RYAN BEAVER bio
"This album is titled Rx because these songs are like medicine
to me," Ryan Beaver says of his consistently compelling new
release. "Making this record was so much fun, and so
therapeutic. These songs serve as a prescription for getting
excited about music and life. And if they're like medicine for
me, maybe they will be for the listeners."
Indeed, the 12-song set, the Texas-bred, Nashville-based
singer-songwriter's third longplayer, offers a potent mix of
haunting emotional depth and resonant melodic craft. His
insightful, infectious compositions and deeply expressive voice
honor the artist's deep country roots, while transcending the
genre's stylistic boundaries to incorporate a widescreen sense
of drama that's anchored by his lifelong love for raw, gritty
rock 'n' roll.
The resulting album, which the artist co-produced with
longtime compadres Jeremy Spillman and Ryan Tyndell, makes
it abundantly clear why Ryan Beaver has already been widely
acclaimed as an artist to watch. Rolling Stone recently named
him one of "10 New Country Artists You Need to Know," and
he's received public acclaim from the likes of Miranda Lambert,
Ashley Monroe, Maren Morris, Kacey Musgraves and Lee Ann
Womack, with whom he's toured as an opening act.
The surging, anthem "Dark," Rx's opening track and emotional
centerpiece, makes it clear why Beaver's work has generated
so much excitement. A startlingly direct declaration of
emotional perseverance, it's a powerful anthem of hope and
survival in the face of loss and disappointment. A comparable
level of emotional gravity powers such memorable tracks as
"Rum & Roses," "Habit," "When This World Ends" and the
stirring album-closer "If I Had A Horse." The artist reveals a
more humorous attitude on "Fast" and "Vegas," and pays
tribute to one of his creative role models with "Kristofferson,"
which he prefaces with a section of Kris Kristofferson's own
"Jesus Was A Capricorn."
"This is my third album, but in a lot of ways it feels like it's my
first," Ryan states, adding, "I feel like I've reached the point
where I know what a good song is, and I have a clear vision of
what I want to accomplish."
Ryan Beaver's forthright, personally-charged songwriting
reflects the lessons learned over a lifelong creative journey.
Growing up in the small Texas town of Emory, he began writing
songs early in life, and began performing his compositions in
local venues when he was just 17.
"Music opened up another world for me," Ryan recalls. "I
played in bands, on drums and guitar and piano, but I could
never shake the songwriting thing. I didn't sing for awhile,
because I was kind of shy as a teenager, but I always found
comfort in being able to write a song. Writing songs was my
way of getting the world to make sense.
"I grew up in this really small town, 70 miles east of Dallas-Fort
Worth, 1500 people," he explains. "There's not a lot to do out
there, so you had to be creative about how you spent your
time. We had this amazing little scene pop up, where you
could actually play your own songs. I was a trainwreck at first,
but I worked at it and I got better."
He moved to Austin and became a part of that city's fertile
music scene, and then relocated to Nashville, where he has
immersed himself in Music City's songwriting community and
continued to hone his skills.
"I've done hundreds and hundreds of shows, primarily in the
Southwest, but eventually I realized that I needed to go do this
for real and build this thing. I loved Austin, but I knew that the
best singers, players and writers are in Nashville, and that the
bar was way higher there. It was the best thing for me. I
wrote more songs and sang more in a year in Nashville than I
would have in five years anywhere else. And the more you do
it, the better you get at it."
Beaver applied that pragmatic attitude to recording Rx, which
he recorded on his own dime, without the benefit of recordcompany financing. The project was set into motion, he says,
when he wrote "Dark" while mourning the deaths of his
grandfather and a close friend.
"Writing 'Dark' really shook me, and really woke me up," he
says. "I think I needed to hear those words more than
anybody, and I realized that if I felt that way, maybe others
would. I got super excited, and I thought, 'OK, I think I'm onto
something here, this is a path that I want to take.'
"I'm a fan of all kinds of music, and I think that's reflected on
the album," he continues. "We talked a lot about what we felt
was missing from country music now and how we could bring
some of that back, and at the same time, how could we push
the envelope a little. That thought was always there: let's see
if we can take this genre to somewhere it hasn't been before.
But my main goal was to make a record that I would want to
hear, with well-crafted songs that said something.
"Singing 'I ain't afraid of the dark' is as simple as it gets, and
anybody can understand what it means. That's me trying to be
an adult and trying to figure out how to deal with the real
world. It's really simple, but getting yourself to the point
where you're able to express things that simply is a challenge,
and it something I aspire to. That's what Hank Williams did,
and it's what Tom Petty does: express these complicated
emotions in everyday language that everyone can understand.
That's my goal."