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 Interview with Ryan Ross Hernandez (01/04/2010)
A jazzy rock tune is played from the house band as the curtains quickly open revealing Hernandez, dressed in a very casual attire of a long-sleeve white collar shirt and denim blue jeans. Ryan gives Conan a quick handshake before taking a seat next to O'Brien' table and waving to the audience with the music coming to a halt.
Conan O'Brien: "Well first off, Happy New Year."
(interrupts) Ryan Ross Hernandez: "As to you."
Conan O'Brien: "From reading on your twitter, you had a calm New Years Eve. I have the exact tweet here in my notes, and I quote; "Gonna have a very relaxing NY eve in NYC. Saw enough (censored) drunk stupid people last year.". But how was your coming of the New Year?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "It was good, like I tweeted it was really calm. I spent it with my girlfriend, her sister and her brother in law. We stayed in my house, ordered some takeout, watched some old movies, then we just drank wine and shared stories until midnight. It was a good change of pace."
Conan O'Brien: "That's good. That's good to hear. Well, lets get down to the serious stuff. We have tons of things to get to but right now lets start with your latest record, as a soloist 'Dark Secret Love'. Which people are describing the album as a confessional record. What are you confessing to?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "I think it's as confessional as any singer-songwriter would want their record to be, you know. Relationships, love, the lack thereof."
(Interrupted by the audiences laughter)
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Being the occasional douchebag. And apologizing for it in melody."
(Conan and audience laugh)
Conan O'Brien: "Is it nice to have that excuse? Is it nice to be a singer and go 'I'm sorry for being a douche. Allow me to sing about it.'"
(Crowd laughs)
(chuckles) Ryan Ross Hernandez: "First off, there's no excuse. There's no excuse for being a douche. But it's a very subjective term."
Conan O'Brien: "Well, I heard a song off the record, "Dancing to a Slow Song Together, Separately". It's pretty much singing about how much of a..... I can't find of an appropriate word for TV. How would you explain it?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "I sing about how much of a female dog in heat she was to me. I just wanted to piss off that ex-girlfriend, I wasn't directing it at all women. If you actually look at the lyrics, they are just for that woman not all women. It is absurd to think otherwise. I was raised by women, I love women. I'm not one of those macho men. I think women beat men in every possible criteria. Except the girl in this song and a couple of others I know."
Conan O'Brien: "But you're not intentionally trying to ruffle with people's minds?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "No, I think if I was going to ruffle with peoples minds, I'd go hell of a lot dirtier than that. You know, who says I can't rip a lamp cord out of the wall and tie it around myself. That's really a eyebrow riser, if I really wanted to amp up the controversy."
(Conan and crowd laughs)
Conan O'Brien: "That's much worse."
(interrupts) Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Who says I have to use indoor plumbing."
(Crowd laughs)
(chuckles) Conan O'Brien: "I'm pretty sure there are laws in place to prevent otherwise."
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "I shall Google it later!"
Conan O'Brien: "So, are you tweeting while you're here? 'Cause your a mad tweeter."
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Not at all, I just use Twitter whenever I'm bored to put up random crap that's in my brain."
Conan O'Brien: "Well, would you like to tweet during the course of the shows 'cause I'll allow you to do so."
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Sure, why not." (takes out his iPhone)
Conan O'Brien: "Well, I didn't mean right now. How 'bout we do it during the break?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "No, no this is great television. This is only going to take four or five more minutes. I just gotta finish downloading a couple of porn videos and call my grandma, its all good."
(Crowd laughs)
(chuckles) Conan O'Brien: "You have the weather up, what are you doing?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "I'm looking for a place to get a tan..... in the middle of the winter."
(chuckles) Conan O'Brien: "No, but we will be doing that during the break. I think that will be really good. Well in the video for the first single, "All You Need Is Love Is a Lie," it shows you doing some stand-up is that legit? Do you do some stand-up?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "It's legit that I do it, but I've only done it like twice at a friends lounge/bar. But I don't think it's legit stand-up. I, I slink in to the club and I walk on stage. You know, everyone thinks their funny and everybody has sort-of the jokes they tell themselves in their brain. So, I wanted a opportunity to find out if, in fact those things are funny."
Conan O'Brien: "And how did it go?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Their not funny."
(Conan and crowd laughs)
Conan O'Brien: "So, what sort-of stuff are you doing? We can give you a spot right now to do a little of your routine if you'd like."
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Well, I mean stand-up is something you can't just get up on stage and do. It's sort-of a vibe I get late at night. It's like sex, I need to know a few minutes ahead of time to be ready, if not it's just not gonna work. And if it does then it comes back and bites you in the rear end."
Conan O'Brien: "But what kind of subject matter do you chose?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "You know, like in my live shows, in between songs and whatever I attempt to tell a joke or two or at least something that is funny to me. It's a lot of dirty stuff, if not all of it is dirty."
(Conan and crowd laughs)
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "You find yourself getting dirty, dirty words. Again I compare it to sex."
(chuckles) Conan O'Brien: "Wow, you compare a lot of things to sex. How much do you think you can get away with, because you are who you are?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Very little. To be honest, I think people take my words too seriously. If I ever attempt to say something funny and I start by saying "This is a true story," and it didn't happen but it's a interesting flow to tell a joke. The media is like, "You had me in true story," and their writing it down but their not laughing. Their saying that suddenly, "Ryan Ross Hernandez rips lamp cords off the wall and ties them around himself for.... pleasure"."
(Crowd laughs)
(chuckles) Conan O'Brien: "So it would be good to have that to fall back on though?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "You know, I don't think I could win with it because I've just gotten to the point whether you're shocked because you love me or you're shocked because you hate me. And you can't even hear what I'm singing about, or what I'm joking about. Their just sort-of saying "Why are you up there?!"."
Conan O'Brien: "Well Ryan, lets put some pressure on you with these questions we got from audience members before the show started."
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Cool, lets do it."
Conan O'Brien: "Jennifer asks: "Are your making love faces anything like your guitar playing faces?""
(Crowd laughs)
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Jennifer, thank you very much. Actually they are identical, 'cause I play guitar while making love."
(Conan and crowd laughs)
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "I score my own beautiful moments. It's difficult though. It's hard to get the wah-wah pedal on the bed and rock it."
(chuckles) Conan O'Brien: "Amy, asks: "If you were a bird who would you poop on?""
(Crowd laughs)
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Hmm, well.... since when did birds have any real targets to their poop?"
Conan O'Brien: "I think they do. I get some dirty birds in my backyard. I bet they just wait and aim for me, like "Wait, wait, wait. Boom let him have it."."
(laughs) Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Well, who would I get? I don't know, I don't know anyone who is worthy of my dumping."
Conan O'Brien: "That gives you something to think about. Uh, David, asks: "When you collaborated with Stephanie Fierce, did you want to pull a Kanye on her?""
(Ryan and crowd laughs)
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Well, "Steph, I'ma let you finish but Ashley and I had one of the best collaborations of all time!". Nah, I wouldn't do that she's the artist I respect the most."
Conan O'Brien: "Is that really the truth?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Hell no! But my resolution this year is to be less of a douche. But with questions like that, people are just provoking the douche inside of me."
(Crowd laughs)
Conan O'Brien: "Really, that's one of your resolutions for 2010?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "I don't know. I don't make resolutions, I just think they are pointless. Like for example, if you want to lose weight don't stuff yourself for a whole year then say "I'm gonna lose all this extra weight in the new year," if you really want to do something you'll start right there, you wouldn't for the new year to come around."
Conan O'Brien: "So, right before year's end, also your band PANIC! released their Greatest Hits collection titled, "Thanks for the Memories". For most acts, a greatest hits symbolizes the end of a chapter for an act. PANIC! is on hiatus. What's the band's next chapter?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "It's so hard for me to say. The biggest thing is that people want us to give a definitive answer -- when we'll go on tour again or when we'll put more music out -- and there just isn't one. If I said one, that would be a lie and if I said that there wasn't going to be one, that would be a lie too because I don't really know."
Conan O'Brien: "Well by looking that greatest hits album, it includes a new song called 'Never Means Forever.' That title leaves a lot of room for people to come up with their interpretation on the songs meaning. Anything you want to set the record straight on with that one?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "No, because I really want people to discover this. It's really hard to find. It's an interesting story. The closest thing that comes to explaining that are the lyrics are the thoughts of two different people and the perceptions of each other."
Conan O'Brien: "Everyone's assuming it's you and [PANIC! lead singer] Ashley Perry."
(Laughs) Ryan Ross Hernandez: "I'm not going to confirm or deny. If the people really investigate it, you can figure it out."
Conan O'Brien: "Well, lets move on to a little bit about your personal life. Of course you said you made a very autobiographical record about your love life. Have you ever thought about settling down with someone?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "You're really killing me here, 'cause you know my girlfriend she's been on your show before. But I think "Dark Secret Love" is sort of like being smart enough to know you gotta change some things, but not strong enough to get around to doing it yet.
But isn't that 22? Be 22 when you're 22. Don't be 40 when you're 22, because next thing you know, I'm going to be 60 years old walking 18-year-old Russian models into Mr. Chow acting like that's normal."
Conan O'Brien: Do you see yourself ever getting married and having kids?
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "I'm pretty Norman Rockwell-like, so I can see myself in that setting. But I might also have expectations in life that don't match my behavior in life. I mean, I'm a musician who travels the world playing songs to thousands of people at the same time -- and yet sometimes I believe that I'm going to be able to blacktop a driveway and drop kids off to school. I think they're both going to have to give a little bit.
So right now, let a man enjoy the last couple of years of writing good songs before he settles down with the woman of his dreams, and dies inside, and can't ever write another song that's any good because they're not about being empty, or lost or lonely."
Conan O'Brien: "Alright so we've covered all aspects your current endeavors and personal life. But the one thing we haven't covered is your acting debut. With so many things going for you at the moment, didn't you have the fear of people just getting tired of seeing you?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "You know, like I said before I'm at that point of my career where you either love me or hate me. I mean like doing a film at this point of my career might not be the greatest move but I wasn't going to let an opportunity like this slip away because of more people saying I'm a sell out or more haters coming around. Probably a lot of the people that don't like me personally because of my music or public persona won't watch the move just because it is carrying my name on it but honestly it's their lose if those people let their hate for me get the better of them and not watch this artistic entertainment that has nothing to do with me as a person or a musician."
Conan O'Brien: "You have some pretty good co-stars, Minka Dumont, Anna London, Jamie Lee Alexander, and Amanda Curtis. It has more than the usual movie has co-stars wise. Why is that?"
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Well when I showed Anna Reynolds, the director, the script I wrote she was a bit 'iffy about having that many co-stars because there is always that danger of one having more of a back story than the other, one having more screen time, so on and so forth. But what Anna told me right off the bat was she would direct the film only if she could be able to hand pick to co-stars which I was perfectly fine with. After I gave her the script for the casting process I gave her the right to change the script however she thought fit and I gained a great deal of respect for her because she didn't touch my character Ross Lancaster, he didn't get edit in anyway. My co-stars were amazing as well, I learned so much acting wise from them. The only one I knew previous to this was Minka, 'cause she's friends with my girlfriend, which Emily has a role in this film too alongside my bandmate Ashley Perry, so it was really great to get them in this film."
Conan O'Brien: "Well, "Something's Missing", Ryan Ross Hernandez' debut as an actor is set for limited release starting January 15th with all the major US cities and set to expand to another 72 theaters nationwide, with a full wide-release on February 12. Worldwide dates are set to begin in April.
Moving to Ryan Ross Hernandez the musician. Ryan will begin his United States leg of his tour in February starting on the 3rd in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and will make stops here in Los Angeles, plus New York City, Chicago, Boston, and many more. Full dates can be found on ryanrosshernandez.com. His record "Dark Secret Love" is in stores right now. And he will be performing a song off of it after the break.
Ryan, thank you for being here. It was great talking with you. Good luck in 2010 and hope it is even better than the great year you had in 2009."
Ryan Ross Hernandez: "Thank you, thank you."
Conan O'Brien: "Stick around, like I said before Ryan will be right back to perform."
(Crowd cheers and applause until cameras fade to commercials)
(OOC: Might post the performance, sometime on Sunday depending how it goes.) |
