Interview with The Ryde

The Ryde - by Mel in Toronto

If you are looking for an arena sound, The Ryde is a band to look out for. Four talented musicians are on a mission to give their sound what it deserves: "Having a big sound like that needs room to breathe," vocalist Tim says. The band's sound is "just big and loud and it needs time to travel," and not to be restricted by walls.

The varied influences of the band members make The Ryde's sound what it is. Ranging from Britpop, ‘80s guitar sound, melodic hardcore to metal, almost everything is named as an influence. The end result is great rock songs that stand out because of great harmonies, soaring vocals, heavy bass, dynamic drums and an elaborate guitar sound. The band understands how to best showcase each band member's talent, and while doing that take the listener with them on their journey.

Three of the band members come from Thunder Bay, Ontario: Tim Shaw (vocals, guitar), Boris Novak (bass), and Jeff Johnson (drums). Andrew Roudny (lead guitar) joined the band after they decided to move to Toronto in 2004. "Toronto has a happening music scene, we moved here and didn't know anybody," Jeff says. "We were in Thunder Bay and there are many talented bands and musicians, but there is no one there to recognize them. You can play, and pack a place, but you are not going to get much further than that, because there are no industry people up there."

The move has proven to be successful and The Ryde continues to build a solid fan base in Toronto and southern Ontario. However, not forgetting their roots, the band takes their sound back to Thunder Bay every year. Live is the best way to discover this band, the live show is solid and the band understands how to engage the audience and make it a fun night for audience and the band alike.

The creation of the band name The Ryde predates the current line-up. The band was formed by four different band members in Thunder Bay, including Tim's older brother Courtney. Tim eventually joined the band and, as the original members left, the other three joined over time. So far, The Ryde has released two albums. A self-titled album in 2006 and in 2008 they released their current album ‘Take Aim.' This record contains 10 well-produced rock songs. Producer of the album was Andre Doucette whom Jeff respectfully refers to as "almost the fifth song writer."

The four band members of The Ryde have the ability to inspire each other. The commitment everyone brings to the table inspires everyone else and helps them push to not "make music that is good enough," as Andrew puts it, but "make the greatest thing you are capable of." Jeff often instantly gets a drum beat in his head: "They play a riff and I don't even know if I'm thinking, the arms and the feet start going, and I got something for it," Jeff says with a smile. Tim adds "When we start cooking in the jam spot with a new idea and everyone is in on it and everyone is feeling it, that's it. It's usually pretty easy at that point. The song ends up writing itself among the four of us."

While the band writes all the music together, it's Tim who writes the lyrics. "To get inspired to write I have to have a good day," Tim says. "I have a lot of good days and it's usually not that hard for me to get into the mood to write. If I could go to a beach, sit on a chair and be there by myself with a couple of drinks and have a slight current going, the relaxing sound of the water, you can get into it easily, and get inspired to write and come up with ideas."

One of the songs on the album ‘Take Aim' is called AFTERMATH OF A GOD. Tim explains that "it's a personal song to me. It's about the ups and downs of life and what music has done for me personally. If there was an aftermath of a God, it's a good aftermath. Everyone refers to an aftermath as a negative thing, but I thought I'm going to reverse and say that music is my aftermath of a God." Jeff adds "most people think aftermath is a negative thing, but Tim found the silver lining on it, which is a cool thing to me." Tim adds further "this was God helping me out and his aftermath of him reaching out to me. The aftermath of that is what I am today."

While talking about the lyrics to STUN GUN, Tim laughs "The lyrics in that song sound big headed as hell. I'm basically saying we are stun gun and we are coming on stage and we are going to stun you all. In my heart, I really believe that we will do that as we progress as a rock band." He continues "I think we are going to make an impact on the world, we're never going to be the best band, but I think there is a place for us."

The song KAMIKAZE KILLER deals with "a series of different forms of hate," Tim says. The title track TAKE AIM shows the band as "we are taking aim with our powerful sound, get in or don't, we are going to keep going." Andrew says that the chorus started off with fuck you, but it only lasted for one day.  

Go and see The Ryde live, if you have the chance. This band puts on a great show and turns heads. "My favourite thing about playing live is the feedback that we get from the audience. They fuel our fire and we fuel theirs," Boris says.

The Ryde is playing this Saturday at the Hard Rock Café together with Rides Again, Fairchild, and Finding Core. For tickets go to ticketscene.ca.

"In your on words" – ONE on ONE with Mel and The Ryde

Mel:  Who are your influences?

Boris:  Metallica, Nirvana, The Offspring, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith. My favourite bass player is Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I love his style, he is so funky, and there is no one who plays like him.

Andrew:  Van Halen, Dire Straights, all the really good ‘80s guitarists, AC/DC, Randy Rhoads from Ozzy Ozborne, beer, miniskirts, high boots, Deep Purple.

Jeff:  When I first started playing, I had a Top 40 ear. I didn't listen to anything too heavy. Then some of my hockey player buddies got me into Metallica and that changed my whole scene. I started to learn Metallica songs, Sevendust, Disturbed, heavy but melodic bands. Incubus is my favourite band, so Jose Pasillas is my favourite drummer. Danny Carey from Tool is phenomenal.

Tim: My early influence was children's music. The music that we didn't know was pretty corny back then, but it got us on our feet, dancing around, stuff our mothers played for us.  When I got into my teens, it was Brian Adams, or Guns N' Roses. I wasn't really into playing music at all, just listening. Then 1995 my older brother came home with a record called ‘What's the story Morning Glory' by Oasis. Today, I listen to anything that is rock, Audioslave, Incubus, Ian Thornley, The Verve, Richard Ashcroft. He is a great singer/songwriter. Incubus, their lead vocalist Brandon Boyd has inspired me to not be afraid, to try new things vocally wise. He gets out there and he juggles his voice around. I didn't start singing until about mid high school. Chris Cornell has kind of a dirty voice I picked up on to get a kind of dirty sound.

Mel:  Can you tell us about your songwriting process?

Tim:  It's all me, it's always been me and that's it. (laughs) That's obviously not the case. Lyrically, it's all me. The actual music part, Andrew and I will come up with an idea on guitar, or Boris, it's only an idea at that point. I never ever try to write a whole song, because I think that's selfish. It is a band of four here and everyone likes to put their spin on things and that's how we've created such great music. All our influences do come together to mash in as the sound of The Ryde.

Andrew:  We have a really good song writing process. I just write riffs, a chorus, or a verse. What we do is, we come in and we play those ideas for each other and then the whole band picks out what's a good idea, what's a bad idea and what pieces can fit together. And then we just arrange things and glue all those ideas together.

Tim:  When we write, we don't fool ourselves. We make sure that the song is going to be a great song front to back. On our new record is a song called EVERYONE NEEDS THEIR SPACE, it's almost a seven minute song. We wanted to cut it down to three minutes, so that it could be a radio song, and when we started to do that, it lost everything that it was. It needed to be seven minutes and that's why it is. It's the right amount of breathing room for this song.

Mel:  What is the difference between your self-titled album and ‘Take Aim'?

Boris:  Having Andrew play guitar and help songwriting. He has a lot more harder influences, and plays a lot faster than our previous guitarist did. That changed the direction of what we sounded like. That and having Andre help us produce the album were probably the two biggest differences between the albums, and the sound quality is so much better than the first album.

Jeff:  When we got Andrew, I think we went a direction we all wanted to go. He brought a lot of melodic ideas and a lot of skill to the band. There are two or three years in between, so everyone got better at their instruments and now we are finally able to showcase some progressive material. We can do some odd time signatures, we can do some cool solos and stuff.  I can stand behind ‘Take Aim' one thousand percent. This is us right now, I'm really proud of it.

Tim:  The old record and the new record are two different sounds. On the old record, it didn't come across like it should have, because it wasn't polished. It was rushed and we just wanted to get it on a CD. I believe that if we would have known Andre at that time he would have coached us through the record, and it would have come out a lot more polished. With ‘Take Aim,' we are better musicians, because you grow every day. And it got a polished finish to it. That's the biggest thing, and Andrew joining the band has a lot to do with it too.

Mel:  Which opportunities do you see with indieSolo?

Jeff:  I think it's cool, I think you guys really do a good job. Indie bands are just dying for attention and you give one band 100% exposure every day. I think it's really neat. I like the concept, one band a day. I go to it quite often and listen to the band of the day and realistically I'm rarely disappointed. You guys aren't just putting garbage on there. It seems like you find some unique cool indie bands. Sometimes it's like, ok that might not be my style, but they can do what they do really well. I feel privileged to be on it, because I hear some of the bands that are on there and it's really pretty good.

Mel:  Where do you see The Ryde in five years?

Tim:  Playing Wembley Stadium, we want to be like our inspirations. I could only imagine, walking out on stage and seeing all those people. In five years that's what I want to do. Of course the money is a huge thing, we wouldn't have to worry about being able to support ourselves and we could just concentrate on the music. Just that pure rush, that high would be better than any drug high or any other high you can feel in your life. You walk out on a stage and there is an arena packed. Quite frankly, we have an arena sound, it's a big sound. Having a big sound like that needs room to breathe. Playing the Horseshoe and places like that, I love it, it's a great stepping stone, it's an honour to play places like that, but sometimes I feel when we are playing some of our big songs, those small walls swallow it up and don't allow it to be what it needs to be, because it's just big and loud and it needs time to travel and sometimes it doesn't get there. In five years, I hope we'd be playing to a few thousand a night, that's all I'm asking for. And if it goes bigger than that, that's just icing.

-end

March 26, 2009 by Mel in Toronto [Melanie Schade]

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The Ryde Tickets may be available at TicketScene