“Probably some time during college I discovered country music,” recalls Ryan Scully, the lead singer of the decidedly alcohol-oriented Morning 40 Federation. “Like Hank Williams’ stuff—I realized how much I liked to listen to it when I was baked. I just really dug the simplicity of it. And then I realized, as a songwriter, I understood it a lot better than any other style. Country music has always relaxed me and I’ve always been naturally inclined to write in that direction.”
Therefore, it should come as no surprise to Scully’s (only his wife Deirdre calls him “Ryan”) fans that his first solo album departs from Morning 40’s frenzied celebrations of hooch to a kinder, gentler, softer realm of country, although not exactly Nashville country. “Ninth Ward country” might be a truer approximation.
“What happened is I was playing with the Charm City Brokers and I had been doing country stuff before that with nameless bands,” Scully explains. “The Charm City Brokers had been on a steady decline. The drummer dropped out. We got some free studio time. Don’t ever accept free studio time because if they’re producing it like it’s a favor, then you knock on the door and they’re not there. From that experience, I learned you always really have to pay people if you want them to be efficient about it.
“The Charm City Brokers were literally in the studio for about a year, on and off, and it just never really got off the ground. Finally, Paris Nesbit, the other songwriter in the band, said, ‘I can’t play with such-and-such anymore.’ We’re all still friends, it wasn’t real ugly or anything. We just decided we couldn’t do it anymore.
“When that happened, I wasn’t sure which way I was going to go. I heard Trina Shoemaker on NPR one day because they were doing a piece on female record producers. I was driving around and heard her on my car radio. I thought, ‘Man, she lives here!’ And the next day, I ran into her. I’d never met her before. I said, ‘I heard you on NPR’ and she was cracking up about it. She didn’t really like how they edited the piece.
“After running into Trina—about that same time, Morning 40 was supposed to go on tour and our bass player, John Joyce, who works at Burning Man every year, instead of coming back to go on tour with us, he went to Italy to join a circus band. So I decided to get a bunch of people together to do this solo thing. The record is very dear to my heart because of how everything fell into place.
“Originally, I was supposed to have a different bass player on it and she couldn’t do it because she was going to Europe so I got Steve Calandra [of the now-defunct Bingo!]. On drums, I got Mike Andrepont from Morning 40—it was really surprising he could pick it up so quick. I ran into this old friend of mine who I pretty much used to hate and we both realized we don’t hate each other anymore and let’s play music together. That’s Andy Severino, the organ and piano player. He’s really good. None of those guys was supposed to be in the band. It just happened that it all fell into place like that.” Scully’s other accompanists include guitarists Michael Aaron and Dave Duncan, the aforementioned Paris Nesbit on backing vocals, bassist Warren Chapoton and Bingo! violinist Brynn Vice a.k.a. Brynn Savage, now residing in Canada.
Scully continues the tale of the sessions with Grammy-winning Ninth Ward producer Trina Shoemaker: “Trina knew about Morning 40 but she hadn’t really heard my stuff. We just hit it off. I guess she just trusted that I was going to be good. She had time and I had a financier in New York. He’s a friend of mine and I told him, ‘I need to make a solo record—I’ve got all the tunes.” He said, ‘I’ll pay for it, man.’ It’s not cheap to really do it well and we knocked it out in ten days.
“My solo record is actually more live than the 40’s records. We did two-and-a-half days of tracking, two days of overdubs and seven days of mixing. Pretty much what you hear on there is almost all live. Trina is really good with reverb, echoes and that organic space-y sound. The record really came together with how she mixed it. She’s just amazing.
“I wanted to make a record that was thematic with a slow tempo. A coming-down record that would soothe you. I almost didn’t put that ‘Corkscrew’ song [dealing with the pleasures of, respectively, wine, hashish, cocaine and his baby’s ‘socket’] on there because I thought it goes against the theme of the rest of the record but then I thought it was just too good. It could’ve been a Morning 40 song and I think we are going to record it because the 40’s could do it with horns.
“Morning 40’s definitely my number one. We’re pretty hot right now but still, I want to tour with this band, too. It looks like the 40’s are going to get one of the best booking agencies in the country so they’re gonna be pushing us to tour a lot. We have a label now—M80, out of Los Angeles. They’re like an Internet marketing firm and they’ve been wanting to start a label. They basically started it for us. They compiled their favorite songs off the first two Morning 40 albums and they’re going to put that out—kind of like a Greatest Hits. It should come out in early August and then we’ll be on the road a lot.
“The mood of the two bands is just so different. The R. Scully thing is just not a party band. There’s nothing to dance to. With the 40’s, I’m just flailing about and doing all sorts of crazy shit. With this, I play acoustic guitar through the whole show and I have my eyes closed for a lot of it, too. I think it’s just an intuitive thing. It’s always weird to look out into the audience when you’re singing and have eye contact with somebody. It kinda freaks me out. Maybe that’s why I close my eyes.
“Now I’m writing in a more abstract lyrical way. I think that that’s closer to my mind, how my mind works. I don’t think in a very linear fashion. When you’re bumming out, feeling horrible, there’s no story that can really express it. It’s more of an indescribable thing. You can put certain words and phrases together that can get to the point in an abstract way. That’s really what I’m trying to achieve.
“To set the record straight, with the 40’s, Josh [Cohen] and I write all the songs and the rest of the band contributes. With R. Scully, I’m the dictator.
“This band parties just as hard as the 40’s. You wouldn’t know it by listening to the record but it’s a huge party when we get together for rehearsals or the studio or shows. We get just as wasted as the 40’s. Actually, it’s really hard for me to get drunk anymore. I don’t drink any liquor except vodka because vodka keeps me level-headed. Beer’s fine but whiskey or gin—no way. You learn the hard way what you can and can’t drink.”
