It's strange to think of Ry X as a debut album artist.
After all, the Australian artist has already released full length albums as a member of both The Acid and Howling, while his solo material has been covered by none other than Sam Smith.
Yet here we are, on the phone to Ry X – real name Ry Cumming – discussing his debut solo album 'Dawn'.
Taking time out of rehearsals, the Australian artist is on typically ebullient form, passion pouring from each answer. It's clear that while 'Dawn' may well be a beginning, it's far from the only project, the only direction he is considering – an artist of real depth and determination, it's a curious, and wide-ranging conversation.
So let's begin at the beginning...
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You've released material with a variety of different projects, did you always envisage Ry X as being an album-based endeavour?
No, not necessarily. I think an album is a beautiful way of sharing a body of work, and in that way I really wanted to do it. But I think I’ve always wanted to avoid the traditional narrative of the music industry a bit, and if that meant just putting out vinyl 12 inches or cassette tapes or whatever, as long as I was putting out music and people were receiving it well. But you know the call of the masses spoke, I guess, so I really wanted to put together a record that was worth sharing, I guess. For me, it’s a source of many things but it’s always tough to put out your first record because there’s all this weight around it.
What's different between your collaborative projects and this one?
I love collaborating with people that are of a really amazing standard, I guess, people that I really respect and love their work. Originally I came up with the Ry X moniker so I could collaborate and have other things after the ‘x’. I ended up doing The Acid, and the other project, Howling. But the original plan was to be a collaborative artist, not just with music but across art forms, with film, dance, and performance art – a bunch of stuff. It is different, collaborating, but as long as you’re present, and it’s coming from the heart, then you’re always putting yourself in that work, when you’re working with others.
How long did it all take?
I did The Acid record, me and the boys worked hard on that and we toured that for a while, and I think that maybe it’s easy to look at something and imagine that it’s a two or three year gap since I put out the EP, but I’ve put out three records and four EPs in the last three years or so, so it’s been really busy with The Acid, Howling, and stuff I did in Berlin. Just exploring those other forms of expression. I guess for me it was about not rushing, so I sat down probably after the tours, about 18 months ago, and started to focus on a Ry X record. It takes a long time to write good, heartfelt material, and to record it well, and to mix it, and produce it. I’ve been in constant creative flow for the last three or four years.
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The call of the masses spoke, I guess...
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Where is home for you, right now?
I think California at the moment is where I’m calling home. Berlin is always my European space, I guess. My European home. California is where I live in between tours, and have a base here. I’ve been in and out of LA for about 12 years now, since I was a teenager.
Are you a perfectionist? How long does a song take, would you say?
I’m actually quite a fast writer, I guess. I probably wrote about 30, 40 tracks for this record. And I was saying, I wrote the bulk of Howling record, and the bulk of The Acid record, in a sense too. Sitting down and playing a producer role in all the projects. The whole process just takes time. I mean, you can write a bunch of really great tracks, but to record them well, and find time to mix them, and be going on tour in between, and make videos. It’s a really full plate to make great art.
I think it’s easier to smash out a single, with some electronic producer in the studio, but trying to dial in a drum sound can take half a day. So it was about trying to get that energy in a certain sensibility that was old school, live to tape approach. A lot of this Ry X record is all done live. So it just takes longer when you do it that way.
Do you complete lots of preparatory work before you go in the studio?
I try not to demo. It’s a phone recording, a demo for me, or like a cassette tape. Something like that. I believe that there’s some magic in leaving something raw, slightly unknown at your fingertips when you walk into a studio. To know it well, intuitively, but to not know exactly how it’s going to come out. So when you’re sitting in there things can change. I don’t think I’d ever play the same song twice, when I was originally recording that live stuff cos it was still this beautiful understanding of getting to know the song and I love the sense of that in the recording. I think it’s important.
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So was this a fluid process?
It was pretty quick, compared to most records. I produced it all, it was just me and an engineer, and then one of my other collaborators who plays on all the project. There’s two of us who play every instrument on the record, apart from strings where I had some friends come in. So it takes a little bit of time, in terms of doing a live take and then you’re building around it, and trading off instruments, and growing, and putting stuff in a track, making sure you’re not putting too much in there, and then stepping away.
I think the whole recording process once we found the right studio was probably only a few weeks or a month. But there was a lot of play around that, and then the refining process takes weeks. The arranging process. And making sure things are as precise as they should be. That takes time.
And you were extremely hands-on with regards to production...
I don’t consider myself a singer-songwriter, or a house producer, or anything like that. I consider myself all of those things, and just an artist in any approach. To me, that allows freedom.
So you’re sitting there at the beginning of a Ry X record, it could have been a soundscape, it could have been an electronic record, it could have come out that it featured a bunch of different artists, but it ended up being this really raw, stripped down, essence of things. I love that for a first record. It also allows a lot of space for where to go next.
Did the songs inform the production, or did the production inform the songs, do you think?
I think it’s both. This Ry X record was really about sitting down, late night, in this house in the mountains in California with a nylon string guitar and really going into the intricateness of the songwriting, and leaving a lot of that space and quiet in there. When I got into the studio you just have to make sure that you’re in the right frame of mind to retain that. It would have been pretty easy to put a lot of drums on this record, especially kick drums, and some of the more electronic elements, but I feel like everybody in the world has been doing that recently – and it’s something that I’ve been exploring for years – but I really want to go the other way and be bold and brave, and just leave things to be bare.
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I really want to go the other way and be bold and brave...
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Do you tend to seize upon that initial idea?
The essence of them came very quickly. And the refining process took time. I think that’s most good art, actually. I think any good artist that you talk to, the initial idea is inspired, and it all happens really quickly and then the work is in refining it, and making it better, and stripping it to its most powerful place.
A song like ‘Beacon’ which is actually quite a long, developed song on the record, that came out really in one session. A few hours of sitting and writing, you’ve got the melody, the thread of everything, but then you want to take time and make sure that everything has this essence and power to it. That happens a lot, to me. The initial idea is really inspired, and it all happens very quickly, and then refining process becomes the important thing.
Is that process quite important to you?
I think that’s where you see the essence of an artist in a way. You or I could sit there and imagine a film we want to make, or a photograph we want to take, but it’s really hard to set out and take something that’s already in your mind. It’s very difficult to create this… to be able to actualise the idea of something.
Sometimes it happens by accident and it’s beautiful but to continue to do that as an artist means that’s where the experience, and the skill-set comes in, I guess. You intuitively learn, and also learn to trust the process. If it’s not happening then you can let go and trust that it’s still going to be as good.
And you maintain complete control of the visual output as well, don't you?
I definitely curate all the aspects of things, and that’s really important to me. It’s tonnes of energy, tonnes of work. Especially since I’m a bit of a purist, a bit of a perfectionist, I guess. It’s sad to say, but I feel like I’m one of the very few artists without a computer onstage, who’s not playing backing tracks. And it feels strange to say that, but it’s such a socially acceptable thing now to use a computer, and there’s nothing wrong with that but I just really wanted to make sure that this was a really breathing experience live.
So yeah, I do. It’s very much a part of everything, I collaborate with a lot of different performers, artists, and dancers. I guess most of my community comes from more avant garde, rather than commercial, side of the art world. It’s interesting that I find myself bridging the gap a lot of the time, but I’m happy to be doing that.
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I’m a bit of a purist, a bit of a perfectionist, I guess...
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That's true, there's this pop element alongside those left-field influences.
Like I said earlier it would easy for me just to put together a soundscape record, that didn’t have any vocals. I definitely have those kinds of albums sitting there in the wings. The word ‘pop’ is kind of an over-used, weird, world now, where you can say that Beyonce is pop but you can say that Jose Gonzalez is pop, or Bon Iver is pop. I think ultimately if we take the concept of the word ‘pop’ being ‘popular’ and accessible for many people then, yeah, I definitely think that I do create accessible music, because of the melody, and the voice. But in terms of the actual themes and the energy behind it, and who I am as a person, that couldn’t be further from the pop world.
I fight against the industry everyday. And I’m really happy in my role as a cult figure, in terms of how I’m seen in Europe. But I think, really, that it takes a long time to get to know an artist. I think it takes years and years to see all the sides to somebody. If we decided who Radiohead were off their first record, it would be a very different reality. If we decided who Bjork was going to be from her debut. I’m honestly not trying to compare myself to those artists but I do see a bridge between the idea of communicating with many people because you’re good at songwriting, and then actually using that avenue to do a lot of good in the art world. I definitely see myself in that way, more and more, in the future.
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'Dawn' is out now. Catch Ry X at the following shows:
May
20 Brighton The Great Escape Stage Host Royal Albert Hall / St Georges
21 Oxford St John the Evangelist
22 Coventry Warwick Arts Centre
24 Bristol St Thomas the Martyr
25 Leeds Leeds College of Music (Part of Beacons Presents)
26 London Union Chapel