The Black Ryder

With debut record ‘Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride,’ Sydney’s The Black Ryder fell on deaf ears despite their minor acclaim. Subsequently relocating to Los Angeles, Max Easton spoke to Scott Von Ryper and Aimee Nash about US touring and the lack of local opportunities.

Aimee Nash and Scott Von Ryper are no strangers to unlikely situations. Once with the Morning After Girls, the band’s split saw them form the Black Ryder, a dark, whispered foray into shoegazing psychedelia. Initially devised as a recording project, a support slot lent them by the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club forced them to form a band and put some songs together; songs that eventually became 2009’s 'Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride'. Featuring guest musicians from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Brian Jonestown Massacre, the album was almost unanimously well-received, yet it remained a quiet pockmarck on 2009’s field of Australian music.

Then came The Cult, English psych-rock legends of the 80’s who brought The Black Ryder on tour across Australia and, when the offer of following them to the United States came, brought them to their new home of Los Angeles.

“When we came to the States with the Cult in September, we had 36 dates lined up in two months and pretty much had to form a band in two weeks,” Aimee Nash explains, “We found some really great people; our drummer got recommended to us through a waitress at a café, our bass player Malia James is awesome, she makes films and is a TV host for this independent show called Dirty Laundry…it’s all coming together really well.”

Breaking up an existing band and trying again across the Atlantic seems a little extreme, but from the get go, it was the US that seemed to be the audience with the most attentive ears. Prior to signing with US label Mexican Summer (the home of Ariel Pink, Best Coast and Wooden Shjips) early interest from the States built on the back of their rough demo’s. Meanwhile, in Australia, the fully fledged album was failing to the rounds.

“We weren’t exactly getting any radio play back home,” Nash continues, “and it’s so hard since there are so many bands and so few radio stations, so few magazines and whatever, so it’s all reliant on the internet. It never really felt like we were a part of anything back home, because we weren’t this huge radio band, we weren’t signed to Modular, we weren’t playing indie-folk or any of that…it felt like we were in the middle of two things.”

“People have been so great here though,” Von Ryper interjecs, “in the support slots with the Cult people were there listening to the music and they’d be so keen to chat afterwards, and meet us, and tell us how much they liked our music because they’d looked us up on myspace before the gig or something. It was really great. We were worried about touring some parts, because you get this idea of what sort of person likes your music, so we were kind of worried how we’d go over in the South and stuff like that…”

“…worried about getting a bottle to the head…”

“…but then after we’d played there, there’s guys like a 300 pound bearded man telling us how much he loved the set. So it’s nice to break down the barriers we thought were there.”

There’s an obvious advantage to touring the US. As Nash and Von Ryper explain, they’re able to do a week-long driving tour and play four or five major cities, an advantage lost by the vast stretches of rural ground interspersing out capital’s.

“When we’d tour in Australia we’d only really play Sydney and Melbourne, maybe Brisbane and very, very rarely a show in Adelaide…and it’s hard to do that for any length of time,” Scott explains.”Some bands go the whole hog and do the regional dates in-between, but by the time we put a band together of people who have jobs and whatever, pack them all into a van and drive down to Melbourne, it just didn’t feel worth it.”

“We spent a lot of time coming out of tours in debt.”

The two are calling from the studio in LA, setting about the first paces for what is to become their second album. Their debut was mastered and engineered entirely by Von Ryper and Nash, a process that they’d taken on with no training and no concept of what to expect. The result was a unique sound that sat it outside of late 00’s recording trends and was responsible for a large portion of the charm featured on the record. Which begs the question of how they’re going to approach recording for their second.

“The recording was never really a traditional thing where a band walks into the studio and lays it to tape,” Von Ryper explains, “it’s always been me and Aimee playing most of the instruments with the odd visit from a very special guest. We like the idea of doing it ourselves again, cos we get to work within our own timeframe. But in saying that, we are open to working with other people I suppose…but we like the result we got the last time.”

Considering the success The Black Ryder have started to see in the six months or so that they’ve been in the States, it’s hard to imagine them returning any time soon, which Nash agrees with wholeheartedly.

“Well yeah, I guess this is indefinite. We worked so hard in Australia, but it makes so much more sense for us to be here. We’re getting loved a lot more in LA…it’s a lot more warm and fuzzy. We’re getting more hugs here! It’s nice to have a bit of attention, like the fact that NBC were listening and put one of our songs on [TV show] House…that was amazing…it was becoming very ‘can we get some money please?’ It’d be great to come back to Australia and do a festival or something though…”

“Just a quick pop in to say hi,” continues Scott, “you know…maybe check our mail.”

While no release date for the second album is set, their debut ‘Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride’ is available through their own label, The Anti-Machine Machine via EMI distribution.