Acoustic Cafe

This week, Tyler Ramsey is our in-studio guest, playing songs from his new album “For The Morning.” After 10 years with Band Of Horses, Tyler decided it was time to spend more time with his growing family, move to the country, and get back to his solo work.

West Coast Duo Quest with Carl Broemel

Very excited to share the news that Tyler will be heading back out on the road with Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket) for the West Coast Duo Quest - a new leg of the collaborative shows the pair put together earlier this Spring! Tickets for the shows are on sale now, and be on the lookout for more dates to be added real soon.

Hope to see you out there!

July 7 @ Knuckleheads in Kansas City, MO | Tickets*
July 9 @ Larimer Lounge in Denver, CO | Tickets*
July 11 @ Live from the Divide in Bozeman, MT | SOLD OUT*
July 12 @ The Bartlett in Spokane, WA | Tickets*
July 13 @ Polaris Music Hall in Portland, OR | Tickets*
July 14 @ Columbia City Theatre in Seattle, WA | Tickets*
July 16 @ UC Botanical Garden in Berkeley, CA | Tickets*
July 18 @ Highland Park Ebell Club in Los Angeles, CA | Tickets*

For The Morning Relix Review

via Relix

“There’s a dream of home for those that work out on the road/ And there’s a vision of the road for all the others,” Tyler Ramsey sings on his fourth solo LP, his voice blanketed by swooning slide guitar and a delicate acoustic strum. “I can tell you what I’ve seen because I’ve been at both extremes/ There’ll be a time you will wish you could trade your life for another.” It’s a sentiment as old as pop music itself: a musician worn down by traveling and missing his family, and the sobering realization that the touring lifestyle isn’t the fantasy one may think. It’s the central theme from For the Morning , his first album since 2011’s The Valley Wind and a reemergence into the solo realm since leaving Band of Horses in 2017. Ramsey crafted the record partly on tour, cramming in writing sessions in hotel rooms and on airplanes, and partly at his idyllic home near the woods outside Asheville, N.C. Both of those realities, the longing and the contentment, flow through the music. “Who will bring in the firewood? And who’s gonna keep up the fire?” he sings on the haunting folk reverie “Firewood.” Is he referencing an actual pile of kindling or the foundation of a marriage? With its weepy steel guitars and acoustic-heavy arrangements, many of the highlights here—like the gospel-tinged “Your Whole Life” and fingerpicked “White Coat” — suitably feel like they were written in middle of a forest, with a hunting dog nearby and a smartphone nowhere in sight. It’s Ramsey’s dream of home, solidified in sound.

Tyler Ramsey plays a hometown album release show at the Masonic Temple

via Mountain Xpress

Before he was a husband and father, Tyler Ramsey used to do a lot of his songwriting at night. While living in downtown Asheville, he’d go to his little basement studio and work through melodies and lyrics as he found his musical voice.

Though he’s still up fairly late while out on tour, Ramsey enjoys being able to return to his current home life, including early wake-up calls courtesy of his young daughter. The shift in schedule has become so thorough that it’s made its way into the title of his new solo album, For the Morning.

“Part of what inspired that song ‘For the Morning’ was the desperate feeling … of change and kind of going with it,” Ramsey says. “When you become a parent, you kind of lose yourself, so that had a lot to do with it. Not really the sleep schedule part as much, but it’s part of it.”

For The Morning, an album by Tyler Ramsey on Spotify

Now based in Candler, the longtime local resident plays what he calls “a proper local hometown album release show” on Saturday, May 11, at the Asheville Masonic Temple, sharing a dreamy, sonically rich set of songs that he’s elated to give the attention it deserves. That journey began in 2004 with his self-released, self-titled album, which he followed with 2010’s A Long Dream About Swimming Across the Sea, his first collection to come out on a label. He feels that his sophomore record’s release got off to a strong start with “an energy around it” and reviews and articles in national and international publications. Immediately afterward, however, he joined Band of Horses.

“My touring ability fell off, and my focus shifted a little bit. And then I was fully in the band, and we were writing and getting ready to do Infinite Arms,” Ramsey says. “That was a great phase and a creative time for me. I think that was kind of a shift for that band, too, because it was me and Bill Reynolds contributing a lot of ideas and a lot of energy to that record.”

When he put out his next album, The Valley Wind in 2011, he didn’t have any time to tour it because he was immediately back on the road with Band of Horses. Released on Fat Possum Records, the album received decent attention, but with Ramsey unable to play solo shows or radio stations, the album all but evaporated from the cultural consciousness.

“I’m still kind of disappointed that I allowed that to happen,” he says. “At the time, I kept with the band, and it was starting to taper off as a creative outlet. And by the time I had [For the Morning] starting and I started to feel like I had the energy to create a new record, I realized if I do that again, it’s a waste of my time to put a record out at all, as well as a waste of other people’s time.”

He continues, “If some label or a booking agent is waiting on me to do something and they’re excited about it and I’m unable to give it the time — I didn’t want to do that again. I didn’t want to have this record disappear again. All of it felt like a massive shift in what I wanted to do with my time and who I wanted to spend my time with. It was a big change, but it was time to make it.”

Ramsey’s For the Morning demos were fairly fleshed-out. He also did some planning with Black Mountain-based musician Seth Kauffman (Floating Action), who rode up with him to La La Land studios in Louisville, Ky., in Ramsey’s gear-filled van. But mostly, Ramsey let the duo’s sessions with engineer Kevin Ratterman take a more natural course.

“I always feel like it’s better to kind of spring things on people,” Ramsey says. “I like the energy of someone hearing something and working it out a little bit more closer to the moment. [Seth] did have a couple things that he’d loosely charted out, like bass lines for songs. But I think everything kind of came together when we were actually in the room working on the record.”

While on tour playing these songs, Ramsey has built in various visual cues to strengthen his bond to the material. For example, the “White Coats” line, “You went out across the river to lay down in the sunlight where it filters through the pines,” is a visual image from Ramsey exploring his Candler property.

“It’s a way for me to connect with the song again if I’m performing it. I really, really feel strongly that if you’re performing in front of people, you need to do whatever you can to make yourself feel that the meaning of the song that you’re singing or put yourself back in that moment of why that song was written,” Ramsey says.

“Because that’s performance. That’s what you’re doing in front of an audience. If you’re just up there singing words and playing chords, that’s probably fine with some people, but I really do feel that for the songs that I’m singing, I like to be in the moment of the song so I can create a really cool atmosphere in a live setting and draw people into the song.”

WHO: Tyler Ramsey

WHERE: Asheville Masonic Temple, 80 Broadway, tickets at thegreyeagle.com

WHEN: Saturday, May 11, 8 p.m. $20 advance/$25 day of show

Tyler Ramsey Live at Relix

Tyler stops by the Relix offices in New York City to play a couple of tunes from his new record, For The Morning, out now on Fantasy Records

Tyler Ramsey Gives Folk For The Gentle Soul

via Diandra Reviews It All

As Tyler Ramsey played his Mercury Lounge set, I kept on thinking of the meek; playing tunes that felt like mild-mannered folk songs. Yet, as I write this, I know someone out there will think I am insulting him. On the contrary, I love and respect a gentle soul, and often wonder when being kind became associated with either weakness or numbness. For Ramsey, a good man does not deny all that is wrong; he just can’t let it stop him to what is right.

Despite being a tall guy with burly beard, Ramsey emanates the tender-hearted. He loves his band, his crowd, and bridging the two through a warm, easy-going ambiance. He will make his quick quips between songs, but the truth is his music is a mental takeover. Playing a few new songs from his newest record, For The Morning, his music played like the scenes from a black and white film on the man of 2019. For Ramsey, people are not only struggling according to love, though most music follows such a notion, they feel unfulfilled in every element in their life: financial, career, self-image, familial, etc.

When you are a kid, your goal is to make dreams come true, when you are wise, your goal is to redefine dreaming. Ramsey’s music feels like maturity because he sings to the many times, as adults, we try to do right by ourselves and the ones we love after another dream does not come true or a plan fails to fruit. Thus, the winding chords of his melodies and his beautifully tragic suites make you happily somber. They make you rest into the fact that feeling calm through life’s instability might be the very definition of inner peace.

Vocally, Ramsey feels like Twain and Willie Nelson turned their voices into soil and, from it, his was grown. He sprouts his notes as if they have been sullied by the dirt and rocks of a life that has been crushed and arisen again like, chunks of ice floating up in a cup of whiskey. Such imagery invokes the emotions and quiet loveliness of Ramsey’s voice, and his ability to show good people suffer like bad people; the difference is that they try to do better.

CHICD: Tyler Ramsey and Matthew Fowler at Schubas – 4/22

via Mid West Action

Tyler Ramsey and the audience at his show were all about the music. He talked and held their attention with ease as he started to play the first song solo. For the next song, Brian Landrum joined him, bringing some pedal steel for “Cheap Summer Dress.” Simple and moving, Ramsey sang so softly his mouth barely moved. This song is a great example of one of the things I love about this album: Ramsey’s masterful use of a quick minor interval to convey unease and evoke a haunting quality to his songs. The performance left me with a light floating, melancholy feeling.

The full band joined him for the next song, jumping in at full force on “The Valley Wind,” a reworked version that was a little faster and had real punch to it–especially with drummer, Kevin Rumley. He did a lovely gentle shuffle when called for, but he rocked out when given the opportunity. Watching him wail and sing along was really a joy. The harmonies brought by Landrum and bass player, David Macinnes, left me with chills, especially at the end of “Your Whole Life.” But, it was an echo from the album, the seamless transition between the instrumental “Darkest Clouds” and “Firewood,” that really made me weak. They followed it with a delicious psych-tinted jam session in the middle of “Worried.”

Ramsey brought different flavors to his music. It made the live performance interesting while staying true to the song, almost like a perfect cover of his own work.

See the Gallery at MidWestAxn.com

5 Questions With Tyler Ramsey

via Do617

Sylvia sat down with Tyler Ramsey before his show tonight at Great Scott!

The songs on the new album For The Morning were written during a time in your life where there was much change. (near the end of lead guitarist/songwriter with Band of Horses, the birth of your daughter and a move to the country). How did this album (and its title) come about?

The song “for the morning “ was written on the piano with my infant daughter in her carrier on my chest. It somehow marked the beginning of the new group of songs that came for this album, and also for me it symbolized the massive shift that was happening in my life. To me, this album and the story around it began there at the piano so I decided to make that song title the title of the album as well.

What can fans expect on this tour? Will any of the songs you penned for BOH make the setlist?

I think fans can expect songs from all of my previous work, including the songs from those albums- the fun part has been reworking old material and reshaping into a live setting with the band I have been lucky enough to play with.

If we turned on your music player right now, what artists/songs would we see on your playlist?

I’ve been on tour a lot and listening to tons of different things- I will say the main things that have been on repeat lately are Strand of Oaks “eraserland”, Cass Mccombs “tip of the sphere”, Mountain Man “magic ship”, and the new Damien Jurado- those are just the new ish releases!

What is your favorite song to perform live?

That changes from day to day, but lately playing the instrumental “darkest clouds” into the song “firewood” from the new album has been great- it’s fun to see the audience react to that.

What else is coming up for you?

A lot of touring this year- my first solo Europe tour, some fun festival dates with my band, and hopefully more duo shows with Carl Broemel. I’ve also been recording some instrumental music at home- going to see what that can turn into when I have time to work on it some more.

WTMD (Baltimore) First Thursday

Very excited to join WTMD for their First Thursday series June 6 with The War and Treaty, Sunflower Bean, Eli Paperboy Reed and more!

The free concert series takes play at Baltimore's Canton Waterfront Park and music starts at 5:30p. Hope to see you there!

Ex-Band of Horses' Tyler Ramsey plays 04.18 at The Basement

If you're a longtime Band of Horses fan, take note of this last minute notification that former lead guitarist and co-songwriter Tyler Ramsey will perform solo at The Basement on April 18th. Ramsey released his latest album For The Morning at the beginning of April; tracks like "Firewood" and "A Dream Of Home" have the same pensive folksiness that helped Band of Horses skyrocket to fame. In fact, "A Dream Of Home" took shape on a day off from a Horses tour, and "Evening Country" is a country version of the Horses' track "Evening Kitchen". But there's plenty of original Ramsey composition on this album: Guitars, piano, drums, and droning synths and strings create a lush soundscape that will draw you into his world. Take a listen to "Firewood" below, and check out Ramsey and his new tracks when he comes to The Basement on April 18th.

- Will Sisskind, The Deli