Blog posts from the Ryan Calder Band
I learned to play the guitar on a vintage nylon-string that the whole family shared. It wasn’t mine in any official sense. It lived wherever it landed — on the couch in the lounge, leaning against the piano, or resting on its stand like it was waiting for someone to notice it again. That accessibility mattered more than I realised at the time. You could just walk in, pick it up, and make a sound. Continue reading Behind the song: Thanks To You
When On The Edge was finished in 2010, it felt like the start of something.
The Ryan Calder Band (RCB) had built a loyal following. The name had found its place on festival lineups, theatre posters, and community events. We were a proper band, not just a guy with a guitar and a dream. And I was intent on making our live shows something memorable — no matter how little time, money, or resources we had to work with. Continue reading The Great Deep and how it happened
Being in a band isn’t just about music.
For me, it was always about people. The kind of people who don’t just make you a better musician, but who inspire you to be a better husband, father, and human being. That was the heartbeat of The Ryan Calder Band.
By the time we got to On The Edge, we had already logged countless hours together — on stages, in studios, and most memorably, in late-night conversations about life, family, and the curious choice of devoting your “free time” to making music when you had, you know… responsibilities. Continue reading On The Edge: The Album, The Brotherhood, and The Madness of Making It
About a year after Better Days hit the local shelves (and my parents’ CD player on repeat), the phone rang.
On the other end was Pedro Carlo — a kind of local music Yoda, minus the lightsaber but with the same knack for cryptic wisdom. Pedro had the final say in the lineup for Splashy Fen, South Africa’s legendary music festival tucked away in the Drakensberg mountains. Every singer-songwriter within a 500km radius dreamed of playing there. Continue reading The Birth of The Ryan Calder Band: How a Festival Lineup and a Stubborn Dream Created RCB
Long before the world of online streaming, Patreon perks, and podcast mics, there were long nights, my Larrivée acoustic, and a 1975 Audi 80 that smelled like pizza. That was the beginning. That was Pietermaritzburg — a small town in South Africa where the music dream first took root. Continue reading Better Days: The Road to That First Album
It’s 31 December 2023. Written another way, the date is 123123. And coincidentally as I start writing, it’s 21:23 on the clock. Continue reading 123123
As I have said previously, I have been mulling over Christmas lyrics. Lines that I haven’t thought about for years suddenly pop out at me as we decorate the tree and hang tinsel everywhere.
There’s one line that has been bugging me though. It’s the one from Silent Night. It’s possibly the most foreign concept to the modern world. No one has a foggy clue what it’s about. The line? Continue reading Heavenly peace
Christmas in my family was always a big deal. Our family is big, and so it generally involved cousins and food, sleepovers, garden cricket, swimming pools, braais and a Test match or two.
Growing up as a pastor’s kid, most of these activities were tacked on around church activities. In our child minds though, church activities were an add-on from the aforementioned REAL activities.
Things change. Perhaps it’s the aging process, the passage of time, the yearning for something more… but I sense those two things inverting. Continue reading Thinking about Christmas lyrics
Do you ever wonder whether what you do means anything to anyone? I mean, in the grander scheme of things: do you think about if what you are doing is making a difference in people’s lives? I have these moments from time to time. The writer of Ecclesiastes knew this feeling well: “Everything is meaningless!” Continue reading You just never know…
At the international school that we work at currently, a colleague of mine has an email signature with very small print. It reads the following: Continue reading Perhaps it will be pleasing…
