On the eve of gigantic clusterfuck that was the recent US Presidential election, yours truly caught up with the one-and-only Ryan Young from his hotel room in Knoxville, Tennessee. For reasons that are personal and professional, I’ve long been an admirer of Ryan’s work both with Off With Their Heads and with the Anxious & Angry podcast and merchandise venture, and find his unabashed and unapologetic way talking about the hard and painful and uncomfortable shit that so many people have gone through is not just refreshing, but that it’s actually been more helpful at normalizing issues of mental health, substance abuse, etc.,than it’s gotten credit for. So when news of Young’s then-upcoming acoustic album, Won’t Be Missed, broke, it seemed the perfect opportunity to pick his brain and, honestly, to find out how he’s been.
The initial intent, obviously, was to discuss not just Won’t Be Missed, but to delve into the transition from an angry, loud, plugged-in four-piece to an angry, stripped down acoustic duo (“Nice John” is joining Young in the acoustic incarnation of Off With Their Heads). But let’s face it; by the time we actually touched base, it was the night before the country ended up electing the Personified Fart that is Donald J. Trump. Young had been touring through the South in the days leading up to that fateful day, and was presently holed up in said Knoxville hotel on an off day. Voting booths on the Eastern seaboard were about twelve hours from opening, and the general pall over the country, particularly those over those of us who care about people and about helping people get better and about looking out for each other, and who are concerned with the concept of general human decency, was just plain weird. Like, fucking shit tons of weird. To that end, you can probably guess where our conversation steered itself pretty quickly, although the two main threads (Young’s professional careers and the coming Trumpification of America) found themselves pretty interwoven pretty quickly.
I’m going to let the text of the interview speak for itself on this one, because in transcribing and editing it, I actually enjoyed reading it and watching how the conversation evolved. So without further adieu, head below to check out our discussion. Once you read all the way through, you’ll find OWTH’s upcoming tour dates at the bottom. Go hang out. And check out Won’t Be Missed right here while you’re at it.
Dying Scene (Jay Stone): Thanks for taking some time to chat with us.
Ryan Young (Off With Their Heads): I’m trying to find a quiet place in this hotel…
Where are you now? You’re somewhere down South, yeah?
I am in Knoxville, yeah. Knoxville, Tennessee. And there’s like a forest fire or something going on? Basically, it looks like Beijing; you can see how thick the air is. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
Well, at least it’s something to do.(editor’s note: obviously revealing my heavy northeast liberal bias right here…) What the hell else is there in Knoxville, aside from the University of Tennessee? I know nothing at all about the South in general.
In the area? Dollywood? That’s about it! (*both laugh*) To be honest with you, I don’t know much about it either. I do know that we’ve played here a couple of times and it’s always been fun, though, so I thought we’d hit it up. That’s the whole story!
You’re in the South on the eve of what could be the end of civilization…
I know. And I also realize that. If I needed anything else to be stressed out about, there you go… Driving around here for the last week has been unreal. Up where I’m at, you don’t really see a lot of that Trump shit. It’s EVERYWHERE here. It’s crazy.
I was going to sort of ask you about that. I’m right near Boston, so we certainly don’t have a huge contingent of Trump supporters. And I’m lucky to be one of those people that knows almost literally nobody who’s actively supporting him, so it’s baffling that he keeps polling at, like, 43%. But then I remember that we have a Mason-Dixon line…
Yeah! I thought that too about George W. Bush. I was like “how can he possibly be winning?”
Right! Both times…
But us and our friends are a very small group of people apparently! (*laughs*(
So it is rampant down there? That scares the hell out of me for tomorrow.
Honestly, it’s massive. You’ll see almost nothing with Hillary on it, and if you do, it’s like a picture of her as a villain. I had never seen a Trump billboard, but honestly that’s what every fourth or fifth one is down here.
That’s frightening.
I still don’t think it could possibly happen. Hopefully I’m right…
Even if he doesn’t win, doesn’t this election scare the shit out of you more than any other? Just the fact that he’s the party nominee…one of the only two options that we have…the fact that that happened scares the shit out of me.
Yeah, the fact that he got this far says a lot about this country, and that’s really actually pretty depressing. The fact that he can spew out all of that bullshit, and have people love it. I mean, we all know that there are shitty people in this country, but I thought that people had some common sense, you know? And there’s always people — my sister sent me a screencap of what my mom wrote in an email about how she was disappointed in everybody for not voting for Trump because of the millions of dead babies since 1970-whatever.
Oh god…
I said “really?!?” Fucking Christ, man… It’s been a rough day.
Funny you mention that. I was in New Hampshire yesterday, which in many ways is the South of the North…that’s where I was born and raised, I can say that…
That’s what I’ve heard. (Ryan) Fisher, our drummer, lives up by you, and he said “it’s kinda nice, and then it’s a total trailer park.”
Yes! That’s exactly true. Getting off the highway to get to my parents’ house there were a bunch of signs for Kelly Ayotte, who’s running for US Senate, and all of her campaign signs are just her last name and the words “Defund Planned Parenthood” in giant, bold, pink letters. That scared the shit out of me. I’ve never really seen anything quite like that.
Think about that. That’s been a thing forever, though you don’t see it as blatant as what you’re talking about. But that’s an issue now. People want to defund one thing that actually helps so many people. Planned Parenthood doesn’t just do abortion. They help people healthy and help them plan their parenthood. You wind up having all of these people — and I quote — “sucking off the tit of the welfare system” — and it’s like, honestly, how do you not get how this works. How short-sighted can you be? Can’t everyone just help everyone out a little bit? And I’m not even super left-wing. Some things make sense on both sides. I like to think I’m practical. But this shit is just out of control.
It seems bizarre, and it seems like there is a sizeable portion of this country that is not only willing to but actually wants to ensure that we do take sixty years backwards in time.
Yeah. We’re going to end up with resegregated schools and shit. Like…why on earth would you want to do that?
Seriously…have we learned nothing?
Oh, white people. Always afraid of blacks. Classic white people!
It’s not just black people either. I think we’re afraid of anybody that can even get like a moderate tan.
Oh yeah.
So anyway, the acoustic album… (*both laugh*) That’s a natural segue!
Haha. Yeah, that’s great. “Fucking white people! How ‘bout that acoustic record?!” (*both laugh*) Yeah, man, John and I went in to just do a couple of songs to see what it sounded like. One of my British friends five years ago suggested that “you have a voice that might work with that.” And I said “no I don’t, shut the fuck up.” But then I got to where I wanted to record stuff, but I wasn’t ready to record the new stuff yet. So we did a couple and listened to him, and both he and I and the guy that recorded the album, Dan (Jensen), all said “this is actually good. We should pursue this but actually make a record for people that already like the band anyway.” We’re not going to introduce new people to anything, but it allows me to get out and try something new. I really like how it turned out. I got to put it out myself while still being technically on Epitaph, which is cool that they let me do that. It’s been a blast. Doing shows has been weird, but we’re getting better at it.
Well yeah, I wanted to ask about that. What came first, the idea to play acoustic shows and then to figure out what songs to try that way, or the idea of recording songs come first and then you figured you’d try playing shows? Like, the first show you played was up here in Lowell or somewhere, right? For Fisher’s…
Yeah, yeah. For Fisher’s poutine pop-up. He just wanted someone to play to get some people out to the thing, and it worked. We did the record first. We didn’t really intend on playing much, but I figured why not. I wanted to do something completely different for me personally, and I guess be careful what you wish for. I was like “I want to feel anxious again! I want to be uncomfortable playing again!” And boy, did I get that! (*laughs*)
What is the difference to you playing acoustic, with just you and John? Do you approach a set differently? Is the whole experience different for you?
The entire thing. First off, just the vibe of a show like that is not the vibe of a full band show. It’s much more dialed back and calm to some degree. So you’re just standing there and it’s silent. There’s no loud feedback. Which has turned me and John into improv comedians! (*both laugh*) And we’re kinda funny, but it’s pretty great when we’re trying to do a joke that bombs! It’s like…look, we’re trying up here! (*both laugh*) But it’s really cool.
Are you one of those people that started playing acoustic first and writing acoustic first, or is that part totally foreign to you?
Completely foreign to me. I have absolutely no experience playing an acoustic guitar. I never wrote songs on one.
Really?
Yeah. I never messed with one at all. And that’s been the tricky part. I’m not a good guitarist, and this is very quickly making me learn a thing or two! So it’s cool. And John now plays an electric guitar fully distorted but a little quieter.
Oh cool!
We do that to kinda mix it up. Because, I don’t know, just straight acoustic shit is kinda boring to me. Also, it’s weird when you just have two guys playing distorted guitars. So it’s a good mix of both. It sounds a little dirtier.
Did that idea come out of playing a few shows together on just acoustic guitars and not liking how it sounded? Or was that the idea from jump street?
Yeah, he had an amp and was playing the acoustic guitar with just a little bit of distortion. But it just sounded dumb. So he’s like “I’m just going to play my regular guitar.” And we laughed about it, but then I told him to do whatever he wants. We practiced the songs a little bit, but we’re more the kind of people who learn on the fly. So that’s what we’ve been doing. As of last night it was great. Last night, we played in Atlanta, and we played with this band Blood On The Harp, who are like a country, hillbilly, six-piece band, and they were like “we want to play a song with you!” So it was the first time that we played the song “Don’t Laugh,” and we all really quickly learned it and it was awesome! It was kinda the coolest thing I’ve done in a long time. It was this whole ensemble thing, and they didn’t know it that well, and we went through and did a different version of it where everyone could catch along. Definitely one of my favorite moments as a musician, just getting to collaborate with that band on a whim.
Did you know who they were before last night?
Yeah, yeah. The guy who played bass in that band was in this Atlanta punk band called Campaign. We’ve been playing with them there forever, and he actually hit me up to offer the chance to do that.
That’s really rad.
Yeah, it was a blast!
Are you putting the shows together, or are you leaving that up to whoever books the shows? Aside from Mark Lind, I don’t think I even know who’s on the bill at either of the Massachusetts shows next month.
I went back to booking all the acoustic stuff myself, and I did it the way I did when I first booked Off With Their Heads. I’d kinda post up and be like “here’s what we want to do.” It gives a chance to younger kids or promoters who just want to set something up for their town, and they’re all stoked about it. Booking Off With Their Heads can be kind of a pain in the ass with a booking agent, because they’re good at their jobs. They’re going to do what they do. When it’s just me, I’m like “Oh, I don’t know, just do your best.” (*laughs*) So it’s been rad. My hope was that I could convince these people (who are booking shows) to be like “oh shit, I did that and it was cool, I should keep doing that.” And then they make it more of a thing.
Is this a project that you could foresee spending half a year doing acoustic and then half a year doing full-band shit? Or is that not really even a goal?
Nah, after this…I’m basically trying to not do this too much. I’ve still got a thing going on with my girlfriend’s mom at home, so I don’t really like being away as much as I used to. I mostly want to just do this whenever, but I have no plan to do a huge outing with this. Just a couple weeks here and a couple weeks there and then we’ll see. Then maybe I’ll just stop doing it altogether! (*Both laugh*) We’ll see if I’m still enjoying it as much. But everything is on the table, as far as I’m concerned.
And then you can do an acoustic reunion at Riot Fest in five years.
Haha! There you go. We’ve been trying to come up with a plan to get Frank Turner to buy us good guitars, but so far I haven’t figured out a way to do that… (*both laugh*) He’s a buddy and he likes my band, but I’m just like “why don’t you bring us on tour, and there’s one stipulation, Frank…you have to buy us guitars!”
I feel like that’s a thing that Frank would do. He’s brought Beans On Toast on tour with him everywhere, why not Ryan?
I owe him forty bucks, though, so he’s probably going to make me pay him that back. I’ve been avoiding him! (*laughs*)
So he’ll but you the guitar but make you buy a crapload of strings! (*laughs*) When it came time to put the actual album together, how did you go through and pick out which ones to do acoustic, particularly if you don’t write on an acoustic guitar?
That was the thing, figuring out which ones would work the best in that style. We really just went through every record and said “well, here’s like 13 that we can do.” And then we tried to do the quieter song “Don’t Make Me Go,” but it doesn’t work acoustically. It didn’t make sense. So that was kind of weird. We kind of figured that it was already soft, but it didn’t feel any different, and it just kind of dragged. We tried to figure out songs that would at least have a little bit of energy to them, or would make the lyrics stand out more than in a full band thing. That happened in “Old Man.”
Yeah!
That one really came through.
I was going to ask which songs you think really stood out or that maybe you developed a new appreciation for.
That’s definitely one of them. For some reason, it almost sounds like it should have been an acoustic song as opposed to a full band song. Which is funny, a lot of these are songs that we never play, so it’s kinda fun to be able to do that again.
Yeah, with “Old Man” in particular, there’s a part I think maybe in the last chorus or something like that, where it’s about as raw an emotion that you have not just on the album, but it sounds like you’re really just about to lose it, honestly.
Yeah. When we were recording that song, I remember getting in this crazy zone. And it’s been happening when we’ve been playing it too. It reminds me of the time I wrote it. I don’t know when that record came out…2010 or something like that… but 6 years later, it’s still relevant to me in a way where it’s like…goddamn…I have to take a breath after we do that one every night.
And I would imagine that that sort of moment is more of a common thing when you’re playing acoustic shows. It’s just you and the vocals, so you really have to dig deep there, yeah?
Yeah, absolutely. Which again falls under the umbrella of this whole thing being very different. To go from jumping around on a stage and being loud and noisy, to really having to focus on something.
I’m always curious about people that write about really intense and really personal shit like that. Does that open old wounds that might have been closed, or dig up some shit that may have been buried for a long time, when you have to strip it down and play it that emotionally?
Yeah, it definitely does, and specifically with that song. It brings up a lot of shit I haven’t thought about in a long time. When it all comes out tsunami-ing back to your brain when you’re on a stage, it’s like “Watch out!!” Which I think is a good thing. I guess if I did this too much, it would start to drive me a little crazy. Even just doing the full band thing as much as we did for years, when I went and actually started to see a therapist, he was just like “I think this might actually be affecting you, that you play 200 shows a year and sing about the most miserable shit you can think of!” (*laughs*) That made sense, and I was like “yeah, you’re probably right!” It’s something that I have to consciously stay on top of or else I’ll start going crazy again.
Is that a thing that you worry about? As somebody whose bread and butter has been a particular style of music and a particular lyrical content that is really dark and heavy, is there a fear that if you get quote-unquote better, however you quantify that, that it’s going to change how you write songs or play songs?
I mean, I obviously think about that as well. Because yeah, what would I do? That’s my thing. But, to bring this back to what we were talking about earlier, the things that get me mentally, and that I’ve been working on myself with, there are a billion things that I see outside of myself every day that are just as depressing and terrible. That inspiration can be drawn from pretty much anything when you turn on the TV or you fucking read a Facebook post or any of that shit. It’s like, my god, fucking awful. So actually, with the new record we’ve been working on, I’ve drawn a little bit from that. This world is a never-ending source of inspiration for bad shit. (*both laugh*) I’m not as worried about that as I was when I started taking medication and stuff like that. And I also still have a shitload of problems too! (*both laugh*) I don’t think they’ll ever go away, it’s just all about how you deal with them.
Do you feel better? Particularly in listening to Anxious & Angry, you certainly sound like you feel better now. And I don’t know if you realize how much that resonates.
I’m really good at putting up that front now, as opposed to before. And I do that…some days I feel like all that Anxious & Angry is just bullshit.
Really?
It’s like…I’m determined to be like the Pied Piper of talking about your fucking feelings, and then I’m fucking having a goddamn nervous breakdown a few times a week, and I don’t ever talk about that anymore. So I don’t know. I’d like to think that whether or not I think it’s bullshit, that it’s not bullshit. That it doesn’t necessarily matter if I’m in a bad spot, if I can champion a way for people to focus more on their own well-being. Doing that helps me with myself. I honestly think that doing one of those a week is when I’m at the best. Even if it’s just me talking into it by myself, I’m talking about stuff. That’s what you do with a therapist, and it does work. And it’s cool that people write in and I get to hear their stories of bad shit, and be like “yup! Totally get it!” And one of the things that people talk about is that feeling of not being alone in all this shit, and I’m like “right back at ya!” That’s nice to hear on my end too.
I was going to say, do you get inspiration from the people that write in, the sort of fellowship of the miserable stories? Because believe me, I’m right there with you more often than I care to admit.
Yeah, it’s great to hear from people. A lot of women will write in and admit to being victims of sexual assault and stuff like that, and it’s like “Jesus Christ, I can’t believe this shit!” I had someone who told me about an incident last night at a show. And it’s like…Jesus Christ, welcome to being a woman in our time, I guess. As sad as that is. A sympathetic ear is all some people can really ask for at some point, and I’m at least that.
Does that ever wear on you? That idea of being the Pied Piper, as you called it…does that — and I don’t want to say bring you down, because that’s the wrong phrasing —
I know what you’re talking about, yeah. It definitely does. When it’s constant bad shit, sometimes I feel like the guy from the Green Mile, soaking up everyone’s bad shit, and it’s like “oh god…it sucks!” I don’t mind when people write in to me at all. When they get to a show and want to get real heavy, and I don’t have the time to give it the proper response is tough. Like, we’re at a bar, and I’ve got a beer in my hand, and I’ve got to do a bunch of other things, I don’t want to talk about something that I’m not going to have the time to devote to responding to. But then if I don’t do that, they don’t understand and they think that I’m being a dick. I’m not being a dick; I created this thing that has a proper channel that allows me to help, rather than get this half-assed thing from me to get out of a situation, because it’s weird. I like having that wall of the internet and email, where I don’t have to immediately come up with some advice. Sometimes I literally just don’t have time.
And it’s not like you’re getting a crowd of pop-country fans. Everyone that goes to an Off With Their Heads show is an Off With Their Heads fan, and that can more often than not come with its own amount of baggage, so I can imagine you ended up with a line ninety people deep waiting to talk about their issues or to commiserate too.
Yeah, it’s never that bad. Most people come up and say thanks for what I’ve done with the podcast or say something else real quick and say that it’s really helped. And that’s awesome. Because it’s like “thank god, this works and is helping someone.” But some people are in a lot of mental pain inside and they don’t know how to talk about it, so if they see an opportunity and they jump on it and I can’t really get down on them about it. But, at the same time, proper channels, man! (*laughs*)
And that’s sort of why Anxious & Angry started, right? I feel like I read that somewhere quite a while ago.
Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly what it was. Every single show started to get to the point where everyone wanted to come up and have those conversations, and I would always listen, but be like “I don’t know what to tell you right now. I need to think about this, and I’m not going to see you.” So that was my reason, so I could give legitimate, good feedback on this stuff.
Yeah, so you can actually process your thoughts.
Yeah, and so I can always bounce it off someone else that doesn’t know you. I mean I don’t necessarily know the people, but it’s cool to hear other people weigh in on something that you were afraid to talk about. And we’re not always right. There’s no right answer to any of this shit. But I always suggest the basic things that sometimes people need to here. And there’ve been a few people who’ve told me to go fuck myself! (*both laugh*) If you give a little tough love to someone, and tell them “no, you’re actually being a piece of shit, that’s the long and short of it. And you don’t have to be, but from everything you’ve told me, you’re being really shitty to your boyfriend or your girlfriend or whatever, and it’s coming from somewhere inside of you that you need to fix.” And then, of course, I’ll get feedback that “well you don’t know the whole story!” Of course I don’t know the whole story! I know what you just told me!
Do you get that a lot from people outside the Off With Their Heads or Anxious & Angry fandom? I feel like that’s a common thing when you work in the helping professions, and I would include Anxious & Angry as a helping thing. Like, I work in the counseling field in my day job, and I get people’s life stories and their problems a lot, at a lot of places I go, without asking. I was trying to order at McDonald’s the other day and I got a guy’s whole life story; I heard about his daughter who had overdosed and his other daughter who was in jail, and his nephew who was a soldier… I didn’t ask a single question, but I think that sometimes people just get the vibe from you.
Well, I don’t get that as much. I’m a six-foot-three, two-hundred-pound dude dressed in black who looks like Grumpy Cat! (*both laugh*) I don’t look as sympathetic as I am, so unless people know exactly who they’re talking to, I don’t really get people who just come up and unload on me. Maybe my dumb physical features have helped me out!
Okay, to wrap up, I guess with the stupid faux-journalist question, “what’s next for Off With Their Heads?” I mean, I know you said you’re working on a new album; is there a game plan or a timeline to have it out by?
Not yet, but we did, as of yesterday, lock down a very radical producer for the record. I was like half-in and half-out about wanting to do that, but I wanted to pick who it is, because I want to really like that person’s style and the way that they work. And I can’t say who it is yet, but I just shot a text to someone who, I didn’t even know if they had the same number as when I was hanging out with them, but they were completely, 100% into it. So that’s really exciting. And the songs that we’ve been working on are very different from what we’ve normally done. I’m sure we’re going to have a bunch of stuff that’s similar to what we’ve always done, too, but just to get the ball rolling, we just thought we’d get a little weird and see if we could meet in the middle. That’s the cool thing about this now, we’ve always gone into a studio with four or five songs and just kind of banged out the rest as we went. This time we’re not doing that. I figured it’s been so long since the last one came out, what’s another couple months? When we have enough ready, we’ll lock down a time, but we are definitely going to be recording early next year.
UPCOMING TOUR DATES
Dec 02 Brauerhouse Lombard, IL
Dec 03 Commonwealth Press Pittsburgh, PA
Dec 05 Monty’s Krown Rochester, NY
Dec 06 Hotel Vernon Worcester, MA
Dec 07 O’Brien’s Allston, MA
Dec 08 Homegrown Newark, DE
Dec 09 Baltimore Soundstage Baltimore, MD
Dec 10 Union Transfer Philadelphia, PA
Dec 12 The Studio at The Waiting Room Buffalo, NY
Dec 13 Lee’s Palace Toronto, Canada
Dec 15 The Chance / The Loft Poughkeepsie, NY
Dec 16 Irving Plaza New York, NY
Discover more from Dying Scene
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.