RYAN ROSS HERNANDEZ, A CHANGED MAN
A rock star whose inability to shut his stupid mouth, nearly ruined his iconic career. After staying away from doing any mainstream media for two years, he returns to the Rolling Stone cover, swearing that he is a changed man. Over two years ago, February 2010, our cover story for the month was Ryan Ross Hernandez. The singer-songwriter was on top of the world then, as he had just come off the release of his highly acclaimed album,
Let a Man Be Lost, and had won an IMA for his song, "
A Never Ending Trip to Heartbreak". We called the then 32-year-olds cover,
Hollywood’s Last Bad Boy. At that time, and the years prior to it, the musician had gone from the wide eyed boy who just wanted to play his guitar, to a full-blown Hollywood celebrity. You can do enough research for yourself to see how bad Hernandez delved into the celebrity world and its suiting lifestyle. What a difference two years can make.
As a damaged rock star whose newest record begins with the line, “I’m on the road to redemption,” and that road apparently led him to the west, not the star-filled city of Los Angeles, California, but rather to the Big Sky Country of Montana. As of this past spring, it’s the second home of Ryan Ross Hernandez, who traded paparazzi and A-list celebrity parties for a 20-acre spread of land on the outskirts of the city, with the Yellowstone river flowing in the backyard. His black Land Rover sits in the driveway and a guest house on the side is being transformed into a recording studio.
I met with Hernandez on a recent Friday, where a car was waiting for my arrival at the airport. It was personally set up by Hernandez himself, when we spoke on the phone the day before he insisted that I did not take a cab as he wanted to keep the location of his new home secretive. When I asked him around what part in Montana his home was located, he simply stated, “Somewhere around Bozeman, I think.” The house is very secluded from any town or city, for about twenty minutes in the drive before arriving, all you see is grasslands. It can be seen from a distance as it is massive. All 20-acres of land are fenced around, the entrance looks like a military base. Once inside, I was greeted by Hernandez, dressed in a plaid flannel shirt, artfully weathered baggy black jeans, and specially Japanese-designer boots.
While walking towards the kitchen area, he explained that he bought this house from a local wildlife painter and photographer in May, and he’s still in the process of moving in. The house is mostly unfurnished as construction work is being done in it and around it. On this very day, he had an architect over who he spoke to about adding a walk-in closet to the master bedroom, he didn’t give him any specifics in length or area, but insisted that the closet almost look like a bedroom in itself. A guest room currently holds racks and racks filled with the musician’s impressive, yet massive guitar collection. He mentioned that this was a “temporary holding [space],” for them, as he plans to move them all into the recording studio when it is completed. In the living room, framed photos of Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan all lean against the fireplace area, the singer admits he hasn’t gotten around to hanging them yet. Hernandez, meanwhile, is unshaven this morning, with his hair long and down to his neck.
In early 2010, when Rolling Stone published a disastrous interview with him, the backlash was immense. The singer was candor with his talk of sex and past girlfriend, joked about how his music made women want to “ride [him] like a saddle,” and commented that President Obama won the elections because of the blacks and “faggots.” He was branded a narcissist, a misogynist, a homophobe and, not for the first time, a douchebag and kiss-and-tell ex-boyfriend. He quickly took to his concert that evening, teary-eyed and choking up, in a near five-minute apology onstage. “I was on a quest to be clever, and I forgot how to love people,” he said. “I quit trying to impress people, I quit the media. I’m done.”
Much like his music, Hernandez is a very complex and layered human being. At times, he treats our interview as if it were a therapy session, pausing frequently to analyze how his answers will sound to anyone who hears them outside of the room at the same time intensely self-aware and not at all. When certain topics are brought up, it feels as though he shuts himself off, turning away entirely, staring at the river as it rushes past. “That’s one of the reasons I bought this house,” he says pointing out to the river, “it calms me to just see it flow by.”
PART ONEIf it’s not stating the obvious, you aren’t in L.A. anymore. How did you decide to go from Los Angeles to Montana?
Ryan: When I turned in the new record to my label, I took a road trip with friends across the west. We started off in LA, and went through Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and we ended up here in Montana. We were here for a day and I just fell in love with it. I called a real estate agent and I told her I wanted something from the seventies. If I was a rock star from the seventies, what house would you try to sell me? She showed me this place, and I was taken aback by the beauty of it. I asked for a minute, I was out back, and I called my girlfriend who was touring somewhere in Asia I think. I was looking at the river and mountain range and I told her, “I think I found the place I want us to escape to.”
Are you out here full-time now?
Ryan: Well I will be selling my Hollywood Hills villa; I’m going to probably look for a home in the more suburban area of L.A. I still have my apartment in New York too, but I’m staying here for the rest of the year. I don’t think I’m completely disconnecting myself from L.A. or New York because I don’t think I can. I’ve called those places home for too long to just leave it. So I’m out here for the rest of the year and after that I’ll see where I stand. Six months I didn’t think I would own a home in the middle of nowhere in Montana, but here I am, so I’m taking it easy for a bit.
You said you were just here for a day, what made you fall in love with this?
Ryan: That I’m not in L.A, that I’m not in New York. I don’t feel like I’m part of the world when I’m here, especially the celebrity or fame world. I don’t feel like I have to be on my toes so much here. I can just not worry and have a very natural mind, it can’t get corrupted here. Like, paparazzi don’t exist in Montana. There is no TMZ here. When I’m here I just want to live.
You haven’t had a mainstream interview in more than two years. Was the decision to take a break from the media, a self-conscious one?
Ryan: Absolutely. I was exhausted. I was done with wanting to be the poster boy to anything. To be honest, I don’t think I’m ready to be rebooted. But at the same time, I need to. If I shut myself out of doing interviews or speaking, people would think, “Oh, that Hernandez guy just can’t handle himself,” so I need to prove to myself that I can. I’ve had over two years now to feel sorry for myself.
It’s obviously been two years since you’re last Rolling Stone cover – let’s go back to the winter of 2009-2010. Describe where your head space was at after that interview was published.
Ryan: Even before that interview was out, I knew I was heading in the wrong direction. I had stopped appreciating the space I took up as an artist, who means a lot to people. I thought somewhere in my head that they were never going to leave. That I could keep doing all these things that were really dumb, but at the time I didn’t see that, like when I said those things in my last Rolling Stone cover, I thought I was being clever, I was speaking the truth that others were too afraid to say themselves. My fans were never going to leave me because I gave them an album they really liked every two or three years. That winter I remember a lot of people coming up to me and asking if I was okay, even before the interview.
At that point, did you regret letting your celebrity stardom grow as far as it did?
Ryan: Here’s the thing about the world of being a celebrity; it’s compelling and difficult to say no to. Once I got it, for me at least, I just took from it more and more, all I could take. The moment before somebody breaks, they act the toughest. The adrenaline I had going was nuts, so I felt really big and went, “Bring it on fuckers,” when in reality I was 30 seconds away from crying my eyes out.
So you were obviously self-aware of that.
Ryan: Yeah, I knew it was coming, but I didn’t have the strength to stop it before it was to its breaking point. There were a lot of people in my life who said, “You know, I love that guy, but I’ll be damned if I’m near him when that goes off.”
Aside from what you were saying in public, what other things lead you to the place you found yourself a few years ago?
Ryan: I didn’t get addicted to drugs or alcohol during my time in Hollywood, but I did get a gambling addiction. It wasn’t a gambling addiction with money, but rather with people’s opinions of me. At the point where this addiction was at its peak, I couldn’t stand people seeing that they didn’t like me. I would have to sit down with that person and make sure their not misunderstanding where I’m coming from. And it worked, I could save it sometimes. So it made sense if I could change one person’s mind, I could change a million’s people mind about me. Like the Rolling Stone interview two and a half years ago, I see that as huge bet I made. Obviously, I lost that bet. I had to learn that one of the best things you can do when someone says they don’t like you, is just walk away from them. I’ve learned that it’s fine if I meet someone who doesn’t respect me.
I think someone people who understood your brand of humor and had seen YouTube clips of you doing stand up at the Comedy Cellar in New York City a few years back, those people probably saw your interview with Rolling Stone as a stand up act.
Ryan: I wouldn’t be surprised if some people thought that. I remember during that interview, I was performing for myself. Not just in that interview, in most interviews I did around the span of a year or two, I wanted to be so many different things at once. I wanted to act sensible, but not too sensitive. I wanted to be funny, but not so funny that people think I’m a clown. I wanted to be witted, but I wanted everyone to understand what I was saying. I put myself in a mindset where I couldn’t win. I was so paranoid about losing the ‘media game’ that I thought, “I know what you’re trying to do to me, and I won’t let you do it – I’m going to do it to me.” If you’re thinking like that, you need a break from it all.
You mean from doing interviews?
Ryan: I needed a break from anything that could get my name in headlines, interviews included. If I’d said, “I’m so incredibly lonely; I’m getting ripped apart in the tabloids nationwide; I’ve got people hiding in my bushes when I get home; and I don’t know where my head or heart are at,” that would have been more compelling to people than and bravado comedy act I was trying to put on for people. It’s like if I was a bad comic; I got nervous and I bombed.
You took your comedy act into your daily life?
Ryan: In a way, yeah I did. I got really arrogant because of the crowd of people I was running in. It was so easy for me to go from table to table and fit in. I was running around with a lot of comedians, with actors, with people behind the scenes from the TV and film industry. I felt like I was the only musician who could roam the room so nicely and be liked in each of those groups. I remember back in 2007, I knew the owner of the comedy cellar, so right before the ‘big dogs’ in the comedy world took the stage; I asked him if I could do like a ten or fifteen minute set and he agreed. So I remember before I went on, I was thinking, “I’m gonna say the word ‘fuck’ a lot. I’m gonna start almost every joke with, ‘true story’, even if it really isn’t.” As the songwriter in me, I thought as a comedian I had to connect with everyone, I had to be honest. Which is the stupidest thing I could do, because whenever I said “true story”, people weren’t laughing, they were writing down what I said that wasn’t true, but it got them a good Us Weekly cover story, and they could be like, “Look! He said it while doing stand up and said it was a true story.” I set myself up to be an idiot.
How was the day that the Rolling Stone interview came out for you?
Ryan: It was in February 2010, a Monday or Tuesday; I know it was at the start of the work week. I was on tour in support of Let a Man Be Lost, and the day it came out, I had a show in New York City, of all places I was touring, I was playing the Ed Sullivan Theatre for the Letterman Show, and I was also appearing in the late night show to sing the single at the time. I remember I woke up in my apartment and I had a lot of missed calls, mostly from my manager and publicist. Before I had the chance to call any of them back, I had my personal assistant knocking at my door, she looked worried, and think before she got in the door, she told me, “This is a really big deal, Ryan.” And she explained to me how every major network was picking up on it and reporting it on their morning shows. I remember doing some research that morning and I don’t think I ever saw so many articles about me when I Google News my name. I remember rushing into the bathroom because I felt physically sick to my stomach, and I looked myself in the mirror and remember telling myself aloud, “How could this man be a platinum selling artist?”
At that point did you believe it wasn’t that bad?
Ryan: Oh yeah, absolutely. I tried to do anything in my power to stop myself from imploding. I thought I could charm my way out of the situation. The first thing I told my publicist was, “I could still fix this, right? I could go on Larry King or do a 60 Minutes piece with Anderson Cooper to redeem myself, right?” And I couldn’t do any of that. I could not charm my way out of people being – I don’t know if it was offended, but…
Oh, it seemed like people were definitely offended with your remarks.
Ryan: I’m not going to try and say I know what other people who read the interview felt, because I don’t. All I know is how I felt, as the guy who gave the very stirring interview. But for about ten minutes, I thought that I could come out of the situation with a scratch. So thankfully, I’ve surrounded myself with a lot of smart people, people who I have no problem saying their smarter or wiser than me and each of them sat down with me and pretty much all of them said, “Ryan, stop. This is different. You can’t charm your way out of this one because if you try and fail, we can’t promise you you’ll have a loyal fanbase by the next album cycle.” That opened my eyes because I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have the safe, comfortable confides of music to always go back to.
How were you thinking of charming your way out of the controversy?
Ryan: By not backing down from what I said. I thought if I stood by what I said, even if they were dumb, or ignorant, or failed attempts at being funny, it’d be okay because most people would respect me for it. It was a crazy idea. I almost felt I had to scream to myself and say, “Are you a fucking idiot?!”
The interview came out and the backlash was heavy throughout the media, nationwide, and even worldwide on some scales. What happened in the coming days and months after it?
Ryan: I had never felt so much hate coming my way at one time, as I did at that point. I’m never going to forget the call I got from my mother who just told me, “Ryan, how could you say those things? You disappointed me.” That felt horrible. Nothing feels worse than disappointing people you love. Yet, I still don’t feel I went through a market crash, I went through a “market correction” – kind of ripped me away of the culture that I wouldn’t have had the strength to exit myself, on my own two feet. People laugh when I call it Stockholm syndrome, but that’s really how it felt. I never would have known it if it hadn’t happened.
What was going through your head around that time?
Ryan: I just felt like everyone was mad at me. As if the people that once respected me, lost all respect they had towards me, and people who didn’t respect me were thinking they were right about me. Like I remember going to a Hollywood party around that time and very few people wanted to be seen talking with me.
Did you ever think, “This is it.”? That your career was coming to an end?
Ryan: Yeah, but I was letting it happen to myself. I was purposely making myself become irrelevant to the world. I told myself, “It doesn’t matter after this is over, what you’re left with. You’re not going to be a bitch and complain about it. Your life isn’t over; your life will go on – but the party you lived in for the last four years, is over.
Was it during this time that you got a therapist?
Ryan: No, I already had one. I’ve had a therapist since around 2007 or 2008. But obviously yes, her role became more needed. She’s in L.A., so a lot of sessions are by phone. It’s nice to have somebody just be a witness, not take any side.
Who else did you talk to?
Ryan: Only a handful of people. As much as it hurt me – and it hurt a lot – I don’t think anybody wanted to help me. I think most people felt they should just see me see this one out on my own. I can’t really be angry because it was one of the best things that happened to me as a human being. When you get to the end of your twenties, you’re kinda supposes to be becoming an adult. But it’s like, if I was already lost at sea and the sail on the boat broke during the storm, why would I stop and fix it if I was already lost at sea to begin with?
I guess that makes sense. But at the time this controversy surrounded you, you were already 32. Isn’t that already an adult?
Ryan: No, not for me at least. At 32, I was still 28 years old, because for four years I was full of “I’ll get to being an adult in a minute.”
And this is what took you into adulthood?
Ryan: Yeah, but I think I only needed about half of what happened to have gone down for me to have my violent crash into adulthood [laughs]. I don’t think people understand – when you screw up badly in my position, and you feel that intense wave of energy from a million people saying, “Shame on you” – that is enough to make any man reconsider where he’s at in life. I don’t think any human being is equipped to take so much negativity from so many people, all at once.
Were you still in the process of getting over this incident and becoming an adult, when you met your girlfriend, Nadia Berry?
Ryan: Absolutely. We began dating in June 2010, and at that time, I felt it was a horrible mistake. I almost wanted to tell her, “Please, don’t get near me right now. I’m no good for you.” The headlines were horrible. I didn’t feel like enough time had passed for our relationship to have any success because that incident from earlier in the year was still on everyone’s mind. I never asked Nadia if she had read the interview, but at the very least, I was certain she knew about it. For that fact, I think I felt a lot of hate from the people around her. Like when I met her friends and stuff, like I felt uncomfortable being in the room because of the fact I was dating their friend. Which is fine, they were protective of her and obviously I had a reputation. We were dating, but it almost felt like we weren’t because as much as I liked her, I needed to get some work done on myself. I couldn’t have her dating a man who was in repair.
Is that where the break-up you two had in late 2010, seam out of?
Ryan: Yeah, like in November or December of that year, we mutually agreed to stop dating. I needed to do it. As much as I liked her, I couldn’t make a relationship function correctly at that moment. And besides that, I was writing a new record, and she was touring around Europe I think with GirlSpice, so it seemed like the right time to call for a break. But I told her not to wait, that if she met someone she liked and wanted to date, to go for it. I wasn’t gonna stop her from finding something real because of my issues, because they were my issues.
During the same Rolling Stone interview in February 2010, you said you felt like Kanye West a lot of the time. You guys kind of went through similar situations. Do you still feel like you have things in common with Kanye West?
Ryan: Yeah. I have must respect for anybody who have such incident occur in their lives, and they just come back and shut everybody up. Kanye returned with, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which will go down in history as one of the best rap records in history. I’m coming back with Break in the Clouds, and I can only hope that it does the same as Kanye’s record did for him, in the sense that people returned to just talking about him as a rapper, and producer, and lyricist. I just want people to return to talking about me as a singer-songwriter. I don’t need so much space anymore. I feel a kinship with anybody who came up creating something real. Like, maybe Katie [Coyle] is Joni Mitchell, and I’m Neil Young, of a new generation of course. I feel Kanye and I were both masterminds with a vision.
You think Kanye and yourself are masterminds?
Ryan: Kanye is a one-man show; rapper, producer, designer. Before getting a record deal, I didn’t only spend obsessive amount of time studying music, but I also studied comedy, and film, and acting, and watches. It’s like, as soon as you make it big in one of those areas, you can do anything you want. But when people start calling you a douche-bag, you don’t have a plan for that. You didn’t study how to find an antidote for people to stop hating you. Kanye disappeared for a good year after the VMA thing, that’s what I needed. I needed to disappear and not talk for a while.
How was it when you and Nadia picked up your relationship five or six months after you ended things? Had you dated anyone during that span of time?
Ryan: No, if I had dated anyone during that time, it would have defeated the purpose of wanting to be alone and reassess everything. I remember I had to go to London, I think for like an award show, and we agreed to meet up afterward and everything just clicked. I told her the first or second day we got back together that, “I’m grown up enough to have a relationship with you. I don’t know what the future holds but at this moment, I’m an adult enough to have a co-dependent relationship with you.”
You’ve often criticized Twitter, yet you’re still on the site and have over 16 million followers. Why won’t you just shut it down if it’s useless?
Ryan: Just because I have an account doesn’t mean it’s not useless, because it is. I remember people still get pissed with some of my tweets and I find it hilarious that they do because it’s just 140 characters of nothing. I think if there has ever been a time where I seriously consider deleting it, it’s when I’m here in Montana. I don’t think I would tweet here because I don’t have the iPhone attached to me all the time when I’m here. I would leave it on my bedside table when I go to sleep then I could spend the whole day around the house, and not check my phone until I go to sleep again.
A former bandmate of yours from the band PANIC!, Ashley Perry, said something about you some time ago that kind of predicted all this. She said, “Sometimes I feel like he gets too caught up in being clever… Sooner or later, he will do himself in, if everyone lets him.”
Ryan: Not really much else I can add to that comment. I love Ashley; I love all the guys from that band. The truth hurts.
You’re close friends with Katie Coyle who’s a lesbian. Did she ever bring up the subject to you? Ask you why you said those things you said about homosexuals?
Ryan: No, no, she never asked me about it. I didn’t know her when all this happened, I don’t even think she was in the industry yet. But here’s the thing, I’ll live with what happened for the rest of my life. I know I’ve hurt people. I wouldn’t have blamed Nadia if two years when we started dating she went, “Listen, I think you’re a great guy but dating you right now would be career suicide for both of us.” I would have been okay with taking that punch. I fully took the shots people took at me during that time.
Were any personal apologies made to the people close to you?
Ryan: Sure. I’m not getting into that right now, but I did apologies to the people I felt I needed to. I kind of just want to move on from this part of the conversation, if we can, please. I don’t have anything else to say about any of that.
Edited by user 04 July 2012 07:38:07(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified
