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 Band Of Horses’ newest guitarist TYLER RAMSEY just released his debut solo album and was more than happy to chat with MITCH ALEXANDER about it, along with mandatory purchases of other solo artists.
For those of you lucky enough to procure a ticket to this year’s Splendour In The Grass, and smart enough to catch Band Of Horses’ scintillating set, Tyler Ramsey should already be no stranger. Keeping a low profile as he brought his guitar to life and shared the occasional vocal harmony, you may have thought that the South Carolina band let a Byron Bay derelict onstage for giggles, but looks are often deceiving.
Tall and rakishly thin with shoulder-length hair and a formidably bushy beard, I was immediately reminded of the late Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson and his album, 1977’s Pacific Ocean Blue. An album combining rich harmonies of The Beach Boys with more mature songwriting and a hint of what would become easy-listening West Coast AOR, surely visual appearance could not be the only common element between the two albums. Or could it?
“That’s really wild, because I’ve never listened to that album,” replies Ramsey when I ask how much Wilson’s album may have influenced his own music. “Didn’t they just re-issue that? I saw it in a store and almost bought it.
“But I didn’t know what it sounded like and now I really want it. Just for you, I’m gonna buy it. I’m on iTunes right now”.
Neglecting to mention that Apple’s online store is not the particular way I got my hands on that album (it rhymes with ‘billegal brownload’), we wander onto the source of Tyler’s album title, A Long Dream About Swimming Across The Sea. A subdued and calming album, his tender voice floats over crisp guitars (predominantly acoustic) that create the perfect soundtrack to blissing out at the beach, far more suitably than Bondi surf folk. A discussion of what came first (the title or the album’s vibe) heralds a cyclical response.
“It actually came from a long dream, it was pretty literal,” he begins with a laugh. “I had a dream that was basically me swimming under the ocean for a long time and it was really visual and colourful and … it was long. When I got up I wrote a song about it
“It was a dream that seemed to take the entire night to end, when I put my head down it started and when I woke up it finished. I tried to figure out what it meant and then it ended up being a song.”
From this writer’s perspective, BOH seemed like the brainchild of lead vocalist Ben Bridwell ever since co-founder Mat Brooke left in 2006 to start up Grand Archives. After the success they achieved with 2007’s Cease To Begin, Ramsey informs me that Bridwell hopes for a far more collaborative vision on album number three. As illustrated by BOH’s bassist Bill Reynolds assistance on Tyler’s album, a team-based approach is likely to ensure satisfying results far into the future.
“We talk about [the writing process] a lot and I think that’s gonna be the case. Ben is the one who’s been the primary songwriter and really the heart of Band Of Horses from the beginning and he’s really open to it ‘being a band’ at this point. He wants it to be a collaborative effort – there are quite a few people in the band who write – and I think it’s going to be really interesting just to see how it develops.”
 A LONG DREAM ABOUT SWIMMING ACROSS THE SEA is out now on Echo Mountain Records through Shock. Check out www.myspace.com/tylerramseymusic for more info … and do an image search on Dennis Wilson for what I’m talking about.
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