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."
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’.
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
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