Ryan Ross Hernandez's "Running Changes"
Proclaims it's his last album before settling down
New album sees Hernandez 'getting happy while feeling more alone than ever.'The next album, LP Number Four, will be called,
Running Changes. It will be a blues, folk and country-influenced record, with traces of California rock/pop and West Coast indie scene. I know I was previously misinterpreted when I said I was done making pop songs. I meant that I was done making pop songs, in a straightforward fashion. All the albums I've made so far and all the albums I will make in the future, will still most likely have traces of pop in select songs. Running Changes is the natural progression from the last record. How many artists can say they've gone from making a debut pop/rock, acoustic rock album, to a sophomore effort that took the 180-turn and was a blues-rock album with rock and pop incorporated separately from each other, and a third album that brought everything into full circle? I'm proud to say that with each album I've been able to reinvent myself, in one way or another. Running Changes is the record that reinvents nearly every aspect that you know of me. Melodies, and lyrics, and hooks. Every album of mine as a solo artist has had the term signer-songwriter attached to it, which is true because that's what I've done my entire career. But there is just this feeling with Running Changes, that lets you know upfront that it's a complete autobiographical, personal album. Not just lyrically. Every song on this album will have a beautiful musical soundscape to it. As opposed to Let a Man Be Lost, that was a no-holds-barred musical extravaganza that was made to sound perfect every aspect. We would be in an amazing musical state if artists would just stop taking the challenge of how to follow their last record. You don't follow your last record, you just leave it and you move on and begin something completely new.
Running Changes will be a double album. I've been debating the idea of making a double album for a really long time. I'm a student of music, and the careers of musical legends. I studied the basics of a double album ever since my first solo record came out in 2004. You never see an artist or band that is just on album four, release a studio double album. The Running Changes double album, will not have a total of twenty-five or thirty songs. It won't last two hours. I'm not making a double album just so it would have a higher price on the cover. It will cost the same ten to twelve dollars that every album I've made has cost. I'm not making a double album because it's different or out of the norm. I'm making a double album because with the set of songs that I have written, it feels the natural and organic thing to do so. Running Changes isn't an album that will have four number one singles come off it, or have any hyped-up collaborations. Running Changes is an album that isn't even completed, yet I feel such a strong connection and bond to these songs, that makes me think of these not as songs but as stories, as experiences that I've gone through and people that have come and gone through those experiences. With Running Changes, I am taking these lyrics that are so close to my heart, and putting them into a style of music that I know is very powerful and emotional, and somehow crystallizing it into something that is 2011, and is identifiable to listeners.
I believe all the album titles, so far have given people an idea as to what they could expect to hear lyrically when they finally listen to it. Matters of the Heart, Dark Secret Love, Let a Man Be Lost. Running Changes continues that tradition. In some way, all my albums have been concept records. It's not to say that I've ever made an album that follows this one thing only, because I haven't and probably never will. The protagonist on Let a Man Be Lost, was completely lost in every way possible. In love, in his beliefs, in the people he believed in. All that caused him to doubt everything around him. He admitted his flaws on the last record in a very self-aware fashion. So self-aware, that at times it came off as self-loathing. I don't want to give too much away on the content of Running Changes, but I'll say that it's the perfect antidote to Let a Man Be Lost.
Running Changes are the hardest things to make in life. As you get older you can only make Running Changes because you can't press pause. Some of you press pause for the Summer months of June, July, and August. You try and figure out yourself and how life can change in September. But when you get a little bit older, the entire line blurs into one big game match theatrical event. You're always on. You can't stop. What you have to learn to do is change while you're moving. The way that I visualize that is being off at sea. When you're an adult you're off at sea, you can't stop in the middle of the ocean and look at your boat from the outside in. You're on the boat, you're moving, you're sailing. Sometimes you get a tear in the sail, in the middle of the storm. You yourself have to climb the mast and fix the sail while you are still on the boat. That's incredibly hard, but it can be done. I'm just trying to say to you that if you want to change, you can. You just decide to live through running change. It ain't easy. You don't like your job? Don't quit. Start looking around while you still have the job you have. It's okay. We will fix ourselves on the way because there is no pit stop in life anymore. You are allowed to fix yourself on the fly. It can be done. I will tell you it's one of the most difficult things you'll ever have to do in your life. Sometimes you need to swap friends. Sometimes you got the wrong friend in your situation and you have to ask that person psychically or verbally, to please exit the scenario. And that's a running change. You can't pause and have a conversation, that's your life in motion. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your life in motion. You can do whatever you like with your life in motion. But all things in motion need at least as much motion in the opposite direction, as the motion you've already had settle down for yourself. It's hard, I know. If you don't like it, decide tonight that you want to change it. You want to go home, you make a phone call. You want to say goodbye, you make that phone call. You want to say I was sorry for saying goodbye and I'd like to to say hello again, you make that phone call. You can always change. If you're still alive, you can still change.
That's why I'm calling the album
Running Changes.
It will feature 13 to 16 songs. I can confirm such songs as, "
Waiting for a Break in the Clouds", "
The Queen of California Got Married", "
My Days of Running Are Over", and a strong candidate for serving as the first single, "
Architect of Building a Beautiful Relationship". All of which are working titles for now. Expect to hear some of the new songs at the shows over the Summer.
Right now, I'm so proud of this album that at this point I don't care if people don't like it. I'm getting happy while feeling more alone than ever. This is going to be the last album I'll be making before I settle down. I won't be making another album until I'm at least in a serious personal relationship. These are the years that I have to start considering the fact that I'm not too young anymore, but I'm not too old to change. Most people know that I'm not great at relationships, which means get excited for Running Changes because you might never get another album. The scary thought is that I'm only partly joking there. That, or my musical career will tank when I go onto The Bachelor.
If the timetable works as planned, the album should be completed by August. The release date will be in the Fall or Autumn, whatever you like it, because it's certainly not a Summer record. I'd say best bet would be anywhere between September 23, 5:05 A.M. EDT and December 22, 12:30 A.M. EST. See what I did there? Anyways. More exciting news coming shortly. I will be playing at the Chaos Awards next week, headlining the Field Trip Festival in June, and playing Total Annihilation Festival in August. Maybe some Summer dates will be announced soon? Maybe even a release of a goodie coming before the new album? I've already said too much, but as I tweeted a few days ago, it's a great time to be a fan of mine.
Hard to see I won't always be alone.-
Ryan Ross Hernandez(
OOC: Major props if you read all that. ;) I know this is looking somewhat far ahead, but I can't tell you how excited I am for this album. I was struck with a brilliant idea that just made me reinvent the way I saw and wrote track descriptions and meanings. In addition, this will be the first album that I will actually be writing lyrics for each song, which might be a success or just flat out fail. Either way I've got so much muse right now that I don't care.)
