Artist write-up by Ryan Osterman. Ryan’s thoughts, feelings, and takes on everything that is music.

My name is Ryan, I write songs for Owl & Penny and Sownbones.  The music that I’m into is pretty much all over the spectrum I suppose.  I enjoy folk music of all kinds, classic rock, death metal, trip hop, but really these are all just words and genres because music is music and music is good for you. When I first started writing a while back, I was really into this guy David Lehnberg’s stuff.  He put out a ton of records under the name “Ariel Kill Him.” (Listen to “Ca-Cao,” “Seashell Eyes,” “Marathon,” “Katla,” “The Money Shot”). It was amazing to me, like nothing I’d heard at the time.  Very mellow, lots of reverb and delay on the guitars/pianos/vocals/strings/etc.  It was basically like heroin in music form and it was mind blowing.  My first demo/songs were very much influenced by his music.  I admit I’ve branched out kind of far from there now but I know that I’m still very into what he’s done.  He plays in a new band in Sweden called “The Deer Tracks.”  Also definitely worth listening to.  They bring a slightly more uplifting/hopeful quality to David’s previous work in my opinion.  It’s very emotional, I love it.  

I suppose recently the artists I’ve been most listening to are TheTallest Man On Earth (an extremely talented folk musician from Sweden, listen to “The Gardener,” and “Into The Stream”), Amiina (ambient/classical/instrumental music from Iceland, listen to “Rugla,” and “Sexfaldur”), Sigur Rós (also from Iceland, “Untitled 3,” “Andvari,” and “Heysátan”), and some other stuff here and there like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Björk, Radical Face.  It’s all really good.  I’d definitely recommend them to anyone.  In addition to those bands up there if you haven’t already heard Devendra Banhart’s stuff, you absolutely have to.  It’s amazing.  I get to finally see him play in about a week and I’m really excited.  His stuff is like spiritual or something to me.  Some songs of his to check out that I enjoy a lot are “Chinese Children,” “Lagoon,” “Seahorse,” “This Beard is for Siobhán and “Untitled.”  It’s equal parts folk, experimental, rock, funk, everything.  I don’t really know how to describe it but it’s pretty monumental to me.  

But like I said, music is music, and music is good.  I feel like the music that I listen to, or play, etc has been the one constant thing in my life, you know?  Everyone has days where they feel like it’s raining shit and it’s just nice to be able to come back home, lay in bed and vent by listening to a good record.  That’s why I feel it’s so important to have music in your life.  We have so much emotional tension building up in our lives and just hearing a good song can completely alleviate any sort of stress or pain we have.  How cool is that man!  Yes, I am well aware of the recycled pop bullshit that’s floating around plaguing our ears sweeping the nation like pestilence and being called music.  I know.  But that just makes all these other hardworking musicians and artists look even better.  Like, “Hey man, I know I’m not rich, I know I probably never will be, but the thing is, I enjoy my life, I make music for my friends and they happen to dig that, and that’s a pretty cool goddamn thing.  Maybe I’m not climbing up this incredibly naive, watered-down, timid, comfortable MTV chart, but fuck MTV! I’m human, and I’m having fun.”  Real music is made my real people and I like that.  You can hear the difference between the two.  

I know that I come off like an asshole all the time because I have a fairly cynical attitude towards popular music now a days, but I assure you there’s nothing but the best intentions involved.  I just want to bring real music back to real people and I’m very protective of that. Everyone that takes the time to talk to me always gets a genuine response and I personally make sure of that.  I hate when musicians or anyone for that matter gets put on a pedestal, we’re all equal human beings out there, we all deserve to be treated as such.  Not a random name or play count on a networking website.  I know I rant but that’s okay with me.  This is music, this is your voice, this is your message.  You owe it to yourself to speak your mind.  I can’t really say one person or one band or one thing in general shaped who I am today as a human or an artist.  I’m just me.  I’m a product of my environment, we all are.  Some may a have a clear and concise moment where their life just makes sense suddenly, maybe I will too one day.  I don’t necessarily claim to have this whole “Life” thing figured out by any means, but I do know what works for me, I know who I am, and I know that music is very important to me.  It’s what helps me hold on to certain memories and recall certain noises, moments, people, smells, locations, and experiences.  That’s pretty cool to me because after all when we’re all in the twilight of our lives, memories are the only thing we’ll have left.  I don’t really have much to rant on about but I will leave you with something my grandmother used to tell me when I was growing up and didn’t have a whole lot of support in pursuing music, “If you have music, you’ll never be lonely.”  The meaning of life is to live, so let’s live man.