#50 - Ryan McTernan

Ryan McTernan is a guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter bringing American Country to Ireland. A founding member of Neon River and lead guitarist for Walk the Line, he is now explores his own storytelling through his solo project, McTrippy.

Follow Ryan:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisismctrippy/
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mctrippy-979631587
Neon River: https://lift.bio/neonrivertheband

15 Minute Coffee is hosted and produced by Alan O'Donovan.

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Transcript

And I remember hearing it and going, oh, this is kind of, this is kind of weird. And then the more I listened to it, I was like, God, this is like the greatest song I've ever heard in my life. I think if you can have one or two people to hear one of your songs and say, wow, like that really, that was really touching or whatever.

Like that is. I forget that a lot. That is a success.

That is a great moment and a great feeling. Hello and welcome to 15 Minute Coffee. My name is Alan and I'm your host.

So today we're diving into the boot stamping world of country music with Miller, then Ryan Richterna. So Ryan wears many hats. He's a guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and also a member of Ireland's best American country band, Neon river, as well as being the lead guitarist for the Johnny Cash tribute band Walk the Line.

So today we're going to talk about culture music and why it resonates so deeply with people in Ireland and across the world. And also about Ryan's latest project, Miktruppy, which brings a fresh personal take to Americana and country sounds. So Ryan, thank you for joining me today.

What drew you to country music and specifically that sort of Nashville style which. So like most people, I'm sure in Ireland, we've some form of exposure to country music. Like generally the first thing for me would have been like Shanay Thayeen, like my mom would have had that cd like I think a lot of parents and our mothers, aunties, whatever, in the late 90s.

So that would have been like one of the first. But like Johnny Cash, when you in the, like he just, I think when Walk the Line came out that film, like I just remember hearing them all the time. And I think there's very few people in Ireland I could say they haven't heard or probably have and they enjoy it.

For this particular, yeah, this particular venture was. It was kind of a weird one because I played guitar as a teenager and up until my 20s, but I kind of fallen away from it. And about three years ago I was coaching football with an underage leave Ireland team.

And just everything I was doing at the time in my spare time was, was football. It was like work, my personal life, you know, at home and football. And for some reason I said, oh, I need another hobby.

I need to distract myself from football. And it was to go back to playing guitar. And just by coincidence, at the time I had started replaying, started replaying Red Dead Redemption, I was consuming kind of media around that and I just kind of I just kind of stumbled into it because country music, especially in America, I don't really think we get the same level of guitar focused country music that that is over there, because that's what it is.

It's really guitar heavy music. And I just kind of found it as like an interesting challenge. And I genuinely fell.

I genuinely fell in love with the music the more I listened to it. The song that I kind of attribute it to would be Chattahoochee by Alan Jackson, which is a 90s country hit from like the early 90s. And it was, I think, all with the line dancers and stuff.

I remember hearing it and going, oh, this is kind of. This is kind of weird. And then the more I listened to it, I was like, God, this is like the greatest song I've ever heard in my life.

I just went from there and I just signed up for like a online course in it. And it just kind of grew and grew and grew. Unlike maybe some things that have kind of fallen into and had a bit of an, like a fixation on for a while, truthfully, this one has.

Has stuck for some reason. Yeah, that it was just kind of a fell into it and it's just really consumed a lot of what I love to listen to now and stuff. So.

Yeah, it was an odd one to. To. To get into, I guess.

Yeah. But you mentioned there that sort of history in Ireland of country music. And I think also there's a history of music in general and I suppose Irish, Irish folk.

And there's almost a intersection there between, you know, our culture of storytelling at the end of the day. And I think, I think if you think of any sort of traditional folk music and you think country music, it's connecting to the deepest parts of existence, like the heartbreak, the loss, sadness and joy as well. How do you sort of see those two things overlapping? No, I mean, you're.

You're completely correct. And like, I suppose the more I thought about this about country music and maybe what I loved about it, I'm sure you. You can definitely attribute it to other types of music as well, whether it's pop or rock or even metal.

Like, I've listened to a lot of metal growing up, like every kind of genre has so many different sub genres. But you're right in saying that like country music in terms of what we would know from like starting in the American south and kind of like the kind of like Kentucky, like the bluegrass, the Appalachian kind of areas, it is pulling from European folk. And that's where like, you know, like the fiddle and the banjon.

I know there's also connection, I think, with like, African American instrumentation, with angels and stuff too. So country music was born out of migrants coming over and living in these rural areas. So that element, as you said, of story time, especially with that older country music, and you go back, like, even to like Jimmy Carter and I'm sorry, the Carter family particularly, you know, who obviously spawned it with June Carter Marries Johnny Cash, all this kind of stuff.

And it's, it's really heavily rooted in that. And you can hear. And I was listening to just like, again, like, the more you listen, the more you kind of expand on it.

There's like old. I think it's called old time American music. And you can really hear that Irish element of it.

Those kind of like, you know, drone notes and just those repeated melody ideas. But yeah, it grew and grew and grew and obviously now there's. There's a bit of a surge of popular country music in Ireland, I think, with like, you know, Grayson Waller, Luke Combs, and that's a very different version, but it still stems from, from those roots, as you said.

But there's so many different types of, of country that I suppose I've heard of gravitating more towards what you said, like that kind of storytelling, maybe in the last 12 folk stuff. But yeah, you're, you're, you're spot on. Like, you can really hear and track the connection.

And that's probably why maybe it ended up translating into Ireland with the kind of show bands and Irish country scene that developed out of that. So I, I, obviously I've known you for a long time, but recently went to one of your Neon river gigs over the summer there. And if we're talking about sort of storytelling, and I think a big part of telling a story in music is.

Is the live element and, and how you tell a story on stage. And what I loved about Neon river and what, you know, family and what they loved was the way you were able to tell the story of, of the music while you're on stage. And then also just how you presented your passion for it as well.

I think it really came across on stage. Tell us a little bit about Neon River. So obviously I've known you for a long time, but I grew up in a really rural part of Wicklow and I was never in bands or anything.

I'd never been in a band in my life. And it was one of those things that I. And I always.

I used to perform quite a bit when I was Younger and then even as a teenager, done a few, like, talent shows and I was in school plays and I would have done like, even singing in church, like in primary school. So I never. I never got to do the whole band.

So when I started playing the guitar and or got into country, started replaying the guitar, learning it, I was relearning it nearly. Yeah, that was kind of just something I was like, I have to do this at some point. And Dan, these are half of Neon River.

We just connected over Facebook. Funnily enough. I was just trying to find other musicians who might be interested.

I thought it'd be easy. Absolutely wasn't. And just by chance met Dan.

Really similar person to me, only maybe two or three years older, but really similar personality, same love for the music and kind of in the same boat. Never really got to do the band thing. So it just came about in that way.

And then I suppose, like, so you've been to, like, our show and like, like, we do try and play as much American style country as we can, but we have to. We have to be conscious that, yes, not everyone in Ireland knows these songs. And we're also very.

And we're very conscious that country music in Ireland, to me, has a very. I think there's a stigmatized view of us. And I do, and I do.

I understand why. Because we see Irish country and jiving, which is incredibly popular in the con, in the countryside. I don't know.

But to me, it's just not my music. But I think when people hear, oh, you're. You want to play country, they get that perception.

I understand that. So we kind of had to straddle that line of. We were very adamant that we were American country.

And we always blend ourselves with that because we wanted to capture that experience of being in a honky tonk in Nashville, hearing a mixture of rock music, country music. Yeah. On whatever we needed to do.

So, yeah, like, I've spent hours. I got to go to Nashville once a couple of years ago, which is amazing, but I spent hours watching live bands that play there because the musicianship, it's hard to describe, but these are like the greatest players you've ever had in your life, but they're. They're nobody, you know, respectfully, that they're nobody.

But the talent in that city is like through the roof and we're nowhere near. And we always say that we're chicken hackers. The chicken picking is what you call, you know, the.

The kind of really quick electric. We call it chicken hacking because we're just not the years of dedication of their life to their craft stemming from bluegrass and all that real fast playing and stuff. Yeah.

So we just wanted Neon river to be this experience where we were quite adamant in our own sense. We felt off the. Off the beaten track and the outlaw of that kind of Irish country thing, you know, within our heads.

But we just didn't subscribe to. We don't want to do backing tracks. We don't want to play songs that we feel is just doing it for the sake of it.

Like, you know, we were like, right, we might play a. Anything like a Thin Lizzie song. Because we were like, well, would they play it? And I was, well, it's about cowboys.

Why not? And, yeah, listen, it's always been a really good experience. You know, we just try and get people to enjoy it and if they can immerse themselves. And even though they might be sitting in a pub in Dublin or Kildare or Whitlow or Leitrim, you know that they're like, yeah, I'm in.

I'm in a honky tonk right now. And we're just drinking and having a good time. And yeah, once we see that happening and we've played gigs where it's been tough, I genuinely feel like 95% of them, you know, we're like, we've got them.

Like, yeah, we're doing it. Like, people are just dancing, even if it's for half an hour, like, we've got it. Like, they're.

They're going to have fun. So, yeah, it was a weird kind of itch that needed to be scratched, and it just kind of formed from there by a passion that we both have for the music and having a good time. We both just like, having a good time.

You. You mentioned there Neon river sort of scratched an itch for you, but one thing which you've recently started is McTryppy. So your.

Your personal project, what was the itch you're trying to scratch with that? I think I've said, like, I was doing the football thing and I've stepped away from that because just a little bit. Very. Speak freely.

I was quite burnt out with it, you know, love doing it, but I was just kind of reached a point for an hour. I need to put it down. And I think with the.

The McTippy thing, it was. It's a similar thing where I'm trying to not let my brain get completely consumed by it, which. Which I have a habit of doing.

My personality can be very fixated on stuff and burn really Aggressively, and then it dies quite quickly. So, like, me and river are still going and we're. We're still doing our gigs, as you mentioned.

I'm doing stuff with a Johnny Cash plan as well, which is an amazing thing. And I just felt like it's just one of those, like, you can feel yourself. You wanted to do a podcast, which you've been doing for, like three plus years.

For some reason. This is the first time in my life where I feel like I can communicate my emotions and my thoughts on things through music. I tried.

I've written songs in the past. Like, I was genuinely, like a handful in the past, but I always found myself going, this is so corny. Or this is just so stupid.

Or like, you know, and because nothing in music is new, like, it's all. Everything has been done. Like, everything has been done.

I used to find myself going, oh, this sounds like this, so I'm not going to bother. And the irony is that country music is very simple. You know, there's kind of three.

You know, a really basic premise. There's three chords all the time. And I actually found that freeing because it's like, right, this is roughly how it should sound.

So what. How can I express myself creatively around that? I found that extreme limitation freeing. I mean, Donna and I've never spoken this before, but.

Yeah, with my own stuff, I just. I just feel like I want to at this moment in time, for however long it might be, I'd like to share my own personal stuff, my own personal experience in life and. Because right now I feel like I'm able to and that could end tomorrow and.

But until then, I'd like to at least try and say, look, I mean, I'm not. I'm not here trying to. I've got a job and I've got dog, but look after.

But like, I'm surrounded by a lot of responsibility in light, so I'm not going to give up everything to. As much as I'd love to live in a van and play guitar stuff for now, this is my way of maybe communicating even to myself. So, yeah.

And if other people can resonate with that again, I think if you can have one or two people to hear one of your songs and say, wow, like that really. That was really touching or whatever like that is. I forget that a lot.

That is a success. That is a great moment and a great feeling. Yeah.

There's no greater sort of feeling than being seen or feel like you're being seen by a piece of. Whether it's Music, whether it's writing, whether it's a movie, like just a piece of art reflecting your current sort of mindset or your thinking because it makes you feel less alone in your thoughts or your situation. One more question that I was dying to ask you because you mentioned earlier.

You have a lot of balls in there. You're juggling a lot. One thing I find when I do these podcasts or I create and I try to do things for myself, it's like there's always that sort of doubt creeping in whether you know you're committing too much to your own sort of projects or you're doing this.

And it's like, how have you found, and this is a selfish question, how do you balance it off? Probably a long time I wasn't doing really anything. So even like in, when I was growing up in school, it was. I just went to, went to school and I go home.

Like that was, that was kind of. It didn't really grow up in a village or even a town. We lived on the outskirts of a small village.

So for years and even my 20s it just kind of developed that way where I, I just wasn't really doing anything and that used to bother me a lot. And I started when it was just pretty 2019 is when I decided to go down the football coaching route because you know, I was playing a bit, but I always had that passion. I was really good at FIFA career mode.

That was my, that was my jam. I didn't really play ultimate team or any of that stuff. I used to love playing career mode and building team and all this stuff and doing it over years and years and years within a game and I love football, I wanted to do that.

So I started doing that and I got a tremendous amount of joy from doing that and working with kids and working with. I've literally had the chance to work from like honestly like 3, 4 year old up to 17, 18 year old players that have gotten the chance to play like first team football and you know, they've had an Ireland and I've only had a small little, you know, been able to see that. And then as I said, I took on doing the band, all this stuff and it came to a head probably this year if I'm being frank about it, where I'd done.

I was so completely overburn, burnt out in everything. I've very supportive now wife who encouraged me to do all that stuff and never kind of got in the way and said, well you're not at home, you're not doing this because she was. She's actually a very early sleeper so it always actually really worked out well.

So she was asleep anyway. So I go out and do football and the music and stuff. But if, yeah, if it was like an advice thing.

Not that, you know, there's not much between us, Alan. Only a few years. I.

I actually was. I've. I've adhd.

I was diagnosed a few weeks ago and that wasn't something I knew about it. That kind of came about and like relatively nowhere. It was just with material I was, you know, reading up on and I connected a lot of Doc and that was I eye opening because I then realized and one of the things I was told was that people with ADHD have a real inability at times to comprehend time and I was committing to so much all the time.

I was completely overstretched around. Yeah pretty obvious is when it really kind of whatever. So I had to kind of step away from football because I just didn't enjoy it anymore.

So for me actually managing my time and being really realistic and probably taking on a bit more advice from other people who were telling me like, you know, you're doing. Probably doing a bit too much all the supporter but like you know, probably doing a bit too much like Doc. That's probably one thing I picked up on.

That's what I mean with the kind of my trippy stuff. I'm trying not to let my brain and my body get so committed to it because football really was a huge. I loved what I done, cared about the team, you know, all that kind of stuff and I probably put way too much of myself into it by the end.

That would be my kind of thing is that if it's something that you genuinely do and it's prolonged and it lasts, then there is, there are ways to make it work. It's probably just managing that journey. It's like managing a relationship.

I need to manage the relationship with myself and my own wants a little bit better. But yeah, like when it's good, it's great. You probably know that yourself.

Like it's going to, you know, you get burnt out and that happens too. You just have to. I'm not saying I'll never go back to football again and I'm not saying I'll ever play music every single day for the rest of my life.

But for now it's what. That's what. That's what I need to do.

Thank you so much Ryan, for, for your honesty just giving me your time because I, I really do appreciate it.