Q&A: Ryan Woods Reflects On Loss of Identity and The Impact of Love On ‘Godboy’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY IVONA HOMICIANU ☆
RYAN WOODS KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS TO GET LOST IN A RELATIONSHIP— As he unveils the depths of existential crisis, he creates the singular identity of his debut album, Godboy. More than a story about the dangers of falling in love, it is first and foremost an analysis of how the ego interacts with an all-encompassing relationship.
The LA-based singer-songwriter began his career in 2020, when he released his debut single “Bad Texter.” His first project, King of the Basement, was released a year later and consists of seven songs. His honest and open-hearted writing accompanied him since, along with an addictive indie-pop sound. Godboy sees these distinct elements polished.
The record begins with “Garden,” an upbeat pop track that uses the metaphor of cultivating a garden to talk of the beginning of a new love. “Lovin’ You” is a sensual and slower follow-up, with a sparkling melody that builds a dream-esque picture. The thunder that announces a potential storm comes with “Full Speed Ahead,” where the fear of heartbreak starts to catch up. The production speeds up, with a heavy guitar and drums, as he immerses us in his mind.
“Gun In The Glovebox” shows the insecurity of showing your entire self to someone – even the ugly parts. He compares it to having a ‘gun in the glovebox,’ something that you’re not meant to see unless you look where you shouldn’t. With the pop rhythms, it’s a brighter take on the fear of being too much for someone. “Good Swim” is being completely enamored by someone. The melody hints at a classic love song, but there are undertones of not feeling deserving of someone.
“Debbie” takes on the pessimistic nature of thoughts in a relationship. The identity crisis becomes apparent with “Too Many Ways To Live.” It expresses a sentiment a lot of people have felt, which is not being certain of the right path to take and wishing to explore different choices. “Lost and Found” takes the loss to a deeper level with layers upon layers of vocals echoing confusion. “Consideration” is an address to the person who caused the heartbreak.
With the title track “Godboy,” Woods closes the record by going back to the root. He places the world he knew against the reality he’s living in, with a haunting progression that encapsulates the wideness of the record. Woods’ vocals are noteworthy, along with the compelling storytelling and distinct songwriting— but what brings this debut album to great heights is how it all comes together with the production, creating a memorable record that the listener will want to return to.
Luna spoke to Ryan Woods about the intricacies behind his album, Godboy.
LUNA: Congratulations on the album! How does it feel to have your debut album released?
WOODS: It's a mixed bag of feelings for sure. I've been working towards this for four or five years now. I'm just relieved. Obviously, I'm excited too. Music is my form of journaling so when the music gets out, it feels like I can finally move on mentally from the things I'm writing about.
LUNA: The beginning track is “Garden,” which is a nod to taking a chance on love. Would you say that specific sentiment of love has influenced the album as a whole?
WOODS: For sure. There are a lot of songs out there about love, but on this album, there's sort of a sequence, and this is how it happened in real life as well. I didn't really experience a lot of mental health issues until after my first relationship. That was the first time I felt anxious, or depressed or anything. The sequence of the album is laid out to be like, “Oh, I have a crush. I'm in love. This is beautiful.” Then slowly, as the songs go on, the love gets pulled away from me, and then I'm questioning everything in the universe. It definitely set the tone for the beginning of the project and how I wanted the songs to flow on the project. “Garden” was probably one of the first songs I wrote for it too.
LUNA: “Garden” has this lyric that I love, which is, “I'll grow flowers that don't give you allergies.” It's such a nice metaphor. How do you come up with these unique lines to put in songs?
WOODS: Honestly, I love that you chose that lyric. Especially when I'm writing about love, I like it to be funny. There are a lot of lyrics on some of the more sad songs too, making fun of the situation. My team started to call them “Ryan-isms,” the one-liners in my songs. “Cultivate love,” [which means] to become bigger than the song. “Garden” is about taking care of your feelings and cultivating that love, whether it's love for yourself or for someone else. It's really important to water it, to fertilize it, to give it sunlight so that it grows strong.
Part of it is I had a pretty religious upbringing, so they're sort of my own personal Bible verses. My songs, to me, are lessons. I don't like to write unproductive songs. If someone has hurt me, I like to process that before I write about it so I'm not writing out of hate or spite. When I write lines, I write lyrics that can be taken out of the song and be applied to life.
LUNA: Could you tell us more about how both the title and the cover came to be?
WOODS: I've always loved the concept of the devil and the angel on my shoulder. growing up in a religious bubble, there were a lot of strict moral rules I felt like I had to follow. “This is good, this is bad. If you do this, you're going to hell, but if you do this…” It’s not, and I want to be clear about the fact too, it's not really anti religion. It made me develop an ego of what I thought was right and wrong, and what I thought God wanted me to do. Godboy is about me letting go of that and being in the middle of, “Am I doing the right thing?”
It caused me a lot of anxiety, because it was very trivial things that I was losing my mind over. I was like, “I gotta make the perfect choice here. I gotta really think about this.” I realized there's a lot of gray area in the world— and I wouldn't even call it gray area, there's more color. There are some things in this world that are very obviously bad things, of course, and good things as well, but a lot of life is in the middle of that. It's about what you make of it.
LUNA: Have you watched “The Good Place”? I feel like they really put the whole heaven and hell really well, especially when you get to the last season. It’s how you cannot make an ethical choice, because there's so many steps that are involved that you're still, unknowingly, making a bad choice.
WOODS: You don't have this imaginary score sheet, it just doesn't work like that. I read this in a book somewhere, but supposedly the original meaning of the word “sin” means to just miss your mark, which is really cool, because I used to associate it with doing something horrible and irredeemable. It really means tjat you're just missing the point of life. You're not being your highest self. You're not fulfilling your potential as a human. You're not living, laughing or loving.
LUNA: That's a perfect transition into the next question, which is about “Lovin’ You.” It has such a magical atmosphere. How did you achieve that feeling in the production?
WOODS: It's actually a cover of “Lovin’ You” by Minnie Riperton. It's an amazing song, but the original song is just a little keyboard and then an acoustic guitar, and the artist singing over it. I love drums, I love full band production, so I was like… What if I turn this into a Motown, Earth, Wind & Fire vibe? it started with me being like, “Oh, I want to hear drums on this song. Wait, I can just make it.” It started off as something I did for fun and then as I kept working on it, I was like, “This is really sick. I want to put this out.” As I was putting the project together, I realized it was a little bottom heavy with sad, existential songs, and I wanted to fill the gap of… like I was talking about with the sequence of love, heartbreak, and then “Who the f*ck am I?” It just kind of worked out.
The dreamy vibe, I think a lot of it is just that I love harmonies. I love stacking my vocals and making a whole choir of me. That's usually the first step in making something dreamy and magical, and then, just playing with sounds, finding the right keyboard sounds. It’s a pretty magical song to begin with, it was pretty easy to make it dreamy.
LUNA: Speaking of drums, “Full Speed Ahead” has the distinct sound of going from slow to hardcore, which is very fitting with the title. You speak about giving your heart to someone without holding back. What is a negative as well as a positive thing that you've gotten out of that?
WOODS: What I wanted to capture with that song is the train that you can't stop when you are falling for someone and when the train wrecks, it's really ugly. I wanted to capture that feeling of, “This is awesome. I love someone. How cool. But what if they hurt me? What if they break my heart? I can't stop myself from wanting to explore the potential of the situation.” It’s in line with a song I put on my last project, King of the Basement. The song, “There's No Insurance For a Broken Heart,” it’s like that, where the lesson is, you can't let fear hold you back from romanticizing life. There's ways to protect your heart that aren't going to hurt as bad when the train wrecks.
It's more of a song about acceptance and being like, “Well, here we go, like, hope this ends up. Gonna send that text.” Say “f*ck it” and go for it, and put myself out there. No regrets, because at the end of the day if it doesn't work out you do learn a lot about yourself in the process. So, yeah, it's, it's sort of kind of about that, like, gray area of like, you know, yeah, oh yeah, this is, this is love. There's a phrase I heard someone say once, “I got more than I feared, but less than I hoped,” meaning if you detach yourself from expectations, you'll never get your hopes up too high. You can accept the moment as it comes and just be content with that and whatever it brings.
LUNA: “Gun In The Glovebox” is a very interesting way of viewing the sides we like less about ourselves. What do you think is your worst fault?
WOODS: When something emotionally heavy happens to me, a heartbreak or something with my career not working out, or losing a friend, it takes me a really long time to find the middle ground again. I'm a cancer. My emotions are thick and very complex. In a way, it's a superpower, because it's really forced me to learn how to be mature and learn how to process things. The last breakup I went through took me three months to start living my life again. I was shut into my room, playing video games, doing anything to distract myself, and that made me resent myself even more. I wasn't doing the work I was supposed to be doing. I completely shut down sometimes when I'm experiencing something really heavy and I’m quite sensitive as a result. I like to keep my feelings in check a lot and align my head with my heart. I think that's always been the thorn in my side, just the fact that it really takes me time to process things and regain a sense of normalcy in my life when something big happens to me.
LUNA: In “Good Swim,” you compare being with someone to the comfort of the water. What are some things that have brought you, like comfort lately? Could be anything, could be a good coffee.
WOODS: Coffee’s up there. I love coffee so much. I have a really fun group of friends that I play games with. I love video games, and that's always been like a big comfort thing for me. Just being able to get out of the real world for a little bit and have fun with friends. There's a donut shop down the street from me. They make amazing donuts and also breakfast sandwiches, like a sausage, egg and cheese croissant. It's so good.
I also watch a lot of anime. I'll throw on an anime while I'm drinking my morning coffee. It feels like I'm a kid again. A lot of things that bring me comfort are very aligned with my inner child. I love expressing that and doing things that allow me to, like going to theme parks. I went to Universal Studios with a group of friends a few weeks ago, I hadn't been to a theme park in so long, and I forgot how much I love roller coasters. I love a good thrift session, getting a bunch of cool clothes for not that much money.
LUNA: In “Godboy” there’s the lyric, “Life's the game and love’s the toy, you turn 18 and make a choice.” What sparked this specific lyric?
WOODS: If you couldn't tell, it was in the midst of an existential crisis. I was fighting really hard to not be nihilistic. I was numb to a lot of things. “Godboy” is me confronting my own ego in this construct of God I had in my head that I realized wasn't God, it was just my own conscience and ego controlling me. It’s me talking to myself, being like, “This is not real. This is only real to you. This is all in your head.” The lyric “How does God take all that noise?” I’m thinking about Greek mythology, the titan Atlas holding the weight of the world on his shoulders. I realized I was making myself feel that way, I didn't have to live that way anymore. Nothing is really that serious. Chill out a little bit, you can enjoy life, coffee, anime and video games.
LUNA: What are you most excited for with the release of this album and this next year of your career?
WOODS: Hopefully start playing some shows again soon. My favorite part of being an artist is seeing the physical product of how you're impacting people, meeting fans and them coming up to you. They'll tell you the story of how they found your music and what they’re going through, how the song helped them. It’s the most validating thing in the world. It makes me feel like I'm doing something good.
I also have been creatively blocking myself because I've been waiting so long to put this project out. I didn't want to start working on other things until this project came out, so in the last couple of years, I haven't been working on a ton of music. I have a ton of ideas and I've just been letting those well up. Now that it's out, I feel like I can release the flood gates and just let the creativity flow.
