12 minute read
RYLAND JAMES
Interview by Daniel May
LET’S GO RIGHT BACK TO THE START. SO, YOU GREW UP IN ONTARIO, CANADA. HAD YOU A TYPICAL UPBRINGING, AND HAVE YOU ANY SIBLINGS?
For rural Ontario, Canada, I had a very typical childhood. I have two younger sisters. I come from a very small town. It’s less than 2000 people, in the middle of nowhere. It’s pretty far from cities or anything. So, I grew up just playing road hockey outside, or biking around town, exploring the woods, and hanging with neighbourhood kids. So, my childhood was very much the norm.
I READ YOUR GRANDMA WAS A GOSPEL PIANIST. DOES YOUR PASSION FOR MUSIC COME FROM HER, AND DID YOU SING WITH HER WHEN GROWING UP?
She always played gospel piano when I was over at her house. I was there all the time because my parents would be working. She only knew how to play from ear. So, it was just from her soul, her feeling. I remember watching that and singing along to simple songs. She would teach me how to play “Twinkle, Twinkle” or we’d sing “Silent Night” lol. She would make it so soulful, that’s where a lot of my soulfulness comes from in my music. Yeah, she was just such a huge inspiration. My family were very musical. My parents didn’t play anything, but my mom, she’d sing around the house and my dad played music all the time too. Being in that environment definitely contributed.
YOU AUDITIONED FOR THE NEXT STAR, A TV SINGING COMPETITION SIMILAR TO THE X FACTOR. LOOKING BACK, IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WOULD CHANGE, AND WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ABOUT TV TALENT SHOWS?
I was 14 at the time when I went on it. It was like a teenage kind of show. So, that was my first introduction to TV, the music industry, the whole bit. I remember going to audition and being so excited to go through that whole process, and see what it was really like. It really amped me up to want to continue and to move forward with it. When it ended, I was like, “This sucks,” and I went through this really hardcore fall. I was still in high school at the time, and going back to regular life, after doing something like that, was very difficult. But it fired me up to keep pushing forward. It made me want to learn how to play instruments and hone my craft. Like, “I want this for my life.” TV talent shows in general, I think they’re cool. We are in an era where it’s a little different than it used to be, because of social media and whatnot, but I still think they’re such a great outlet for people who might not have that ability, or capability fully, of developing the whole thing by themselves online. I think it is a great opportunity for people to get themselves out there, yeah, and my time on it was was very enjoyable.
FAST FORWARD A FEW YEARS, AND YOU WERE SIGNED BY UNIVERSAL. CAN YOU PUT INTO WORDS HOW THAT FELT?
Very exciting. The process was interesting, because I signed with my management. They’re an independent label, kind of. That’s how I was brought into this whole industry. They’d seen a video of mine on Facebook. I went in and started working with them, developing, and I didn’t feel like a real artist yet. I was starting to song write with other co-writers and develop things. I wasn’t signed with a major label yet. In the background, I knew that they were trying to get a deal with Universal. It just kind of happened one day, they’re like, “Here it is. Here’s the contract.”. That moment was what I’d been waiting for. I was like, “Ah, yes, finally!” I had just turned 18. It felt like all this hard work had paid off.
I READ LOADS OF IMPRESSIVE STATS: PLATINUM-SELLING ARTIST, DOUBLE JUNO AWARD NOMINEE, 70+ MILLION STREAMS. WHEN YOU HEAR THINGS LIKE THIS, HOW DO YOU STAY GROUNDED AND NOT LET IT GO TO YOUR HEAD?
I definitely am the type to shy away from it and cringe a little bit. I’m proud of the accolades and I acknowledge them. But, to me, it sometimes feels like I haven’t done it yet. I want to keep getting better. I don’t want to get to that point where I’m like, “Oh, yeah, now I’m here. Now I’ve made it. Now I have all this stuff.” Then you stop growing, “Oh, I’ve done enough already.” But to me, I’m never doing enough, never making enough. It’s finding that balance, being able to appreciate it at the end of the day, the accolades - we need something, but they’re not everything when it comes to being a human being.
IT IS AN UNDERSTATEMENT TO SAY YOU HAVE SUCH A LOVELY TONE TO YOUR VOICE. IT ALMOST SOUNDS FAMILIAR, THOUGH I CANNOT PUT A FINGER ON WHO YOU REMIND ME OF LOL. I LOVE YOUR FALSETTO, DO YOU TRAIN/ PRACTISE A LOT, AND DO YOU WORK WITH A VOCAL COACH?
Thank you so much. I do practice though I used to do that more, where I’d sit down and watch YouTube videos on certain techniques, or how to do a certain warm up. But now, it’s more like I learned and practised through singing songs, or making online videos, or being in the studio, through writing. I try a lot of different things with my voice, and that is my practice, constantly doing work that involves singing most days. I don’t train with a vocal coach. I’ve had mentors in the past. It’s been a lot of trial and error over the years. My mom took a vocal class in high school, and she remembered so much of it. And so, she would teach me when I was young, how to do certain things. Or she intuitively knew by hearing what I was doing, what I should do. She’d give me these little tips. There were a lot of people who helped along the way. I feel like a lot of it has also just been intuitively figuring it out, and just through experience.
THERE ARE SO MANY UNIQUELY TALENTED ARTISTS. GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO COLLABORATE WITH ANYONE, WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
Definitely Tori Kelly, her voice is so incredible, she was somebody that I really looked up to back in 2015 when “Nobody Love” came out. After that, I started watching all her YouTube videos. She was one of my first concerts I bought tickets for. She’s a huge inspiration. And she’s also a writer, guitar player and so many things all-in-one.
BEFORE WE TALK ABOUT YOUR COMING OUT, AND RELATIONSHIP, WE MUST ADDRESS COVID, AND THE PAST 18 MONTHS IN GENERAL. SO MANY HAVE STRUGGLED MENTALLY, HOW HAS IT BEEN FOR YOU?
It’s been up and down. It’s been the most transformative period of my life. I went from 19 to 20 to 21 to 22 through this whole thing. I feel like I’m trying to process, and understand what happened in the last year-and-a-half. When I came into this pandemic, I was touring, travelling, doing all these things. And I felt really lost, internally, as a person. Outwardly, I was still getting work done, still doing things. Things were happening for me. But, inside, a part of me felt like it was dying. I was coming home feeling so depressed, like, “What am I doing? Why am I doing this? What’s the meaning behind this?” I didn’t feel like I was being fully myself. There were just so many obstacles. I felt like I was just running into things, and I didn’t know why. So, when the pandemic hit, and they were like, “Okay, everyone’s gonna stay at home,” everyone was freaking out. But me, internally, a little bit was like, “Okay, good.” To take some time to just be at home, in my space. So, at first, it was very nice for that. I started getting into spirituality, meditating, yoga. Learning about this other layer of the human experience. There’s been so many ups and downs. I’ve always struggled with anxiety, especially, that tension. I think when you’re sitting in one place, for too long, you do get restless and unmotivated. Uninspired.
IN FEBRUARY YOU DROPPED THE BOMBSHELL THAT YOU WERE GAY. I’M SURE YOU GOT HUNDREDS OF DMS AND OFFERS LMAO. THOUGH, ON A SERIOUS NOTE, THAT CAN’T HAVE BEEN EASY?
For a long time, I was not interested in a relationship, in people. It was this faraway thing in the future. I was very focused on my career. Then suddenly, at the beginning of the pandemic last year, I suddenly felt this urge to connect with somebody, this need. I had finally told my sister about my sexuality, and how I’d finally come to terms with this realisation. I came from a rural area. Religious upbringing and environment. So, I was always taught to put on that mask of being straight, fitting the mould. There were these urges, through my life, that I was always very ashamed of. So, I finally just came to terms with that. I told my sister and started to open my world up a little more to this possibility. I put up a song, “3 Purple Hearts,” I just saw this guy on one of my Instagram posts, and I went over to his page. I saw it and I was like, “Who is this? What is this?” We met, and I’d never experienced love before, never been in a relationship before. But when you know, you know. I just knew he was my person. We fell in love very quickly. Long-distance for a while, but I always felt very comfortable with him. I felt like I finally had found this like light, and that I could be myself. It was opening this side of me up. But I still felt so hidden from the world. Even when we’d go out in public, I was so afraid that someone who knew me would see me, and out me, or think differently of me, or people finding out that I was queer and had a boyfriend. So, through fall, winter, I was getting more and more comfortable of letting different idiosyncrasies come out and expressing myself. By February, I’d done enough self-development, enough self-reflecting, and of changing my perception, to realise that it is not worth it anymore to stay internal about it. You never owe people an explanation for who you are, or your sexuality, but I was just like, “It’s time. I need to do it.” I’ve talked so much about authenticity with my fans, my audience. I want to write about that, so I feel like it’s only right to tell them who I am. “This is who you’re following and listening to.” So I did. I just wrote it out. I just had this urge, this gut feeling, that I needed to do it. I did it, and it was the most anxiety-inducing thing I’ve ever done. As soon as I posted it, I’ve never felt such a mix of emotions. My sisters were here, and they were like, “It’s fine. It’s good. The people are gonna love you.” But of course, I’m like, “I don’t know. I’m so afraid of what the reaction is gonna be like.”
IT WAS GREAT.
Yeah.
CAN YOU REMEMBER WHAT THE POST WAS THAT HE COMMENTED UNDER?
It was a picture of me, and a purple outfit. I was standing on a doorstep in town. I had this purple outfit on, and I had commented, “What’s your favourite colour?” It had done really well for me. I clicked on him. I never usually did this, but I saw his thing, and I was just very intrigued and interested. We started messaging back and forth. It was instantaneous chemistry, like, “This is different.”
THE VIDEO SEEMS VERY CANDID, YOU ARE ENJOYING YOURSELF ON A ROAD TRIP IN THE WOODS ETC., WAS THIS FOOTAGE OF AN ACTUAL TRIP THAT YOU JUST DECIDED TO USE FOR THE VIDEO?
Yeah so, just before I went on my road trip to go pick him up, I hadn’t planned like to do a video or anything like that. He was living an 18-hour drive away from me, way up north. We’d been doing long-distance for a long time. We had always talked about moving in together, finally being able to be together. And we’d gone through so many periods of visiting each other, and then going away for a whole month or two. It was getting so exhausting for both of us that
I was like, “Why don’t you just like come move into my family’s house?” My family were always saying, “Why don’t you just invite him to come live with us?” And so, I did, and he was like, “Okay, cool.” So, in May, I was going to drive up and bring him home. I had been thinking of doing a proper video for “3 Purple Hearts,” but then we had this idea to record candid footage while we’re on a road trip and put it together as a video. So that’s how it came to be. Very candid, very real. Exactly like what it was.
OVER THE PAST YEAR OR SO YOUR STYLE HAS REALLY EVOLVED. IT IS MUCH MORE RELAXED. IS THIS AN ARTISTIC CHOICE, OR DO YOU FEEL DIFFERENT AND MORE COMFORTABLE?
It’s a little bit of both. I’m very comfortable in who I am. I used to wear a lot of black and white, basic solid colours, because I was afraid of kind of stepping out of that box a little bit. I started experimenting even before I came out with different fashion stuff. I was always interested in fashion and style. But this pandemic affected everything. The hairdressers closed. My hair, beard, and everything grew out. I became more comfortable with myself and my unique expression. I’m like, “If I see something that I like, I’m gonna just get it. I’m gonna wear it. And I don’t care what people say.” If you can wear something with confidence, then who cares? It’s your thing. It’s, you expressing yourself. I still do take artistic fashion inspiration from things but, for the most part, it is just, “I like it, so I’m gonna wear it.”
LOOKING FORWARD, CAN WE EXPECT AN ALBUM OR TOUR?
Things are so annoying here, with all the restrictions and whatnot, understandably so. Shows. I’m doing as many as I possibly can right now. No tour at the moment. Hopefully, towards 2022, I’m able to get back out there. We have a plan for music release. I have a lot of songs coming down from above, and they’ll be out over the next little while, and I’ve just been writing it in time as well. So, I’ve been doing all the Zoom sessions.
WATCH THIS SPACE THEN.
Yeah.
ANY PLANS TO COME TO THE UK/ IRELAND?
Yes, I would love to. UK and Ireland, are some of the places I want to go the most. I was in London a few years ago, I wrote a bunch of stuff there. I’m excited to get back, I’ve been talking about it for so long.
