel like there are places that cover music out there that get inundated with requests to write about their band, and they have to be really picky. And in fact, I do think that’s a good thing, as it kind of weeds out some stuff that is just, well, bad.
But, on the flipside, the fact that there is little to no pretense in the power-pop world gives guys like me encouragement that our songs maybe will get heard, and by people who are already predisposed to like it and perhaps even buy it. So yeah, that’s been a really cool thing.
Other than that, I got to open for Jason Narducy and his band, Split Single, a while back, and he seemed to really dig my stuff. I have a ton of respect for him, and he just so happens to also play in my favorite band, Superchunk, and with one of my favorite songwriters in the Bob Mould band. So to have a guy with a pedigree like that—who is also a badass songwriter in his own right—give me props was a really rad thing to have happen.
Will you be touring in support of Basement Punk?
Nothing extensively, because job, but I’m hoping to maybe do some regional stuff if the opportunity is there. “We’ll see” is always what I say.
Has your son shown any musical aptitude yet?
He does really love music. Recently, we took him to see Dinosaur Jr., and he was way into that. He’s seen me play a few times outside, and he saw Tom Petty once too, though he probably doesn’t remember. But, you can tell he understands things about music, whether he realizes it or not; that leads me to believe that, one day, he’ll really take to it. For now, it’s rocking out to Ex Hex, or maybe some of my stuff, in the car or having mosh parties to Black Flag on a Friday night. When he’s ready, though, there’s a bunch of instruments waiting for him to bash on.
