A Madrid Merienda with Ryan Keen

Before his slot supporting Tom Odell in Madrid, Ryan Keen and I have a chat over some tapas and sangria in a bar close to Joy Eslava. The Totnes born singer/songwriter released his début album 'Room For Light' in 2013 and has supported Ed Sheeran, Leona Lewis and Plan B on tour...

I ask who he'd one day like to open for him, "Hopefully it will be some friends. Fiona Bevan and Sam Brookes, both good friends of mine, are just about to release albums. It's a big deal getting the opportunity to play to bigger crowds, that's a real key part of music, the opportunity to play to more people, new people."

Ryan will be headlining his own European tour soon. "I'm really excited!" he smiles. "It's hard to know what to expect. My album's coming out in Germany, Switzerland and Austria on 21st March and then in different European countries over the next few months. It's all quite new so it depends how well we do with radio play and the new promoters. The Germany tour for May is already selling pretty well, I love Europe so to be out here gigging is cool. I've done quite a few laps of the UK so I'm quite familiar with it but this is new territory for me." I ask the most crucial question - will he be coming to Spain?! "I will be, at the minute I'm only doing Germany, Switzerland, Austria. Holland and Belgium but since touring with Tom [Odell] we're looking to try and put in other countries. I plan to venture out to as many countries as I can!"

His guitar playing has a strong influence from Flamenco, "I've seen the guitarists in Andalucia before and they're incredible, the genre that I'm classified in is called Percussive Finger Style Guitar which is using the whole body of the guitar to make as much sound from it as you can, hitting beats and lots of tapping and harmonics."

I ask him the the first gig he ever attended as a fan? "Do you remember a band called Reef? They had a song called 'Place Your Hands'," he begins to sing it as I look at him blankly and shake my head, perhaps before my time? "It's a good song, you should check it out!" he laughs. "I was probably early teens in Plymouth Pavilions in the South-West of England."

Ryan tells me he studied music management at Uni because he didn't really know what he wanted to do, and didn't have the confidence to sing at that point. It was after losing a friend five years ago who died very suddenly that he realised the fragility of life and decided might as well just go for it. 

"Having creative control is massively important to me, I'm working with some major labels now, I self-funded, made and released the album independently in the UK and I've licensed it to Warner Brothers in Australia so it's still the album that I wanted to make and I'm totally content with that.   If I can make the records I want to make then I'm happy to work with whoever wants to promote the music."

"It's still early days," Ryan tells me about his success on the other side of the world, "the radios have been spinning it a lot, the singles have just started charting over there." His album reached No.1 in the Australian singer/songwriter chart. "I want to be back out there in the next couple of months. Australia's massive, ." Not to mention the 24 hour flight from the UK to Oz.

“For me the top 3 venues that are milestones are Madison Square Gardens in New York, Sydney Opera House in Australia and the Royal Albert Hall in London. I've been very lucky in that I've played both the Opera House and the Royal Albert Hall but they haven't been my own gigs yet. The ultimate for me would be to headline the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury, that's crazy.”

Photo credit: Elle Hanratty

So how did supporting Tom Odell in Europe come about? “Really last minute, my booking agent put me forward originally. I was already doing another tour around Europe and four days before this tour started I got a phone call saying “Tom's listened to your songs and asked if you're up for it.” The tour I was on finished in Vienna on the Thursday, and I had to be in Bremen on the Saturday for his tour, it's a long drive!” On Tom Odell himself… “Tom is fantastic, an amazing musician and really cool. Seeing him sound check when working on some new songs, you can see how his mind works, the guy is a fantastic composer. He's like "I've got a baseline for it, I wrote this one already, it's arpeggio to this, these are the chords, GO" and he knows what he's doing.” 

When I ask who he’d one day love to collaborate he doesn't have to think for a second before he answers, “Chris Martin, as a writer he’s my favourite living composer. I've been lucky enough to work with artists I've always looked up to, Newton Faulkner was a massive inspiration so to work with him was a real pleasure and now we've become friends, it's quite surreal, really cool. We wrote this duet and then he asked me on tour with him. Someone else was Fink, he's one of my favourite artists and has been for a long time and I've worked with him, I feel pretty lucky so far. I'd love to work with other female singers, maybe Adele or Emeli Sande.”

What songs might we find on Ryan Keen’s iPod? “Quite a variety. Yesterday I downloaded John Hopkins’ album, he's a composer/producer, and apparently heavily influenced Chris Martin's stuff and has been working with Coldplay on their latest album Ghost Stories. Some James Blake, and Paca de Lucia, and I just downloaded some Ludovici Einaudi. I’m very up to date with music that’s in the charts too.” 

I discover he's straight off to France in the morning to stay in the Quiksilver house, a company who sponsor him. If he won £1,000 on a scratch card right now he would hire some jet skis, an obsession of his apparently. “I’ve only been on one once and it was AWESOME.”

Finally, I ask for 3 words to sum up his début album ‘Room For Light', “Positive, honest, and...” Music? “Hmm, I'm trying to think of the right words... traditional, old-school.” I'm pretty sure that’s more than 3 words, Ryan, “Okay, okay, ‘Room for Light’”

As the intense wailing Spanish music in the background gets even louder, we say goodbye before he dashes to the venue. Watching Ryan perform it’s clear he is something special and a genuine talent. He has the Madrid crowd so tightly in the palm of his hand that he’s able to perform an unplugged (no mic, no amps) rendition of ‘Orelia’.

Ryan Keen's debut album 'Room For Light' is out now on iTunes, Amazon, etc. 

Tickets for his mini-UK and Ireland tour at the end of April, and European tour, are on sale now.

Website: www.ryankeen.co.uk

YouTube: /ryankeenmusic

Facebook: /ryankeenmusic

Twitter: @ryankeen

Instagram: @ryankeen

See the full album of photos on my Facebook page

Tom Odell, Wednesday 12th March 2014

Since 3pm (5 hours before doors) a swarm of teenage girls had been waiting outside the theatre Joy Eslava in Madrid. With no name above the door nor a single poster plastered around the city, Tom Odell takes to the stage before a crowd of around 800 people.

Opening with 'Hold Me' followed by 'Can't Pretend' and 'Sirens' backed by slick harmonies from his 3-piece band, his passion is astounding. "Sorry, we've got technical problems, I usually manage to break the piano," he tells the adoring crowd. A rendition of 'Sense' accompanied solely by a piano has the theatre in complete silence until the roaring sound of applause. After a couple of new tracks giving insight of how album number 2 is sounding, he sang 'Grow Old With Me' which resonated with the Spanish audience who sang along with every lyric.

The 23-year old's charisma goes hand in hand with his on-stage persona, he manages to stay effortlessly cool whilst being utterly charming. He even dared a few phrases in Spanish to which was well received by the Madrid audience.

After performing his highest charting hit 'Another Love', he disappeared off stage for a moment before the whole band returned into perform a 35 minute encore. 'See If I Care' is my personal favourite, the engaging sultriness is much less obvious than his cover of Etta James' 'I Just Want to Make Love to You' yet still incredibly intense. Every song is a high-energy performance from him and his band, guitarist Max Clilverd, drummer Dan McDougall, both amazing, and bassist Max Goff playing electric bass and double bass, vivid pyrotechnics accompany his frenzied piano bashing. The audience were reluctant to let him go demanding more encores until he wrote an on the spot song about Madrid (which he definitely doesn't sing in every city of the tour...) It's not hard to see why music legends such as Billy Joel and Elton John wanted him to open for them at their own live shows.

I was fortunate enough to chat to Tom before the gig. He had just been doing some radio interviews for Spanish press as this was his first time in the country performing and was also feeling a little under the weather (although you wouldn't have known it from his over an hour long sound check). He also took time to pose for photographs with fans on his way in.

If you didn't catch Tom on this tour make sure you get tickets for the next, you won't be disappointed. Also if you haven't already purchased his No.1 début album Long Way Down then I suggest you do so right now, available from iTunes etc.

Website: www.tomodell.com
Facebook: /TomOdellmusic
Twitter: @tompeterodell
Instagram: @tompeterodell

(all photos my own)

Check out the full album on my brand new Facebook page (and please Like!)