Joey Ryan

It's a funny feeling sometimes to be a solo act - the perennial singer/songwriter. When people get interested in my music they also get interested in my life. For a solo artist, everything is fair game for fans and also for industry types... they want to know where you grew up, what your parents do and what they made you do, what schools you went to and what books you read. Obviously all of those things influence the music, but when your own name is the name of your act, these questions are asked before people even listen to a song. I'm guilty of it as well, and I'm not complaining. Not really. But don't we ask fewer personal questions about our favorite bands than about our favorite singer/songwriters? At least I do. I know a lot less about the lives of the guys in The Shins than I do about Ray Lamontagne. I would even say I know less and ask less about the life of singer/songwriter Conor Oberst, maybe only because he goes by the Bright Eyes moniker, than about, say, Brett Dennen. I don't mind the intrusions of people's curiosity all that much, but it does make me a little uneasy that part of the art I'm trying to create (and part of the product that is inevitably marketed) is just me, as a person - it feels like I myself am up for sale when I put a song on iTunes. One day I think I'm gonna have a band name, just for myself, maybe it'll be The Glory. Love, Joey