Backroads is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people, November 4th, 2008.

Like straight rye and fine vermouth.

Yeah, darling you go down smooth.

And there ain't one drop at the bottom of my coupe.

Cuz darlin' you go down smooth.

Like rocky road a couple of scoops.

Yeah, darlin' you go down smooth.

And I don't want to leave this diner booth.

Cuz darlin' you go down smooth.

Yeah, darlin' you go down smooth.

I want to take you in.

I wanna fill my cup.

Pour out my soul.

And you fill it back up.

Do I leave or stay.

Well, it's easy to choose.

Cuz darlin' you go down smooth.

Darling, Yeah.

Well I'm short with my words.

But I'll give it a try.

Cuz I see your love.

In the finer things in life.

Oh my darlin' yeah.

Like red wine, a table for two.

Yeah, darlin' you go down smooth.

And I think one more bottle oughta to do.

Cuz darlin' you go down smooth.

Yeah, darlin' you go down smooth.

I wanna take you in.

I want to fill my cup.

Pour out my soul And you fill it back up.

Do I leave or stay.

It's easy to choose.

Cuz darling, you go down smooth.

I wanna to take you in.

I want to fill my cup.

Pour out my soul.

And you fill it back up.

Do I leave or stay.

It's easy to choose.

Cuz darling' you go down smooth.

Yeah darlin' you go down smooth.

My darlin' yeah Won't you be my darlin', yeah.

My darlin', yeah.

My name is Clayton Ryan, I'm originally from South Dakota I now live here in Minnesota in Northeast Minneapolis.

Parents were both, are both, very musical whole family's musical.

My mom was a guitar player and piano player, and my sister played everything throughout high school, my dad plays a mean radio and just it was I was always surrounded by it.

And the friends I gravitated towards in high school and everything were all musicians we were all punk rockers at the time and we were playing things like Red Hot Chili Peppers and a lot of funk tunes.

And this led me to go on to music school as an upright bassist and playing classical jazz music.

And so I kind of strayed a little bit away from the rock and roll and folk and Americana stuff for a while.

And then after college moved out to South Dakota and ended up playing music in a country band, artist named Brandon Jones and I was the bassist for a couple years there and toured around the country with him and kind of got my feet wet and terms of true touring and what it's like to be on a stage.

And around that time I found myself falling right back into the roots music and country and blues music that I'd originally grown up on as a guitar player, you know, playing in my bedroom at night trying to just learn blues licks , Stevie Ray Vaughn and I like the writing of Chris Whitley, like a slide guitar player.

It's definitely a blend of everything that I've experienced and everything that I'm learning and so it's been a lot of soul country based stuff for the longest time but lately I've been trying to throw a little bit more of that punk rock, punk folk stuff that I I grew up on into the mix and kind of retouching back with what that feels like, especially just the way country music is so saturated right now it's been good to get back into a lot of that music that got me into music in the first place you know punk rock and funk and you know Blink 182 and Yellowcard and all these punk rock bands.

Ain't no smell like that Ponderosa pine.

The heat makes it stronger in the middle of July.

Roll down the window, let it get you high.

Crack a Hamm's but save a few because one of us has to drive.

We're headed to a secret place where the yuppies cannot find.

Cuz life just makes a little more sense when living on mountain time.

Baby, I think maybe we get backwards campfire crazy tonight.

Call up all your ladies.

All my boys they drinking whiskey and wine.

Pack that old guitar we'll see how far we get 'fore someone asks for Old Crow Medicine Show.

The snow comes heavy and it blocks the road to town.

No need to worry cuz we stocked up Schnapps.

There's enough to go around.

There's checkers on the table and bacon in the pan.

We'll wait it out, till the sun comes up.

And get lovin' while we can.

You can worry about the world.

But the world will be just fine.

Cuz life just makes a little more sense when living on Mountain time.

Come on now.

Said it ain't no fun on this mountain.

There's stories to be told.

Always got to keep that wood stove burning and the blood moving through your soul.

Doesn't matter where you're from.

The city or the sticks.

Cause out in these parts who you think you are's the only care that you got to give.

Baby I think maybe we get backwards campfire crazy tonight.

Call up all your ladies.

All my boys are bringing whiskey and wine.

Pack that old guitar we'll see how far we get 'fore someone ask for Old Crow.

I'm talking "Wagon Wheel".

I think a lot of my young upbringing being in the Midwest growing up in a small town in Iowa and a small town in South Dakota like having both of those things tied together.

There's a certain way of life that, you know, we touch base a lot on like the rural aspects and like the dirt roads and like small town, the community, but on the darker side of that it also does create this sort of compression of the mind at times that I think can, I'm like unwrapping that now at the age of 29, seeing like what growing up in a small town how that limited me too.

And so in a lot of ways it's the good parts of that have influenced the music and telling the stories of people in the middle America but also like telling the darker parts of that and what that does to a person and what I've learned now living in big cities on the coast and now living in Minneapolis and having this very two-sided coin of a life.

And so, you know, just especially in my youth my friends were all musicians, and skateboarders, and basketball players were the three that I was friends with.

And so that, you know, you could find me on the streets of our small town you know getting in trouble and getting kicked off of a loading dock by the cops but also being out in the woods with my friends on the weekend just exploring nature and then also driving in to the nearest big town to go see a movie and see what city life was like.

And so it's a very multi-dimensional experience and it all just came together to create this ever changing aspect of my music.

I'm floating, I'm flying.

I'm almost crying.

You must be lying it just can't be true.

Cuz it sure doesn't seem the right reality when a man like me has you.

I was a wild man.

And I still think I am.

But I come running fast as I can when you call.

I'm not much of a beast.

When you're loving on me.

Maybe I'm not a wild man at all.

I was running on my own.

Now everywhere I roam.

It doesn't feel much like home when you're gone.

But I still grit my teeth.

Just fighting for my dream.

But I'm living one when you're back in my ever-loving arms.

I was a wild man.

And I still think I am.

But I come running fast as I can when you call.

I'm not much of a beast.

When you're loving on me.

Maybe I'm not wild man at all.

Maybe I'm not wild man at all.

I'm not much of a beast.

When your loving on me.

Maybe I'm not a wild man at all.

Maybe I'm not a wild man at all.

There are certain styles of music that I do draw a lot from that it's rather unconventional I think for like a country Americana songwriter I'm very much influenced by a lot of classical music because a lot of like Western classical music is really just folk music expanded to the largest form of a band that you really can create.

And a lot of the melodies that you find in country music and folk music are derived from these old folk tunes and they've been bent and repositioned and placed in these different settings for hundreds of years whether it be a symphony or just a four-piece band down at the bar.

And music like that really resonates with me because it does have this earthly thing to it that you can feel but at the same time too I'm also really heavily influenced by metal and like hardcore music because I think a lot of the themes of a lot of metal music underneath the screams and the really aggressive singing guitar parts, a lot of the lyrical content is very earthly and it's very like human and tangible and just the grinding of these guitars and this mechanical sound it's what I imagine if you microphone put a microphone into the center of the earth it's what the Earth would sound like if it was writing a song.

So I have these very unconventional influences along with the obvious folk and Americana influence that I think I have in my music.

One of the songs that I'm going to play is called Ghost Town and it's the title track off the album I just put out and it's one of those more darker facets of Midwest life where it's you know the small town breakup where everything in that town reminds you of someone and in this case this song you move back to this city and that person is no longer there but all the reminders of them are there and it really can turn a place that was once a vibrant and exciting part of your life into just a ghost town and everything is just devoid of the meaning it once had.

And I think that it's a very specific take on the heartbreak song because it's not so much about like missing them and like what they did it's more so like I have to reinterpret this place now without you and I have to exist in this and figure out how to move forward sometimes it's just like I'd rather just leave or like I'd rather go back to the situation that you left than deal with this now.

And so it's a very unique spin on like the heartbreak song.

It's a long drive home.

And time moves slow .

Thinking what I've done.

A hard goodbye.

An even harder cry.

When I told you I had enough.

And I'm acting real tough till I see the lights of that city where long ago we gave it a try.

I'm here all alone.

Oh yeah, I shouldn't have come.

I'm thinking it's probably best that I sell my handgun.

Never thought I'd be back in this ghost town.

A dead man walking on the cold ground.

These memories will send me to my grave.

Like a noose I'm hung up on the good times.

Your name spelled out on every street sign.

I'm haunted by better long-gone days.

There ain't no love left in this place.

Now I'm stuck in this ghost town.

I'm staying away from that old cafe.

Where I first gave you my heart.

I can't walk by that corner dive.

Where I let you win at darts.

And I think of you in everything I see.

The red bricks, red wine, redwood trees.

The very air I breathe tastes like your kiss.

Taking you back seems better than living my life like this.

Never thought I'd be back in this ghost town.

A dead man walking on the cold ground.

These memories will send me to my grave.

Like a noose I'm hung up on the good times.

Your name spelled out on every street sign.

I'm haunted by better long gone days.

There ain't no love left in this place.

Now I'm stuck in this ghost town.

Now everyone's asking what went wrong.

I just held on a couple years too long.

Praying on things that I knew you would never change.

You were my whole world but I was your getaway.

Never thought I'd be back in this ghost town.

A dead man walking on the cold ground.

These memories will send me to my grave.

Like a noose I'm hung up on the good times.

Your name spelled out on every street sign.

I'm haunted by better long gone days.There ain't no love left in this place.

I'm haunted by better long gone days.Now I'm stuck in this ghost town.

It's definitely a mixture, obviously solo is a lot easier and financially it works out well, but there's just an energy to playing with friends on a stage.

And I have this rule that I adhere to strictly where I don't really hire a band unless I can pay them and I know that I can pay them out of my pocket.

I don't really like hiring a band to do a show where it's up in the air if we'll make money I like to make sure everyone knows up ahead like I will pay you because in the nature of this work if you pay someone they're more likely to do the job they're going to do the listening and they're going to care more about being involved in your show.

And so that's kind of the rule I stick to so I try and do five or six live band, full band shows a year, if I can.

Obviously I'd like to do them every single time but it's just what we can make work for all the many talented musicians I get to work with.

I think here in Minnesota the music scene of all the places I've ever lived and performed is one of the more community-based and very wholesome places to make music.

And I think part of that comes from the fact that you know Minnesota doesn't really have much of a big industry town per se like Los Angeles or Nashville or New York but there are famous artists that everyone can name that are from this state.

You know so many different genres.

And so to create something here Minnesota is so much I think more unique than what you might find in Nashville where you have hundreds of people flocking per month maybe just to do their chance at being a country star or Los Angeles everyone's doing a pop star trying to write and the oversaturation I think of those areas can kind of remove the charm or like the character of it versus Minneapolis and Minnesota and the Upper Midwest has a very unique character to it.

And it's built by the people that choose to stay here or people like me that move here and realize like oh there's a reason people don't talk about it because it's really cool and something unique here.

And I've only been here a year but just the way it's absorbed me in the things I've been able to do by being really community focused and being more of a how can I help the scene versus how can I help myself it pays you back for being that way like if you give to this community it will come back to you tenfold and that's a very unique aspect of the Minnesota music scene.

I was making up time.

Feeling low running high.

My soul was headed southbound.

Only made it through the night.

Chasing tail lights.

And listening to the engine sound.

In the still of the dark.

I was searching my heart.

Wondering if I've been living right.

And I still ain't sure.

But the love that I've earned.

Got me feeling that I won the fight.

I'm not better than anyone.

Not anyone.

Other than who I was.

And I'm going to be a better man.

Yes, a better man.

The best I can.

And the best is yet to come.

It's yet to come.

My mind was heavy and my body was weary held up by my bones and a dream.

I was feeling mighty low like a flower couldn't grow with the sun beating down on me.

I was down about a woman, pockets both empty but stubborn like the day is long.

And it only made sense that these words in my head were telling me to push on.

I'm not better than anyone.

Not anyone.

Other than who I was.

And I'm going to be a better man.

Yes, a better man.

The best I can.

And the best is yet to come.

It is yet to come.

If I go I'm going with you.

Going to open my soul and you can come on through.

I'm done being tired going to open my eyes.

If I only got one, it's going to be a good life.

Cuz the best is yet to come yeah.

Oh yeah, cuz I'm not better than anyone.

Not anyone.

Other than who I was.

And I'm going to be a better man.

Yes, a better man.

The best I can.

And the best is yet to come.

The best is yet to come The best is yet to come.

I'm gonna to be, going to be, going to be, going to be a better man.

Backroads is made possible by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4th, 2008.