The record sold really well, it did great. They’re massively successful with good reason. Isn’t the whole point as an artist to just do whatever? Obviously this takes money so I sold a bunch of my shit and invested in pressing records. So I was like “why am I even emailing people when I could do this and not have to talk to anybody”.
This was the impetus to start my own label cos I’d sent it around and plenty of people were like “yeah, this is cool but we don’t have the time or money”. I had the multitrack recordings and I sent them around to some labels. We recorded a live set two or three days later. It was a natural thing an easy selection, they’re in the same ballpark so we got together, we rehearsed for a day, got ideas and comfortable with each other. I played that festival in the Netherlands, Le Guess Who? They wanted to do something special, pick an artist and collaborate live with them, do a longform improvisational sort of thing. They’re kind of in the same vein as me, especially live, it’s like drony, psych folk stuff. You put out a collaboration with Kikakagu Moyo earlier this year, isn’t that right?Ī band from Tokyo. So far it’s been sustainable, I haven’t begun to resent it yet so I’m really grateful for it. It’s going well, my expectations are real. It’s really small though, I can’t break anybody or make a career, it’s kind of like a punk rock, for the love of music thing. I have plans to put out a few more bands this year. I did put out my friend’s band Whisker, a weird noise band. So far it’s just music that I’ve played on and other collaborators.
But that’s my problem, it’s my shit, it’s not anybody else’s. It’s torture! What if this record sucks? So I’m glad this is more immediate, it helps with my anxiety. When you’re on a label that has money and a PR cycle, I’m not bashing it by any means, you usually have to sit on a record for two years. Yeah! Mostly because the turnaround was so quick. Loving and walking around New York, it’s a great multicultural place with different food, you hear a new language on every block, it’s cool. Stuff like that fascinates me, the movement of people, especially East Coast America at the turn of the century, all your ancestors who came over here! I walk around Hell’s Kitchen, the famous Irish neighbourhood of New York, and I read books about that. When I moved to New York, I bought a stack of books that were like, the history of Chinatown, the history of the Polish population there. So I read a lot books about local history. I read a lot of non-fiction, poetry, sometimes my brain just can’t comprehend fiction. I’m on a very high dose of antidepressants and mood-stabilisers, I guess that has something to do with my general outlook day to day. Bands like Red Krayola, Gast del Sol, any left of centre stuff that was on Drag City, or Thrill Jockey. They have this west coast indie rock thing but they’re also super weird, they have noise in between all their songs. They’re kind of like the Residents and Pavement combined. Genesis was the biggest one, and there’s corny British prog like Gentle Giant, definitely a lot of Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, a San Francisco noise rock band, I love them. Genesis is a key influence on the album, is that right? No More Workhorse caught up with Ryley Walker to talk about his new album, life and his love of Zaytoon kebabs!
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