The Rich Ruth Interview
Are you originally from Nashville, TN? What was your childhood like? When did you first begin to fall in love with music? Was this something that was relevant around your household growing up? What is it about the pedal steel that fascinates you the most?
I’m originally from a small farming town in Northwest Ohio with a sizable Mennonite population close to Toledo. I moved to Nashville in 2011 with my band at the time Kansas Bible Company. My childhood was pretty was typical - my parents have a deep love of music, so there was constantly albums being played in the house and car. I started playing guitar at 13 or so and it quickly consumed my livelihood and time. I’ve always felt an intense relationship to music and most of the earliest things I can still remember are music related. I remember being a little kid in the car and my dad listening to Workingman’s Dead and really loving Jerry Garcia’s voice. I would make tapes of the radio and of my older sister’s CDs (The Offspring, Eminem, Incubus) - then by 5th grade Napster had showed up which morphed into other P2P services that eventually lead me to artists like Radiohead and Tortoise that really started to get the gears turning. I think aside from maybe saxophones, pedal steel is the most expressive instrument we have. I’ve also found that adding it never makes music worse. Luckily being in Nashville, I have a handful of close friends who are just phenomenal steel players. Spencer Cullum, Luke Schneider, and Whitten Wright have become some of my favorite musicians in any capacity and I feel lucky to play and record with them.
Do you have any siblings? What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? Who were some of your earliest influences in your more formative years? When and where did you see your first show and when did it dawn on you that you wanted to be a musician yourself?
The first real show I saw was Red Hot Chili Peppers with Queens of the Stone Age and the Mars Volta opening at the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids on May 10, 2003. I was 14 and my sweet mom drove me to my cousins house in Indiana and waited for us to get home late and drove back in time to make it to church the next morning. That kicked open the door for me but it was tricky to get to concerts without a drivers license living in a small town. I went and saw Metallica on the St. Anger tour the next year and would drive hours to Cleveland or Detroit to see bands like System of a Down, Mastodon, Slayer, Clutch, Lamb of God. I was way more into heavy music and metal back then but those were the bands that seemed to be on tour in the Midwest constantly and would maybe even play Toledo.
Tell me about writing and recording your solo debut “Calming Signals” in 2019. I understand you self-released this album. What was the overall vision and approach to this project? 2022 saw your anticipated follow up “I survived, Its Over”. How did you want to approach this album that differs from your previous work? Did Covid and the harsh reality of all that play any part in influencing the material?
I had been making self-recorded albums (that no one will hear) for about a decade prior, but they were crude and more DIY and I was singing and typically playing every instrument. Somewhere in the midst of that and having been touring for 6-7 years pretty constantly, I got really into synthesizers and started to work with musicians outside of the same guys I had been playing with for almost a decade. It started to open new doors creatively and I just tried to let the compositions evolve in their own natural ways, much in part to the inspiration of collaborating with so many talented friends. I didn’t really conceive of this weird kosmiche jazz stuff ahead of time, it’s just kind of naturally what happened when I brought in Reuben Gingrich on drums and all the horns on top of the pulsing synth movements I had worked on. I had been really obsessed with Eno, Can, Tortoise, Berlin-era Bowie, William Tyler, Alice Coltrane, Bitchin Bajas, and Pharoah Sanders for years so looking back it seems like an amalgamation of that and a lot of huge changes in my life. I went through a lot of very intense stuff while making Calming Signals and it inevitably got dumped into the cosmic gumbo that became that record.
2022 saw your anticipated follow up “I survived, Its Over”. How did you want to approach this album that differs from your previous work? Did Covid and the harsh reality of all that play any part in influencing the material?
Covid was and will always be at the core of ‘I Survived’ - I had another full length record completely finished that my manager and I were trying to find a home for. That record along with the entire music industry got put on the shelf, so I just got back to work recording. Everyone had so much free time and no one was touring so it was a really fruitful period that happened so much quicker than it does now. The tornado came through Nashville on March. 3rd of 2020, someone bombed a large building downtown on Christmas Day that year, and on top of that we were dealing with the pandemic, terrifying politics, protests, police brutality, and a twisted election cycle. It really felt apocalyptic to me - I would go on long meditative bike rides and just listen to ‘Ascension’ by Coltrane and McCoy Tyner records and Archie Shepp and Aphex Twin, just harsher music that felt cathartic alongside the upheaval around me. On top of that I finally started going to therapy and doing EMDR sessions and unearthed / resolved a lot of deep stuff. It was a heavy and emotional time for me and I truly think the record reflects that. I made very conscious decisions to push it harder and incorporate heavier guitars and free jazz and KLF-style collages. I didn’t want to just make calming ambient music. I truly had no clue what anyone would think, but I knew it meant a great deal to me.
How did the deal with the fine folks over at Third Man Records come about?
Ben Swank, who oversees much of the label has become a dear friend and is also from Northwest Ohio. Along with my (now) manager Jay Steele, Ben helped us release the first record. Those two have believed in this space jazz odyssey before I even did, and I’m eternally grateful. As I mentioned earlier I had another full length mixed and mastered that they were on board with potentially releasing. I had just finished recording ‘I Survived’ and proposed we shoot for that instead because it felt so much more in tune with where I was heading. We’ll see if the other one ever sees the light of day haha
Tell me about playing guitar with KY’s finest S.G. Goodman. How did you initially meet her? What were first impressions of her and what led to joining in on the band? What has that experience been like for you?
Playing with S.G. has been has been a beautiful, life-changing experience for me. We had never met before but our mutual manager Jay put us together when she was switching a few things up with her touring lineup. My perception was that I thought she was a phenomenal writer and singer from the first record. ‘Space & Time’ is a timeless song that will be played long after we’re gone. it really clicked when I started learning the Teeth Marks material months before it was released. I knew from the moment I heard it, how special it and S.G. were. We’ve been through so much together over the past 18 months or so and we are a lot alike in many ways. Juggling her tours and mine has been tricky, exhausting, and rewarding but I am always inspired by her drive, passion, sense of humor, and that she NEVER takes shit from anyone. She’s truly one of a kind and I’m so grateful our paths crossed.
What have you been up to more recently? I understand your headlining at the Basement East this Summer! Is there anything else you would like to further share with the readers?
The summer is really heating up for my stuff and S.G. as well. I just played at Bonnaroo and couldn’t believe how well it went. SG is touring with Jason Isbell and Tyler Childers this summer which is going to be a blast. I’m playing Pickathon next month and doing some support tours in the fall. The big bucket list slot though is that I’m opening for Tortoise in the south this November for a few shows and I’m completely undone. Those guys have been bigger than an inspiration to me and honestly I just can’t wait to see them. I’m also most of the way finished with a new record, just need to lock in a few pieces and get it mixed. I think we’ll be hitting the road quite a bit harder next year.
