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
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
As a young, aspiring solo artist, I will never forget that cold May evening in 2004. I was in Howick at the Forgotten Falls, and had just finished sound check. I was standing at the back of the marquee, chatting with the venue owners Kech and Pia Sanchez. Across the field appeared a silhouette walking in our direction, carrying a guitar case. As he got closer, I recognised Syd Kitchen. Continue reading Syd Kitchen: SA music legend
The last song to be written ended up as the first song on the album.
I enjoy some of the chords in Jim Croche songs, and for this song the inspiration was the same sequence from the chorus of Time In A Bottle, which runs down the D scale. Except for On The Edge, the rhythm is more upbeat.
I remember it so clearly, sitting on my bed in my room with pen and paper on my lap, trying to finish the song by putting words that matched the mood of the rhythm and the chords. I knew what I wanted the song to be about, but just couldn’t find an opening line. Continue reading Behind the Song: On The Edge
