WILLIAM EDWARD OF BILL RYDER - JONES

Hi William and thank you for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology. Firstly congratulations on the new record Yawn. Being your fourth release was there a feeling of confidence and boldness in how you approached this record or was the process just as demanding and challenging as any of your previous LP’s?

If I’m honest making records seems to be getting harder, perhaps my expectations have grown. I think certainly with the first two I wasn’t thinking about anyone other than myself. I think the hard part is realising what it is you want to do, once you have that then the achieving of it tends not to be so tricky. I was writing for a few months whilst not being particularly inspired by music or anything. That obviously isn’t ideal. It wasn’t until I discovered/became obsessed with ‘sad-core’ and the music of Duster, Bedhead, Low and Red House Painters that it all fell into place. Once I had that music orbiting my life I knew where I was at. The next thing was realising that I didn’t want to write instantly knowable melodies, I wanted to push myself to write melodies that would take a while to stick but hopefully burrow into people’s minds. Once I knew that then it was an obvious approach to take into the lyric writing.

Were there times during the writing for Yawn that you already have some music semi fleshed out but what it is missing is the scenario (situation/instance/subject matter/love/tragedy) to occur for it to then meld perfectly with music?

Almost every song was like that in all honesty. I almost always write the music as an instrumental and then find an interesting lyric that doesn’t get in the way too much and never takes over fully...I hope.

Often lyrical inspiration is born out grandiose experiences but more often than not it comes from everyday people in everyday situations which you are most adapt at in consolidating into beautiful sound scapes with a lyrical finesse. What is it about the ordinary that most inspires you into crystallising these moments?

That’s hard to answer, I guess I’m sensitive to the little things. The great big things like love and death are what they are and it often feels a touch classless to tackle them head on.

The tales as told in John sounds like a particularly tender and agonising one of loss and misunderstanding. Can you elaborate a little on the subject matter for this track?

Well that’s one of the few straight forward narrative songs on the record. The idea was to write it as a ‘Dear John’ letter. I thought it might be a nice way to frame the loss of someone in this context is all.

What isn’t immediately apparent at face value when listening to a Bill Ryder-Jones album is the multitude of levels that you are working on. Being a jack of all trades and taking on the role of instrumentalist, arranger, composer, vocalist and producer is a mammoth feat and one that you so effortlessly achieve. Having this musical totality must be a tall order but one that allows you to dissect and assemble every facet that isn’t necessarily an option in a band collective?

That’s very kind although in hindsight the album would’ve been better had I demo’d the songs and played them through with my band and then re-recorded them. After all these years of playing with me the lads know what I’m about and when we started to rehearse the songs for a recent tour I did think ‘ah shit, this sounds better than the recorded version’. Things didn’t change dramatically but things that I wasn’t really happy with on the record kind of just fell into place. It’s quite special when five people play one thing, I’m going to try and achieve that next time I make a record I think.

Another track off your record, No One Is Trying To Kill You is another example of your musical prowess. A gentle assortment of strings, swirling guitars and delicate harmonies. In its assembly did you have the fullness of this song already in mind from the onset or was it a case of layering elements till it resembled what we hear of it of Yawn?

I think the album version of that song is probably the third attempt. There was certainly a version that was more like ‘There’s something on your mind’. It quite often happens when you’ll have a song left over and a space that you know needs filling, or rather a musical box that needs ticking. I remember thinking I wish I had a song that did this…..and as I sat down to write that I remembered no one’s trying to kill you. I’m annoyed with myself though because in my being an arse for melody I actually pulled the punch line in that song. It was meant to say ‘it’s far too late to talk of death, let’s have sex instead and no-one’s trying to kill you’. See that in my mind is quite funny, one horny lover having to explain to their partner that no one is out for them and just wanting to get laid. Anyway I forgot that was the point and pulled it because I couldn’t get the melody to work.

I guess it is fair to say that music has been the one underlying constant in your life and the prism through which the world is viewed, analysed and reimagined. Such a heavy reliance on music and more precisely playing music can be an alienating yet liberating form of expression. As you move through your years does performing music become more or less the vehicle that drives you?

I think it’s not got any harder than it was, it doesn’t drive me in any sense and for the most part it’s not something I look forward to. It can be very rewarding but I do often wonder if it’s worth all the head fuckery that it brings.