Music/Interview/Concert: A d.i.y. lullaby
Sean Elbe, The Peak / CJSF Public Relations Co-ordinator
This past Friday I had the opportunity to chat with one of the most compelling artists to be creating music in Vancouver these days. You may know Ryan McCormack best as the quirkily marching saxophonist in the band They Shoot Horses Don’t They?, a group who just this past fall, graced The Peak’s 40th Anniversary celebrations with their unstoppable, “roo-ta-ma-toot” styled alt-country-indie rock. As They Shoot Horses prepare themselves to be shot into the Canada’s underground music royalty with the upcoming release of their new album on the highly relevant American-based Kill Rock Stars label, one should take note of the brilliant songwriting, cleverly penned lyrics, quick-witted delivery, and lullaby-like pop melodies of Ryan’s solo project, Collapsing Opposites.
The Peak: So how long have you been around?
Ryan: I started playing saxophone in grade six in the school band. I was kind of a band geek in high school. In grade twelve I started getting in writing a little bit more -— just writing poems, short stories, novels, and that kind of stuff. After high school I sort of gave up saxophone for a while because I didn’t yet see music as a creative thing.
Were you playing in bands in high school?
I never did the whole phase of starting punk bands, more just reading sheet music. As I got older I started learning how to play guitar a little bit and began to write songs. Later I revisited the saxophone as a creative instrument. Since then I started to try and put together rock bands.
What groups were those?
None of them really lasted for more than one or two shows. So the names don’t mean too much to anybody. One was called Headlight. Some others really never got off the ground, you know? None of the bands were really any more than playing a house party or a show at UBC or something like that.
Sounds like you had a hard time putting things together?
I’d go on message boards or just put ads in the Georgia Straight to find people but the whole thing ended up being a really frustrating process. I didn’t really know a whole lot of musicians or whatever ‘cause I was coming from an outsider’s point of view, I guess not really having grown up in the “scene” or anything like that.
So after trying to get these bands together how did Collapsing Opposites come about?
After none of that worked, I decided to start my creative work as a solo project. Collapsing Opposites started off as the remnants of one of the last rock groups that I was trying to put together which was actually called Collapsing Opposites. I actually put together our EP during that time which was actually the first Collapsing Opposites release.
Did that have the song “Jesus Oedipus” on it?
That did have “Jesus Oedipus” on it. Where did you get that song from?
I found it your old website probably back in 2000 or 2001.
Yeah, that song was done around the same time that I was starting work on Collapsing Opposites as a solo project and when I met all the rest of They Shoot Horses. They had a poster up a Zulu and were looking for a saxophone player so I called them up and we started practicing. It all seemed to be working pretty well so we all just went with it.
So you’ve done a number of tours. Where have you gone and who have you gone with?
I’ve gone by myself mostly. The most recent tour I did was with the Winks, but before that I went across Canada twice alone. I had played shows in Vancouver but I really wanted to play outside the city, just to get the whole tour experience of playing in new cities, meeting new people and new artists that were doing things in completely different environments. It was the best thing in the world that I could have possibly done.
That’s pretty bold to go on tour as a solo artist. Did you ever find it lonely?
Yeah, it was kind of weird. It was lonely for sure, especially the first tour when I didn’t really know anybody anywhere. I had some friends put me in touch with people to book shows.
How has the whole process of starting a band, writing songs, recording, booking tours, getting involved with other musicians, and becoming part of a music community impacted your songwriting?
Well I’ve always seen myself as an outsider in the whole music community. I guess mostly because I didn’t grow up in it and because I was never really into cool music until I was 22. Even now I feel like I kind of don’t belong in a lot of ways but I’m still doing it and that’s, to me, more meaningful I guess when you can come at something that you’re unfamiliar with and sort of really challenge yourself to do it. You know that Vancouver has a bunch of bands that are really connected and always together playing shows, hanging out and doing the same kind of things and I’ve always felt outside of that. So it means even more to me to do all of this when you weren’t really born into the “scene” or getting support from the community right from the get go. Where you have to break into it, I guess.
Ryan’s dedication to his music had him spending the greater part of his family vacation playing Collapsing Opposites shows in Japan. After tracking down some like-minded Japanese artists, Ryan worked a whole slew of shows into his vacation playing in front of appreciative audiences that ranged in size from six to 100.
Beyond his tireless work with his music, Ryan works as a childcare worker and camp counsellor. His genuine personality and overall approach to music and performing, seems inextricably linked to influence that working with children has on him. He spoke of how children have an “innate sense of pop” that develops through playing sound and melodies with each other on the playground. Hearing about Ryan’s struggle to regain the joy of making music with others, make me wonder how we come to lose this sense of playfulness with music as we grow older. Slowly we develop insecurities depriving us of the ability to play with sound or anything for that matter. The things that sound “wrong” seem to multiply and things that sound “right” all start sounding the same. Over time we become silenced. I suppose that’s why karaoke is so big in Japan.
You can catch Ryan perform as Collapsing Opposites at the ‘CJSF do CA Weblaunch Party’ at 8 p.m. this Friday up at SFU in the Highland Pub. For more information, MP3s, photos, and all that stuff, check out: www.collapsingopposites.com.