Tyler Ramsey was already a respected songwriter and solo artist when Ben Bridwell asked him to join Band of Horses in 2007. The Asheville, NC-based songwriter quickly blossomed into an integral part of the Band of Horses family, not only playing guitar and singing harmony but also writing a third of the band’s 2010 release Infinite Arms and pulling double duty and opening for the band as a solo act. So it makes sense that when Ramsey started to work on his next solo album, The Valley Wind ,the project immediately felt more like an extension of Band of Horses than a quick side project. Produced by Band of Horses bassist Bill Reynolds and featuring contributions from indie-folk multi-instrumentalist Seth Kauffman, The Valley Wind is the result of numerous writing sessions between Band of Horses shows.
As he prepared for the album’s release, Ramsey discussed his dual identity, most recent batch of songs and how giving a friend a ride changed his life forever.
You’ve had quite a busy few years between your solo career and work with Band of Horses. I heard you took a step away and wrote your new album ¬The Valley Wind while locked in a North Carolina cabin. Is that true and, if so, how far along were these song ideas before you hibernated to write?
That was where I started working on the album, and I think the first song that came around was “The Nightbird.” I had started working on the song idea earlier but ended up really writing it in that atmosphere—a cabin in North Carolina. That’s something I do whenever I get the chance: kind of go by myself to stay at a place for a few days and bring the minimal amount of toys to play with musically to just kind of focus in. That seems like the most productive way for me to do write. Also, a lot of the things got written on the road which is something I’m learning to do more and more. I am trying to take advantage of these little bits of downtime and write while Band of Horses is on tour.
So I had just one idea when I went into the cabin: one line or something for that song in particular. I just ended up going with it. I need a certain feeling to be able to write something that gives enough words to me and something that means something to me. It just ended up happening there. I think even a couple of songs started that same night. And then the songs I wrote on the road. Some of them came in parts and then got finished up at home.
It’s weird: it’s a new thing for me because I used to have free time galore, and now I don’t have it. So it feels like the focus on my writing process is shifting, and now I’m learning to go back and pay attention to even pieces of the songs that I’ve kept around, whereas before I would sit down and write the whole song all at once.
Now, it’s a little bit of both worlds: maybe a whole song will come about in a day like that “1000 Black Birds” song, which I started one night and finished the next morning. And then there are some songs where I’ve got a chorus idea and then, all of a sudden, everything else falls into place a couple weeks down the road.
You had two steady collaborators on ¬The Valley Wind. One was Band of Horses’ Bill Reynolds, who produced and played bass on the album, and the other was Seth Kauffman. At what point did Bill get involved in the project?
I’ve been friends with Bill for a really long time. He was living in Asheville when I met him a long time ago, and he was running his own studio. I’ve just seen him become this amazing producer and engineer over the past couple of years. I was thinking about people to bring along to the studio to work on ¬The Valley Wind, and the two of us had done so much together in the past, and it just seemed perfect. He’s really spontaneous and comes up with great ideas and that was the approach I wanted to take.
By the time we decided to go into the studio, the songs were pretty much finished. There were one or two that I wasn’t sure of, but it turned out that they were pretty much done by the time we got in there. I wanted to go in a little bit blind, not knowing what the arrangements would be or maybe what instruments were going to be played—and also not having rehearsed with the other musicians on the album. I just wanted to see what we could come up with and how we could capture that feeling more: That first idea is always kind of exciting.
Really, when you start playing and doing a draft on a song, those first ideas are usually the best ones for me. If you rehearse too much, then it starts to get watered down a bit. I know a lot of jazz musicians kind of felt that way. They do one or two takes and then they would just stop—if they didn’t get it right they’d accept that there were some mistakes, and I think that really makes a recording more interesting to listen to. Those are the moments on this record I really enjoy hearing over and over again.
You and Bill spent some considerable time on the road together with Band of Horses this year. Were you able to work on the album on tour?
We pretty much separated recording from touring. I mean, he had heard me play some of the songs live or on tour but we really didn’t talk too much about what was going to happen when we went in the studio. It was just better for us to just try to capture the first ideas rather than really thinking everything out too much. As it turns out, I did a lot of demoing in my house on my laptop, and a lot of those ideas were what really developed into what we did in the studio. We [cleaned up] some of the sounds I made on the computer in the studio but we tried to keep ourselves from too many overdubs or over thinking everything.
I heard Bill actually brought you into the Band of Horses family. Is it true that you joined the band after you gave him a ride?
Bill and I met each other about 18 years ago—we met here in Asheville. He used to be in a band called The Blue Rags which was signed to Sub Pop. When I moved to town, they just seemed like people that I wanted to get to meet because they were just really cool. I would be jamming, and I admired what they were doing. I think I was just playing on the street at some point, and he was playing at some club down the road and just walked by and said hello. We ended up talking, and shortly after that I think he came over to my house and brought an upright bass. We just sat in the living room and played, and we were cracking each other up because we were just playing really well together from the start. We were in-sync from the first time we ever sat together, and we didn’t really know each other.
What year was that?
It was ‘92 or something like that. Then a few years ago [in 2007], Bill needed a ride to Charleston, SC to rehearse with Band of Horses. I cancelled a gig to give him the ride. I ended up driving him down there and getting to meet all of the band. We hung out all night, and then Ben asked me to open up for them on tour. He asked over some shots of tequila—just insane.
Bill and I have had various projects here in Asheville and he played with me when I put out my last record for one or two shows, but now he’s living out in California so it’s hard to have him play during my solo shows. But I would love it if he could—he’s always the best to have around.
Would you say that your time in Band of Horses has changed your approach to songwriting and your style at all? Or would you say that it has just given you a different outlet to show a different style and you’ve kind of kept your solo repertoire focused the way it was before?
I think really the main change has been on a couple levels. For one, I feel like I have got a little bit stronger at singing. I think that I’ve found maybe a better range for my voice and that comes from singing in front of large audiences with fans in front of you—both with songs that I’ve written or just from trying to harmonize with Ben and Ryan. So I’ve learned a little bit about that and being able to project a little bit more and trying to be in a little bit more correct pitch wise.
Another change has just been about my understanding the electric guitar and the possibilities that that has. For a long time, I really was just an acoustic guitar player. I was basically a folk singer-style acoustic guitar player. I messed around with the electric guitar but it wasn’t like something I did all the time. Now, I think I’ve got a better grasp on that—what kind of inventions that can add to what I’m doing with my music as well.
When you went back to write your new solo album, had all this time playing electric guitar changed your approach to the acoustic guitar?
I don’t really know if it’s changed the way I play the acoustic guitar. I think more the acoustic playing has kind of influenced my electric guitar technique. I still do a lot of finger picking with the band—even stuff that would probably sound more like it with a pick. I’m trying to figure out ways of adapting my style into what we do as a band. I think that that’s still the direction coming from the acoustic guitar, and I do use a pick on a lot of songs.
In terms of your writing approach, at this point do you write for a specific project?
Recently, I was writing songs that might be Band of Horses oriented, but we had so many songs. So some of those songs or song ideas I decided to take for myself and tried to finish them myself. They weren’t necessarily full songs that didn’t get used but more of ideas that ended up developing into songs.
Speaking of bigger audiences, Band of Horses recently opened a series of shows for Widespread Panic at the request of keyboardist JoJo Hermann. Not only that but Ryan actually sat in with the band. I was curious what that experience was like from your perspective?
Yeah he did! And that was so great to watch. That was so much fun. And those guys, man they were such sweethearts—like the coolest group of people. It would be so fun to kind of a get to know them a little bit more and hang out with them. They were just so nice It was great and it definitely felt like a different audience but the audience was really receptive to what we were doing, and just getting to spend time with those folks and meet them all was fantastic.
Did Ryan know them before they asked him to sit in?
No, I don’t think any of us had actually met them before but they were just being so warm to us that I think that that kind of happened like right before the show. It was like, “Come sit in on a song!” He went up there, and I was like, “I wanna go!” [laughter] But I mean it was more fun just watching Ryan having a blast up there like just kind of feeding off what they were doing and playing. So it was really cool.
Back to the solo tour you have coming up, is that just going to be you and an acoustic guitar or are you going to bring a band on the road?
I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m having a band at least here in Ashville for this gig I’m doing, and I’m thinking about asking them to come to a couple of the shows that are close by but mostly it will be solo. It will be more than me and an acoustic guitar: I usually bring more than an acoustic guitar. I’ll try to bring at least a couple of electric and maybe a couple drum machines that ended up on the last two records that are always fun. The challenge is to figure out how much I can bring to make it really interesting and dynamic but then I also have to be able to bring it in a car, or possibly period if there’s an airport. I have West Coast dates too, so it has to be a portable set up but also I want it to be really, really fun. So it’s like getting all the pieces together to make sure it’s fun for me and interesting for the people that come too.
You have to put your bandleader hat on.
It is insane. I mean, the record just came out, so that’s exciting and then I have this tour. And then back on the road with Band of Horses for a few weeks. And then we’re actually working on our new record. We just started—we spent a couple weeks in the studio and started working out the songs, and I think we’re going to get back to the studio before the year is over. And then I’m going to try to get back out and do some more solo shows in January or something. I have to figure out all the timing for all that.
We touched a little bit on Seth and what he brought to the album. When did you first meet him and at what point did he get involved? Was it pretty much just for the studio stuff or did you write some of this in mind with, you know, he’s going to add some of his flourishes to it?
We met a number of years ago. He had a band around town a long time ago, and I kind of got to know him but he still lived out of town. And then he moved to town, and I actually played with him. We’d do some shows where it was just me and him, and it was his music before. He was going by Seth Kauffman instead of Floating Action back then. We did one really, really fun tour where we’d go out West together and basically it was more like camping than playing shows. We got to do a few shows out on the West Coast and a few in between and got to be really good friends. I didn’t involve him until we got to the studio in Nashville, other than the fact that he picked me up in his van and helped me load way too much gear into the van. And it’s just a mountain of junkie pawn shop gear that I got and took it all over to Nashville and put it in a pile in the studio and most of it ended up just sitting there. I knew that once we got in there, he would have brilliant ideas and he did.
Yeah and someone who was just willing to go with the conscious mistakes as you said.
Yeah that was me, especially. I was blowing off all kinds of interesting buzz. It just felt really perfect having the three of us in that studio. It felt like being at camp or something. We were sad to leave when we were done.
