I was in middle school when I got into advertising. And no, I wasn’t good. And yes, I knew that. But, I didn’t want to keep playing private shows for my parents in empty coffee shops, so I tried… I tried embarrassingly hard. Excessive distribution of PowerPoint-designed show posters, a heavily “branded” MySpace monstrosity, unnecessarily professional press kits, and demos (so many demos) with individually applied print-at-home CD labels. I tried it all and I loved every minute of it. In fact, I loved it almost as much as I loved the music I was making. I loved it so much I got a degree in it, I won competitions for it, I worked three internships to learn it, and eventually I made a career out of it. The advertising, that is. The music turned into something more than a career: A band.
By the time The Ridges came together in 2010, I had a decade of songwriting, performing, and self-promoting under my belt — and I was ready to try something different. So, instead of building another band to fit my preexisting songs, we defined a concept for "The Ridges" and wrote songs to bring it to life. The big idea? An indie rock band that didn't need electronics. By pairing aggressive, high-energy performances with haunting, all-acoustic instrumentation, we crafted a distinct sound that overflowed with the dark romanticism of our ominous namesake: the abandoned Victorian-style insane asylum where we recorded our self-titled EP.
When you name your band after an abandoned (and famously haunted) insane asylum, it's pretty much a rule that you have to record your first album there… So, after months of meticulous planning and five weekends of tireless DIY recording in the dead of winter, we released The Ridges EP — a lovingly crafted five-track album that attempted to capture the band's distinct live sound. One of the most rewarding projects I've ever worked on, the album earned us reviews like "What Arcade Fire would sound like if Phil Spector were a member" (The Other Paper), "The kind of Americana music that falls off the bone" (Daytrotter), "A well-honed folk-pop machine" (WOUB), "A rootsier, catchier Arcade Fire" (Cincinnati City Beat), and "Nice!" (Robin Hilton from NPR's All Songs Considered). For the band, this was the beginning of it all. For me, it was the confluence of all of my creative interests.
At full force, our live shows could feature upwards of 12 members on cellos, violins, violas, trumpet, french horn, accordion, banjo, mandolin, double bass, drums, and me on guitar — plus a full chorus of backing vocals. To get a big sound, we built a big band. In fact, we racked up 22 rotating members, each contributing their own arrangements for different shows and performances. It was my job to keep us all working toward the same vision. Because, when we had a unified goal, we were electrified — it wouldn't even be unusual to see crowd surfing at our shows (pretty fun for a folk band). The result? A lesson in team leadership for me and a lifetime of unforgettable life-changing experiences for all of us.
Booking a tour for an unknown band is the hardest, most thankless job in music. The logistics alone are a nightmare — plotting the route, booking a venue in an unknown town, couchsurfing, making sure people are at the shows, fixing your broken down van, getting paid — but, I did it… a lot… for years. And that hard work took us all over the country performing with some of our favorite musicians: Ra Ra Riot, Kishi Bashi, San Fermin, Good Old War, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Ben Sollee, Horse Feathers, Mother Falcon, Ha Ha Tonka, Margot and the Nuclear So and So's, Cayucas, Miracles of Modern Science, The Soil & The Sun, Lucius, The Bright Light Social Hour, The David Mayfield Parade, Bad Veins, and The Seedy Seeds. We even played 13 SXSW showcases, a CBGB Festival showcase, and lots of MidPoint Music Festival showcases along the way.
Writing songs and playing shows is the fun part of being in a band. The hard part is getting those songs heard and getting people to those shows — which, for someone like me, was also the fun part. From day one, I handled the business side of being a band: Financing, scheduling, recording, distribution, merch, promotion, networking, branding, countless interviews, and any and all of the never-ending logistics that come with making music outside of your garage. Some of my favorite highlights from The Ridges' hustle include recording Daytrotter, Audiotree, and Threadless sessions, curating The MidPoint Sessions at MPMF, releasing a live choral recording for Record Store Day, taking over Hipstamatic's Twitter account during SXSW, writing a tour blog for Roadtrippers.com, and performing a live score for the 1922 silent horror classic "Nosferatu" on Halloween… at midnight.