As you will see by our review of their astounding new project "Keep No Score," Ryan has songwriting skills like you and I have breathing skills. Ryan shared, "Once we found our voices, it made us that much more excited about songwriting. And the longer we've been writing, the more passionate we've become about the craft."
Ryan, his brother drummer Chad, and bassist Dan Perdue clearly honor the craft of making music. When I remark that listeners seem to come away from the music of Sleeping At Last with a feeling of optimism, Ryan is eager to agree. "We love to hear that people find hope in our songs, especially since they are so open-ended. But we believe that God can let them hear whatever they need to hear. It's always interesting to us to hear how people interpret our music. When we first started singing together seven years ago, we wanted to write music that anyone could listen to and take encouragement from, no matter what they believed. Faith is such a big part of our lives. Songwriting documents everything in you, what you're feeling, so our faith comes through organically. I love it when people recognize that as hope because when I write the music everything is very particular, every line means something specific and personal to me. But as a whole you never know how people are going to receive it."
We talked a bit about the power of words and the challenges of caring so deeply about words in an industry that isn't always necessarily as careful. Ryan says honestly, "I think the only time it ever becomes hard for me to put everything I have into a song is when there are a lot of distractions. When we were on the Interscope label, they did some really good things for us, but there was also more distractions in general. A lot of 'when are we gonna hear from this person, wait for that thing to happen, or what can we do to make something else take place'...... Trying to figure out all of those extra things can sometimes take away from how personal the songs can be. After we decided to part from the label, I discovered again how important it is to just pour yourself into songwriting. I forgot how enjoyable the process can be when you love what you're doing and you love trying to come up with the most creative way to express your emotions."
Part 2 of our interview covers much more about Ryan O'Neal's songwriting for Sleeping at Last, so click through.
