Exclusive Interview with Ryan Montbleau
Written by Andrew Brown
The humble beginnings for musician Ryan Montbleau came first when he was given a guitar as a child, between ages eight and nine, during the holiday season. Montbleau played his guitar on-and-off as a child, but seriously picked up his sense of musicianship while attending Villanova University near northwest Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “College years were very formative years for me” says Montbleau, “All of a sudden, all I did was play guitar. I studied poetry and then began to write a bunch of poetry. Then, the last semester I started singing. Kind of letting out this voice that had been in my head”. Montbleau graduated from Villanova in 1999 and began trying to make a living out of the new sound he had produced. Ryan then moved back to his roots in Massachusetts to begin harboring a creative atmosphere for his newly found inspiration. In 2002 , Montbleau produced a solo acoustic album, his first, entitled Begin. He has continued his solo project throughout the years with albums like Stages, Stages: Volume II and his most recent album For Higher. Between 2000 and 2003, Montbleau and the Ryan Montbleau Bands current drummer James Cohen played sets constructed with Montbleau’s own music. Afterwards, “the beginning of the Ryan Montbleau Band started around 2003-2004. The whole thing (the band) has kind of evolved over the years”. The Ryan Montbleau Band consists of Ryan Montbleau (vocals, guitar), James Cohen (drums), Matt Giannaros (bass, vocals), Jason Cohen (Keys), Yahuba (vocals, percussion), and Lyle Brewer (guitar). Since the inception of the band, they have produced One Fine Color in 2006, Patience On Friday in 2007, Heavy On The Vine in 2010 and Live at Life is Good in 2011. Ryan Montbleau and his band have been very busy these past few years and we here are Appalachian Jamwich were honored to engaged in an interview with Ryan to learn more about the evolution of this big northeast sound.
1. Artists should be able to define their own sound, how would you define your own?
“I still have trouble doing that, ya know. I consider myself a writer first and foremost. I think our stuff is very lyrically driven. It’s sort of a lyrical, roots, Americana thing, but it definitely has a lot of soul and r&b to it. It’s a mixture of all of those things. We do a bit of everything. This is whyI still have trouble defining it distinctly…”.
[ I have found it very hard to compare other bands to the sound you manifest]
“…That is one reason we are very excited to pair up with ALO this run, because ALO can sound a but similar. Although we’re both differnent, we’re both bands that have come up in the jam scene. They jam a bit more than we do, while we’re more lyrically based.”
2. Describe the concept of the Ryan Montbleau Band 2010 album Heavy On The Vine and your most recent album For Higher.
“Heavy On The Vine was produced by Mark Sexton (of the Mark Sexton Band). We did that in 2010, where we did a bunch of touring with Mark and we were his back up band on his tour. We did a lot with him that year. He was great, his production had a lot to do with that (the album). Thematically, we were touring and had so much going for so many years, you know. I like to name records hopefully with something that fits the record, but also maybe fits us as a bigger picture too. At that time, we sort of felt like we were like this ripening fruit that we had been working at for years and years. Getting better and better. At that time, it felt like something different was gonna change or drop. Something being heavy on the vine, when fruit gets ripened, is like the end of the vine. It was like the end of this long process before something different happened. Sure enough it did. Right after that record, our viola player left and we got Lyle Brewer, our current guitarist, soon after that. It felt true. It had a certain ripeness and heaviness at the same time”.
“With For Higher, it was such a different record for me. I was in New Orleans. Ben Ellman (saxophonist for Galactic) produced it and he put together a session band to record it. They are an amazing group of guys (George Porter Jr. on bass, Ivan Neville on keys, Adam Osbourne on guitar and Simon Lott on drums) and so I hired those guys, as the titled suggests, for hire. I am a musician for hire, but hopefully we’re trying to take things higher. Take consciousness higher. It’s a play on words”.
3. How do you believe your music spreads and promotes the message of positivity throughout our community?
“I would like to think I have a positive message in the songs. Like any songwriter, I would hope, I’m trying to be as truthful as I can with the lyrics. If I can tap into truth, then I can connect with other peoples truths hopefully. Truth is universal, it’s in everyone. If you’re doing it right, hopefully it connects people and makes them feel together. I think everyone is connected, ya know, we just lose sight of that at times. All I can do is write the songs and put them out there and past that it is kind of out of my control.
4. As an artist, what sense of responsibility do you have toward your community and fan base?
“I have a responsibility to tell the truth for sure. That truth should reflect my reality, which should reflect the issues going on around the world. Although, I don’t necessarily need to preach about it or anything. If I’m telling the truth, then I feel that I’m doing my job. I also have a responsibility to treat the people who listen to me with respect. We have to be respectful of the people who actually give their time to listen. I don’t need to preach to be a leader, just trying to tell the truth and promote positivity.
5. What festivals are on the docket for the Ryan Montbleau Band this upcoming summer?
“Well, we’re playing a big festival that we can not announced yet and we are very excited to be coming back to the Gathering of the Vibes Music Festival ( in Bridgeport, CT). We’re doing a bunch of smaller festivals around the northeast. We are playing these ones in Massachusetts, where we’re from, like Strange Creek Campout, Wormtown Music Festival, Green River Music Festival and Sterling Stage Folfest (which is in Sterling, NY). We have a good thing going here back home. These smaller festivals are string, they certainly pack a punch”.
6. Will there be any more collaborations between yourself and your most recent New Orleans sound? Describe the future of the Ryan Montbleau Band.
“We’re about to go down to New Orleans to record our own band with Ben Ellman in about three weeks, right after Jazzfest again. Funny you should ask, we’re doing exactly that. We’re going to record our new album with Ben Ellman and a guy named Count, who mixed down the album For Higher, who’s coming to engineer it (the new album). Between him & Ben, I think we got a really good team. With our band, we’re still streamlining the material, but yeah we’re ready to make a record. Our band is a lot of different things, like we talked about before, and in the past we may have stuck all of that on a record, but now that keeps to a similar vibe. There will certainly be songs with different material on it, but I don’t feel the need to put on some crazy country tune we wrote if we’re doing all this other stuff. I think the work with Ben, kind of like the work on For Higher, the funky-groove aspect is more what we are looking for. We can get into this Americana, two-beat thing and I don’t think there will be much of that on this new album. I think it’s gonna stick to its own vibe. Hopefully, if I can pull it off, I’d love to do that and also record another another album with the guys of all of our other stuff. All the Americana, rootsy, two-beat stuff that we do. We would produce that album closer to home without Ben. In the past we would work it out (their songs) a bunch while playing live, but this particular one (upcoming album) not so much. It is stuff we have been playing at home, where we have a house to play in, putting together home recording sessions there. We’ve been mainly keeping the newer material in house. Gratefully, we’ve come to the point practicing it where we will be performing some of it live this upcoming weekend”.
The Ryan Montbleau band is an inspiring, high energy band that pushes their sound through an evolving creative process they developed through the years. Please check out the Ryan Montbleau Band furthur:
On Tour:
http://ryanmontbleauband.com/
at The 8×10 Club: April 23, 2013. Doors at 7 p.m. Featuring the Ryan Montbleau Band & ALO
And Online:
http://ryanmontbleauband.com/
