Interview:
Ryan Patrick
Guitar Player of
Otherwise

On March 13 Otherwise played Rams Head Live in Baltimore, MD. We had the opportunity to sit down with guitarist Ryan Patrick. We discussed their recent tour with 10 Years, the creation of their sophomore album, Peace at All Costs, staying energized on tour, the brand company Life By Music, and many more.

Watch for our pictures and review from the show very soon!

New England Music Blog: How’s the tour with 10 Years going?
Ryan Patrick: From Birth to Burial Tour has been excellent, actually. We’re happily and pleasantly surprised at the turnouts and that hard rock is still alive and kicking and the fans have really enjoyed our sets and it’s been fun. It’s everything we could ask for.

NEMB: So the new album, Peace at All Costs, what was the song writing/recording process like?
RP: Well, we actually got off the road for True Love Never Dies, and then we were like “Oh my god! We gotta write another album! Are we even a good band? Can we write another album?!” After touring for 19 months, we were pretty beat up. As soon as the song writing process started, we were like “Oh we can write songs!” We linked up with a few of our friends who are also songwriters in the bizz and they just started flowing until we had about 15, 16…maybe 20 songs and we were recording with different producers trying different guys out and then David Bottrill, who recorded the first three Tool albums, he worked with Muse, Godsmack, Staind, Peter Gabriel, blah, blah, blah…Grammy award winning, blah, blah, blah…he came and he was down with us and he liked the songs. So he came to Las Vegas and we got some serious pre-production with him, sitting in a room, picking apart the songs, the chord structures, really trying to develop our musicianship and our songwriting capabilities as a unit, as a band, and the rest is recorded on that 12 track piece of work…was there 12 songs? I don’t even know…

NEMB: I think it was 14…speaking of so much touring, how do you guys keep up your energy?
RP: Well, we try to keep our minds focused and like we say in our single, “Coming for the Throne,” “focus the rage” and so we work out a lot. We try to stay physically fit, we try to detox all the booze we like to take in and stay healthy and stay on top of the mission at hand. I just got down boxing and sparring with my guitar tech and we do Cross Fit style work outs and we always try to get to the gym, do yoga or get massages and that’s what really keeps our energy levels at bay and keeps our mind in the right direction. We like to endorse a positive lifestyle, positive living is the new way to make rock n roll stay alive.

NEMB: Any crazy, funny tour stories?
RP: Crazy, yeah, we were stranded on a highway last week for 14 hours straight. We got snowed in and it was on CNN, like literally, the 20-mile stretch of cars that was stopped, we were in that stretch of cars. Helicopters flying, we were like “Oh my god! We’re gonna die! It’s the end of the world!” We didn’t know, we were stuck in the snow. It was pretty scary, we were up here in the bus, cooking up our food like “Man, you never know if the lights cut out or the gas runs out!” We were freaking out pretty hard, but we’re prepared for anything and my brother and the guys were out here, we treat this like our own little sonic warfare that we’re waging and we take it really seriously every single day and the typical stuff always happens, it comes with the territory; the silly girls, the silly drinking and the little bar altercations, and the silly drinking and some more silly drinking but yeah that was crazy because usually when we’re like tampering with the edge of life, it’s because we’ve had too many to drink and we’re being stupid but we were completely sober and stranded on this highway and it was really crazy realization on how fragile and sensitive life can be. The next day we made it to the show…oh, I’m sorry, two shows were cancelled…and when we got to the next show to play, we were like “We’re alive! Yes! We made it!” It gave us a new happiness for life.

NEMB: So what’s your favorite song off the new album?
RP: Ooh, that’s a good one…that’s tough…I really like a lot of the riffs on this album that I wrote and I enjoyed playing them. A little more aggressive but catchy…some journalist in Europe said, “Modest but effective guitars!” So they’re like modest but effective, I’m like “alright I’ll take it, whatever, cool.” But a riff like “Love & War,” I really enjoyed playing that riff, it was like simplicity but get it across with a bit of power. We usually start the set off with that one and it kind of sets the bar for the intensity of our live shows now, so I would say “Love & War,” and “Fate Is Your Enemy.” I enjoy those two the most.

NEMB: This album is pretty heavier than the last one, what inspired that?
RP: Frustration, you know…after True Love Never Dies, there was a lot of internal miscommunication within our entire group from band mates all the way through management, booking agent, record label, anybody you could name that had anything to do with our band and our business. There was some kind of miscommunication so we were frustrated, let alone the industry that we’re in, which is ever changing and usually for the negative, you know, like it’s just a really frustrating business. We had, let alone, another aspect of frustration that we shared that is when we were away, we sacrificed a lot of relationships, I went through my first real break-up/heartbreak during TLND so a lot of our songs like “Love & War” and “Fate Is Your Enemy,” there’s a couple of them that for once it was actually my heartbreak that we were going through rather than my brother’s, which we usually write about so it was lot of frustration but powering through it and that’s why it’s more so aggressive and darker because we still stand tall, we stand stronger than ever, even with the departures of some long-standing members, we always seem to stick to the ideology of our own symbol, which is the phoenix and from the ashes of the death of that phoenix rises a stronger one. And that’s what we’ve been doing and that’s what we consistently do. It’s galvanized us to believe that if it’s hard right now, we’re only going to get stronger and we’re only going to get better and take on more. So our band will get bigger and stronger and we will achieve our goal of becoming an international act.

NEMB: So tell me about Life By Music.
RP: We’ve got this mission that we’ve kind of taken on a bit to show that we are not just the type of band that we’ve been categorized to be, an active rock/cock-rock act or whatever the case may be, what the powers that be have labeled us and left us in. It’s not only a statement of saying “Hey we’re bigger artists than you allow use to be” but it’s also positive and white light type of movement where we wanted to create some kind of entity and some kind of mission that can help give back to those in need and those who don’t have the opportunity to feel the magic of music, to be a part of the magic that is music. We’ve put together a few events, like Life By Music presented an Otherwise show back in December, we created a toy drive around it. I created a little clothing line and we’re moving towards it being a non-profit organization, I actually submitted for it to be. It’s going to turn into a non-profit where we raise funds and raise awareness for music and we get it back to kids, we get instruments in the hands of kids. That’s my biggest mission. One of the statements of Life By Music is that bridges the gap between all things; it’s what music does. It can do that; it can be the universal language that breaks all the barriers, all the race issues and gender issues, whatever the case may be. I think I will stay true to the fact that music is the universal language and the key, the medicine for the masses. So we started that and it’s building slowly, one day we plan to create a music label out it. It’s definitely going to happen, we just have to build Otherwise more so, and the Life By Music brand and the seed itself will grow as well. You plant seeds and they will grow with work and dedication. It’s pretty cool, we got the website up…be on the look out for more things Life By Music, everything I do and everything my brother does and the band, so many artists live a life by music and everything is based around that so I want to create an entity where we can harness that energy and give it those who need it just as much as we needed it when we got into it. It’s not like we’re trying to reinvent the wheel or something, we’re just another camp, and we’re just another team to spread the message. So that’s that and our single is doing really good right now, it’s Top 25 on the Active Rock charts and we’re just going to keep on chugging along, we’ve got a tour with Nonpoint coming up at the end of April. This run ends in about two and a half weeks then got a couple weeks at home then we’re back out on the road, just on that grind.

NEMB: So tell me about being an uncle.
RP: Ah, it’s awesome! My brother’s girl and his son are here, they’ve been caravanning with us these last couple of shows. He’s at the hotel right now with my nephew. I was just texting him like “Dude where is he!? Bring him over! I wanna play with him, he’s too cute!” It’s really special; it’s like the most innocent and pure energy of love and light, ‘cause there’s a lot of dark shit in the world right now. Everybody’s just miserable and we’re fed all this bullshit all the time but they can’t take away from the fucking genuinity of a kid’s smile. So it’s like “yeah, let’s harness this, let’s protect this, nurture this, build something positive that can go on in his life, when we’re old as dirt and gone on.” We’ll build a strong phoenix for him, you know?