The Black Ryder Impresses in America

We haven’t heard much from The Black Ryder since they supported The Cult last May, but this Aussie duo certainly hasn’t been idle. They relocated to Los Angeles to support Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride, which got an American release last September.

They continued their association with The Cult, travelling around the country for 32 shows with the iconic British band. When that wrapped up they set about writing and recording the tracks that would form album number two.
They also continued to play and earn fans, including High Road Touring’s Frank Riley (Patti Smith, Portishead, My Bloody Valentine). He’s now their official US booking agent, which is no doubt helping them open a few more doors.

Frank’s clearly doing his job as The Black Ryder packed out a headline show in January, sold out a performance at San Francisco’s NoisePop festival in February, and performed on the opening night of Concept, part of Los Angeles Fashion Week. And it’s only April!

There are more shows to come this month when The Black Ryder supports Spectrum, fronted by English psychedelic legend Pete Kember. Something tells me we’re not getting The Black Ryder back any time soon, so if you’re stateside make sure you do yourself a favour!

27 April 2011 – Soda Bar, San Diego
28 April 2011 – Troubadour, Los Angeles
29 April to 1 May 2011 – Austin Psych Fest 4
29 April 2011 – Sons of Hermann Hall, Dallas
30 April 2011 – Seaholm Powerplant, Austin
25 May 2011 – Rickshaw Stop, San Francisco

Image used with permission from Pod Artist Services

Q & A with The Black Ryder’s Aimee Nash

When we last touched base with The Black Ryder they were preparing to release their debut album Buy The Ticket, Take the Ride. A lot has happened since, so I recently caught up with Aimee Nash to talk about all these exciting events.


When I spoke to Scott last year he was hopeful that your album Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride would be released overseas. Since that time you’ve signed deals for release in Japan and the United States. How does it feel to have that dream realised?
To be honest it’s been so busy the last few days/weeks/months that I don’t think either of us have had time to think about how we feel. Since the beginning of this musical project/happening, we’ve always thrown ourselves into every aspect of it, including the business side of things, which sadly can take up a lot of time (particularly lately!).

I guess there’s certainly a feeling of relief that things are coming together, but there’s no time to rest or get too silly about things; there’s plenty more to be done.

You’ve signed up with relatively small record labels overseas. Why did you choose that route over the larger, more commercial labels?
I wouldn’t necessarily call Mexican Summer a ‘small’ record label, but more of a strong independent.

I was over in NYC and LA in November/December having meetings with different labels with our manager at the time. We met with a fair few bodies; interestingly enough one of the meetings we’d had with a really large/commercial label, which resulted in Mexican Summer getting in contact with us.

Things seem to fall into place at the right time with the right people. We’re still in discussions regarding a UK/Europe release, hoping to make more announcements on this front soon.

Are you planning trips abroad to support those international releases?
Most definitely, more on this later.

You don’t often play live shows, but you’re heading on the road next month to support The Cult. Are you looking forward to getting back in front of an audience?
Very much looking forward to the tour.  We had a lot of fun playing at Playground Weekender at the beginning of the year. We have a new drummer playing with us now as well, Nick Kennedy, who brings something quite incredible to our music. Jules and Archi are still playing with us, we all enjoy playing together. I believe we’re close to announcing our own run of dates soon post Cult tour. I know that we haven’t played many of our own shows but it’s all feeling good right now so we really do want to get out there and play some more, not too much though. Less can sometimes be more, and we never wanted to be a band who plays every other weekend.
Continue reading “Q & A with The Black Ryder’s Aimee Nash”

The Black Ryder Score International Releases and The Cult Support Slot

Things are on the up for moody psychedelic outfit The Black Ryder. The band has just inked deals which will see their debut album Buy The Ticket, Take the Ride released in Japan and the United States of America.

Rave reviews at home inspired Vinyl Junkie in Japan and Mexican Summer in the USA to take a chance on the Aussie duo. Of course, it’s not really much of a gamble. Aimee Nash and Scott Ryper earned international acclaim as part of The Morning After Girls, and the album features collaborations with Ricky Maymi of Brian Jonestown Massacre and Leah Shapiro and Peter Hayes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

Live shows from The Black Ryder are somewhat of a rarity, which makes their recent appointment as support act for the Cult’s Love Live national tour this May even more exciting. You can see the Black Ryder and The Cult at the following shows around the country.

5 May 2010 – The Tivoli, Brisbane
6 May 2010 – Big Top Luna Park, Sydney
8 May 2010 – Palais Theatre, Melbourne
10 May 2010 – Thebarton Theatre, Adelaide
12 May 2010 – Metro Theatre, Perth

Image used with permission from Original Matters

The Black Ryder Release New Video, Aimee Scores New Moon Soundtrack Slot

The Black Ryder has released a stunning video for “Sweet Come Down.” The haunting song comes from the band’s highly anticipated debut, Buy The Ticket, Take the Ride, which hits stores on November 6.

The song is a fan favourite, with Aimee Nash and Scott Ryper sharing vocal duties and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Peter Hayes on harmonica.

The accompanying clip is more short film than traditional music video, with acclaimed director Michael Spiccia and cinematographer Stefan Duscio at the helm. The wilds of south west New South Wales become a beautiful and foreboding landscape for the scene, which takes place after a mysterious tragedy.

The Black Ryder fans should look out for Aimee moonlighting on the new Black Rebel Motorcycle track, “Done All Wrong.” The song, which features Aimee’s ethereal vocals, is featured on the recently released Twilight – New Moon soundtrack.

The Black Ryder will celebrate the release of Buy The Ticket, Take the Ride with a show at The Tote Bar in Melbourne on November 19. The band will play alongside Killed Two Birds, Slight of Build, and Dreaming of Ghosts. It’s their very last show this year, so make sure you don’t miss it!

Q & A with Scott Von Ryper of The Black Ryder

The Black Ryder’s debut album Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride is a revelation, with Aimee Nash’s haunting vocals and reverb saturated guitars creating tunes that are intensely moody and mysterious tunes. Ahead of its release on November 6 I caught up with one half of the duo, Scott Von Ryper, to chat about the album, collaborating with his famous friends, and his fierce resolve to hang on to those indie roots.

You and Aimee were both in The Morning After Girls. Why did you decide to break away from such a successful group and do something different?
I think it was just a case of people being together for a long period of time, and some degree of relationships breaking down, etc. After we came back to Australia, after a long period of time overseas, it was just some relationship issues which broke the band apart. I don’t want to get into any more depth than that, but it wasn’t a decision like “Hey, we’ve got our own thing going on.” There were a lot of other things at play. I guess we were just lucky in the fact that when that happened we had already started messing around with some stuff, Aimee and I, and we kind of launched straight into it.

How does it feel working as a duo rather than part of a much larger band?

That I have to say feels pretty good. There are so many great things in terms of the recording process in a project like The Black Ryder. It’s a kind of studio project with Aimee and I, and we sort of get other people involved when we feel like it’s appropriate. To have that kind of sense of control, and also immediacy to do things musically and whatever you’re doing. To only have two people to discuss things with, to make a decision on what you’re going to do, just makes things so much easier.

Having said that, it’s also really great to work with other people as we have in The Black Ryder. Sometimes that’s been in the studio and sometimes that’s been remotely. People that have contributed to the album have sometimes never been to our studio, and we’ve simply moved a track back and forth between here and overseas, and stuff got recorded overseas. Also the live thing as well. Aimee and I really enjoy playing with other people in the live scene, and those people becoming part of what we do live. To some degree I guess we get the best of both worlds.

You mentioned that you recorded the CD with friends from Brian Jonestown Massacre, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and a host of other bands. What did this collaborative approach bring to your sound?
I guess it developed our sound because the band, The Black Ryder, was so new that we were still experimenting in so many areas on this album anyway. At the same time we were both learning certain instruments that we weren’t playing that well beforehand. So it definitely brought a different element to the sound to have other people working on that. Ricky [Maymi] from The Jonestown Massacre was probably the earliest person we started working with. He was staying at the house for a period of time when we started recording the album. So he was not only great to have musically as a part of the project; he was a great support in terms of driving us and giving us confidence that we were doing something good and that we should feel good about what we were doing.

As things progressed later on we had other people involved; Graham Bonnar who used to play drums in Swervedriver was in the country and wanted to put some drums down. And that was actually really great. That was one of the few things we did outside our own studio. It was great to have some drums on there.

And also, right at the end of the project, Peter [Hayes] from Black Rebel came and put some stuff down. That was more at the end of the process, and really that stuff was more or less icing on the cake for me. We already had an album that we were pretty much mixing, that we’d kind of finished to some degree. We were simply talking about doing a few small things. And then we ended up putting a lot of quite significant parts on that he did. One was a duet that he ended up doing with Aimee. We really didn’t think about doing that until he heard the song and thought that he should put some vocals down.

So I guess the short answer is that the start with Ricky was incredibly crucial to what we were doing. It really helped develop the wall of sound that we had, and then at the end with Peter was really the icing on the cake.

Continue reading “Q & A with Scott Von Ryper of The Black Ryder”

The Black Ryder Prepare Debut Release

Australian rockers The Black Ryder burst onto the scene last year supporting Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Since then they’ve shared the stage with The Raveonettes, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, and The Charlatans. They’ve generated plenty of buzz, so it’s probably about time they released an album!

Well they’ve been locked away in their home studio for the last few months, and we’re almost ready to hear the fruits of their labour. The Black Ryder will release their debut disc The Anti-Machine Machine on their own label, in conjunction with EMI Music Australia and Original Matters, this October.

The unique release deal allows the band to develop independently and maintain creative control while enjoying the benefits of a major label’s support.

“Since the inception of this project we’ve felt very passionately about allowing the music and everything that surrounds it to evolve in it’s most natural (and for the most part unconventional) form,” explained The Black Ryder’s singer, Aimee Nash.

“This new initiative with Original Matters and EMI Music will allow us to release the album we always wanted to release on our own (newly created) label. To have their support in releasing our album in such a unique way is the best possible outcome we could have hoped for. To say we’re pleased or excited by this outcome would be an understatement. We’re very proud to be a part of this new initiative & direction.”

For a sneak peek at the album, head to the band’s MySpace page where they’re showcasing the track “Burn and Fade.” The song features guest appearances from Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s Peter Hayes and Leah Shapiro and The Brian Jonestown Massacre’s Mr. Ricky Maymi.

If that whets your appetite you can catch the band playing at Spectrum in Sydney on July 24, or the Cherry Bar in Melbourne on July 31.

Image used with permission from Original Matters