Tyler Ramsey Evokes Nick Drake on Sublime 'For The Morning'

via Glide Magazine

Tyler Ramsey literally had nothing to prove when he opted to put his solo career in second gear and join forces with Band of Horses for a tour in 2007. That stint with the group became a decade long association, one that found him splitting his time between his individual pursuits and writing and recording with the group as a whole. It didn’t deter him from pursuing his own muse at the same time — in fact, he was able to further spur his creativity by making prime contributions to the band’s repertoire as well — but by 2017 it became clear that the lanky singer and guitarist’s talents were best served by the forlorn ballads he continued to record on his own.

Now, four albums in, that premise is clearer than ever, courtesy of an album that’s so sensual and sublime, it’s easy to imagine folks touting him as an heir apparent to none other than Nick Drake. Not that the comparison hasn’t been tossed out before, but if anyone most deserve it, Ramsey’s clearly the one. The album title alone evokes a dewey-eyed perspective, a dreamlike state that finds the world reckoning with dreams that were sown in the immediate hours before. Certain songs — “Your Whole Life,” “Darkest Sounds,” “White Coat,” “Firewood,” and “Cheap Summer Dress” being the most apparent — convey a sense of hushed circumspect, a sound that’s low-key, lethargic, but enveloped by a breathless beauty too tangible to deny. It can seem contradictory at times — a song like “A Dream of Home” is both earnest and upbeat, while “Breaking a Heart” recalls Neil Young sounding resilient and yet resigned. Indeed, Ramsey has that ability to entice his listeners into sharing his solitude, and once lured inside those intimate environs, they’re engaged, ensconced and content to deliberate on any tender perspective.

Ultimately, For The Morning is an album of meditative moods, one that demands more than a momentary embrace. It speaks in soft tones, a perfect way to contemplate possibilities and whatever cerebral setting the day may hold in store.

For The Morning, an album by Tyler Ramsey on Spotify

Magnet Exclusive: Download Tyler Ramsey's 'Breaking A Heart'

via Magnet Magazine

Tyler Ramsey’s “Country Teen” was arguably the best thing about Band Of Horses’ Why Are You OK. So it makes some sense that he broke from the group a year after the album’s 2016 release to resume his solo career. “Ten years is a long time in any relationship, except for maybe a marriage,” says Ramsey. “Especially with a bunch of dudes who are basically living together and carrying all the stereotypical baggage of being in a rock band.”

With the new For The Morning (Fantasy), the versatile multi-instrumentalist has found common ground between the subdued acoustic nuance of his previous work and the lush Americana grandeur of Band Of Horses’ Grammy-nominated 2010 album, Infinite Arms. Nowhere is that reconciliation more evident than on “Your Whole Life,” “A Dream Of Home” and “Breaking A Heart” (the last track available here as a free download). With its pronounced Laurel Canyon vibe, “Breaking A Heart” sounds like some lost Desperado-era Eagles gem, though with a mist-shrouded Appalachian soul. “The chorus was looping around in my head for a while,” says Ramsey. “I had everything written for the song, but there were a few lines troubling me, so I called my dad and we came up with the last few lyrics 20 minutes before I tracked the vocals.”

Seasoned singer/songwriters Thad Cockrell and Molly Parden provide harmony vocals on the song, and the fluid pedal-steel accompaniment comes courtesy of Music City session ace Russ Pahl. “Russ did it in Nashville and sent the files over,” says Ramsey. “I was literally jumping up and down when I heard it.”

When he’s not on the road, Ramsey lives with his wife and daughter on an idyllic piece of rural real estate 14 miles from his hometown of Asheville, N.C. Much of For The Morning took shape during Ramsey’s regular writing excursions into the woods on his property. He took the demos he made at home to La La Land studios in Louisville, Ky., where he worked with engineer Kevin Ratterman and longtime friend Seth Kauffman (Jim James, Lana Del Rey). Finishing touches came at Fleetwood Shack, the Nashville studio of former Band Of Horses bassist Bill Reynolds, who departed the group the same year as Ramsey.

Not that Ramsey is opposed to looking back. For The Morning includes “Evening Country,” a full-band variation on “Evening Kitchen,” from Infinite Arms. “It was the only thing on Infinite Arms that was super bare bones,” he says. “That was the dimension I was really pushing in that band, trying to give fans something that’s more intimate. It was fun to have that influence.”

Download “Breaking A Heart” at MagnetMagazine.com

Do512 Performance from SXSW

We had a great time with Do512 while we were in Austin for SXSW. Thanks to everyone who came out for the set and for the 512 team for capturing "A Dream of Home" on video.

New album, For The Morning, is out now on Fantasy Records. Check it out HERE.

Jam In The Van

We had a great time with Jam In the Van - playing songs from the new record, For The Morning, for them when we were in Austin for SXSW.

“Evening Country”

“Breaking A Heart”

“A Dream Of Home”

Tyler Ramsey performing new album at Horizon Records

via Greenville Journal

Tyler Ramsey is as surprised as anyone that it’s been almost eight years since his last solo album. But there are some pretty good reasons for that gap, most notably that for six of those years, Ramsey served as lead guitarist for the folk-rock sensation Band of Horses.

“I was fully absorbed in touring and doing a couple of records with the band, and time flew by as it does when you’re wrapped up in a project,” Ramsey says. “I didn’t feel like it had been that long; when I hear now the amount of time that’s passed, it’s surprising to me because I’ve been able to be creative. Hopefully there won’t be a big gap of time again.”

Part of the reason that Ramsey can work a little faster on his own music now is that he left Band of Horses in 2017 after several intense cycles of touring and recording.

There are moments in Ramsey’s songs that are reminiscent of Neil Young in his folk-music phase, and others that bring to mind the chiming country-rock guitars and rich vocal harmonies of bands like The Byrds or the Eagles, and he explores those sounds to the fullest on his just-out album “For the Morning.” The idyllic arrangements were inspired by the bucolic scenery around his home in the mountains outside Asheville, North Carolina, but the album itself has more restless origins.

“It’s a record that represents a lot of change,” Ramsey says. “It’s a big shift. I’d attribute that to constant having moved into being a dad, making decisions about moving forward in my career, that was all going on when I was writing the songs.”

In fact, some of the songs were written when Ramsey was still part of Band of Horses, most notably “A Dream of Home,” a harmony-drenched midtempo rocker about being on the road and thinking of home.

For The Morning, an album by Tyler Ramsey on Spotify

“That song reflects my life and being torn between the path I was on and a simpler, more grounded way,” Ramsey says. “That reflects that yearning for a different path.”

Even though Ramsey is happier as a solo artist on a smaller scale than Band of Horses, he still struggles with the conflict of pursuing his music and spending time with his wife and young daughter.

“When I walk out the door to go on tour, I know that I’m going to do what I’ve been preparing myself to do my whole life,” he says. “I’m torn; but the flip side is that when I come home, I’m 100 percent home. I can hang out with my daughter all the time. I get this solid block of time where it’s us hanging out and doing everything we want to do together.”

The “For the Morning” album is rich with intricate, layered, full-band arrangements, which will make things interesting when Ramsey plays the material solo in a show at Horizon Records on Saturday.

“My goal is to write songs that people can get engaged with, with just a guitar and a voice,” he says. “My hope is that I’m writing songs that are engaging enough and people won’t think there’s anything missing.”

The show is part of Horizon’s celebration of Record Store Day, a day that recognizes independent brick-and-mortar record stores around the country.

“It’s important to keep record stores going all over the place,” Ramsey says. “It was where I discovered all of my new music. But the main thing is that I’ve known Gene Berger [the owner of Horizon] forever. He’s always been such a huge supporter of local music and music in general. He’s helped me out so much over the years, so when I talked to him about the possibility of doing it, it was a no-brainer to get in there and play.”

What: Tyler Ramsey
When: Noon Saturday, April 13
Where: Horizon Records, 2-A W. Stone Ave., Greenville
Admission: Free
Info: 864-235-7922, http://horizonrecords.net/

For The Morning Out Now!

Today is a huge day for us. For the Morning has officially been released into the world, and it's also our first vinyl release! It has been a long road, but we are all incredibly grateful to get to this day. Below are links to all major digital retailers, and our official webstore where you can get Vinyl and CD copies of the album. Of course you can always go out to your local record store and grab one there as well.

Webstore | Spotify | Apple Music | iTunes | Amazon

Thank you all for your continued support on this endeavor. It means the the world to us. Hope you enjoy the record, and we look forward to seeing you out on the road real soon!

For The Morning, an album by Tyler Ramsey on Spotify

Sounds: Tyler Ramsey // A Dream of Home

via Left Bank Magazine

There’s something about spring that changes me. Sure, it makes me want to open up all the windows, air out the house, scrub the baseboards, and give away clothes, but beneath the flurry of activity, there’s a grounding within me, like my feet are planted a little more firmly on the earth. I want to slow my pace, turn off my phone, watch the sun rise and set, and take a long, deep breath.

Asheville, North Carolina’s Tyler Ramsey‘s “A Dream of Home” wraps all of those thoughts and feelings up in one song. The former Band of Horse’s guitarist and co-songwriter’s latest track is warm and root-bound, a solid oak tree in a tempest of quick and dirty tracks that come and go like a cloud in the sky. It’s textured, a little worn, soft to the touch and easy on the ears. I’ve got it on repeat, and not just to write this review; it’s exactly what my soul has needed.

(I also immediately pre-ordered the upcoming album, For The Morning.)

Settle down, take a deep breath, and stream “A Dream of Home” here:

A Dream Of Home, an album by Tyler Ramsey on Spotify

Live on DittyTV Wednesday, April 3

On their last run on the way to SXSW, Tyler Ramsey and his band stopped by Ditty TV to record a handful of songs live in studio. Check out “A Dream of Home” above and tune in for the entire performance Wednesday, April 3 at 8p CT at DittyTV.com.

The new record, For the Morning, is out this Friday, April 5. You can pre-order the record HERE.

Listen: Tyler Ramsey, "Evening Country"

via The Bluegrass Situation

In Their Words: “A couple of years ago my band and I started messing around with some of my older and more pared-down songs and trying to bring them into a band setting. ‘Evening Kitchen’ was a song that I had written for the Band of Horses record Infinite Arms and when we did that record it stood out because it was in contrast with the rest of the album and really bare bones. A lot of that album was lushly produced and I thought having the song recorded with a single acoustic guitar and vocals would help balance things. It worked well in the sequence of that album and led to a lot of the more intimate moments in our live shows and the direction we headed in for the live Ryman acoustic album.

“This version, called ‘Evening Country,’ was a way to reimagine the song and a chance to put it into a new frame with some truly amazing musicians. It was recorded in Louisville, Kentucky, with Seth Kauffman (Floating Action), Kevin Ratterman (Lalaland Studio, My Morning Jacket, Ray Lamontagne), and I doing the basic tracking. Seth had worked with pedal steel guitarist Russ Pahl before and we were able to get him to play on it (I still jump up and down when I hear his playing!). And the goosebump-inducing harmony vocals were sung by Molly Parden and Thad Cockrell and recorded at the Fleetwood Shack in Nashville by my old friend Bill Reynolds (former Band of Horses bassist). The opportunity to revisit this song in the way that we did has given it a new energy for me as well as new meaning.

“A wild memory of this song: years ago we were playing at Bonnaroo after Infinite Arms had been released. We finished our set and climbed down off the stage and our manager came up and told us to go back up and play a couple more songs because Bruce Springsteen had come onto our side stage to watch us play just as we were walking off. We ran back up and ended up playing ‘Evening Kitchen’ last, and all I could think about the whole time was that there was Bruce Springsteen standing fifteen feet away from me and watching us play this song I’d written — don’t f*ck it up! We made it through and headed back down off the stage and there he was with that Bruce Springsteen smile and handshakes all around. Our monitor man Jon Cronin told me afterwards that he heard Bruce say ‘That’s a good song!’ That’s enough for me!” — Tyler Ramsey

Evening Country, an album by Tyler Ramsey on Spotify

Tyler Ramsey reworks old Band Of Horses single with pedal steel guitar on “Evening Country”

via The Line of Best Fit

Tyler Ramsey, formerly of Band Of Horses, has reworked the band's "Evening Kitchen" single with some pedal steel guitar, renaming it "Evening Country".

"Evening Kitchen", originally written by Ramsey, appeared on Band Of Horses' Infinite Arms album in 2010 as an intimate piano piece.

Having left the band, the former guitarist has since reworked the track, injecting some pedal steel guitar, and renaming it "Evening Country".

"Evening Country" is the third single to be shared from Ramsey's first solo album n eight years, For The Morning, after earlier singles "A Dream Of Home" and "Firewood".

On his follow up to 2011's The Valley Wind, Ramsey says, "This album came about in the midst of a lot of change. The birth of my daughter, a move to the country, and the steady realization that I needed to switch the road I was on in my life as a musician and songwriter. I tried to express and balance images of life as a constantly traveling and touring musician with the more connected life I live at home and the time I spend hiking in the mountains where I live."

"Evening Country" is out now. For The Morning drops 5 April via Fantasy / Virgin EMI. Tyler Ramsey will play London's St. Pancras Old Church on 20 May.

Q&A: Former member of Band of Horses to perform in Athens as a solo artist

via Red and Black

Tyler Ramsey often finds himself inspired by the beautiful things he surrounds himself with at his home, infusing parts of his daily life into his music, particularly his new record to be released in April, “For The Morning.”

Ramsey is the former lead guitarist and co-writer for rock group Band of Horses, but after many years of tours, he was ready to get back to his family, his roots and his hometown of Asheville, North Carolina.

We talked to Ramsey about his up-and-down life experiences that come with being a musician and a father.

The Red & Black: Have you been to Athens before?

Tyler Ramsey: Yeah, I’ve been there a bunch, actually. I’ve played there solo a few times; I’ve played there with the band a few times.

R&B: Are you more into intimate venues, like Hendershot’s, or bigger ones?

TR: You know, it depends on the night and depends on the tour. I love that kind of experience; I think it makes a really cool night when it’s up close and personal.

R&B: You’re about to drop your new record, “For The Morning,” so are you mostly going to play songs off of that, or can listeners expect older music?

TR: I’ll be doing stuff from all my records I think, even the self-released one. I usually throw in some that ended up on Band of Horses records. I cover everything I’ve done and occasionally play a cover song, depending on the mood.

R&B: Reading through your bio, there’s a big emphasis on the intertwining of nature with your music. Could you talk about that?

TR: I just think that whatever a person does in their life kinda influences their heart or music or whatever. I think just even as basic as me spending a lot of time hiking in the woods has a pretty strong impact on what I do musically. Even if I’m just trying to finish a song at my house, I get stuck sometimes and go out walking in the woods, and then ideas kinda come to me from that. There’s a lot of imagery, too, a lot of visual imagery.

R&B: You were the guitarist for Band of Horses. What is life like on your own as a solo artist?

TR: I took a break for a while, and now it’s just really getting started with the release of this album and the tours that are accompanying it. It was a decade of heavy touring with them, so it was pretty fantastic to be able to be at home with my family and my daughter. That was all incredible, and now I’m gearing back up again. It’s exciting to have this record and have the backing that I have.

R&B: It sounds like you’ve had a lot of big and necessary change come from separating yourself from tour life. Is that reflected in the new record?

TR: Oh yeah, there’s definitely a lot of that in the songs and the feel of the record. Yeah, I think it’s gonna come across too live. It’s undoubtedly a part of the fabric of the record.

R&B: What are the challenges of being a part of a band versus being solo?

TR: I think the main challenge of being in a band is that you have to figure out ways to keep communication open with people. It’s like any other relationship; it just gets bad if you’re not talking to someone and not letting things go ... sometimes things just don’t work out.

R&B: What was the hardest part about being on tour with the band for you?

TR: It’s the same thing every night. It kinda becomes a questioning of “What am I doing with my time here?” And then you start questioning what it’s about when it’s not feeling like an exciting thing and you’re dealing with weird dynamics. It makes you want to go home. It’s like any job, I’m sure. If you’re not feeling like you’re doing the right thing, you’d rather not be doing it.

R&B: We’ve talked a good bit about the struggles of tour life, but what do you like about tours?

TR: I like playing music for people. I like seeing the people that come out; it kind of affirms that there’s any meaning at all to what I’m doing musically. It’s like, “Alright, there’s a room full of people that made an effort to come see a show and want to hang out and talk afterwards (sic).” That’s what I like about it … There’s amazing things that can happen on tour if you allow yourself the time to do those things.

R&B: When you play a show, what do you hope the audience is going to take away from your show?

TR: I hope it’s more than what they expected. I hope they have an experience that’s more than just, “Oh, I just went to a show.” I want it to be memorable and something that affects people. That’s what I’d like my music to do — I want it to connect with people, hopefully some of it on an emotional level. Those are my goals: to connect with the people that are there.

R&B: Do you have any musical inspirations that helped you connect like you want to help your listeners to connect?

TR: Oh man, I think that’s happened so many times I can’t even really narrow down who it would be. Although, I will say it happens a little bit less nowadays. I haven’t seen a lot of shows just because I’ve been busy doing stuff, like living out in the country and having a daughter. I don’t think I would have an understanding of what the possibilities of playing live music are if I hadn’t been affected by it deeply numerous times throughout my life. I think everyone finds their own thing that they connect with, and for me … there’s too many to even list.

R&B: You’ve mentioned your daughter a good bit. Could you talk about her and how she inspires you?

TR: She’s the best. I think becoming a dad was something that for most of my life I didn’t think was my path or whatever. And then when it happened, it just changed everything. All of my intentions and goals were shifted towards making sure she’s okay and making sure that I’m as big a part of her life as I can be. She’s changed my entire outlook on everything.

R&B: Has she been to any of your shows?

TR: She came to my last show that I did in Asheville, but we’re not at the point where I’m gonna take her on tour yet. Someday I’d love to. She wants to put on shows all the time; she’s got a couple of little instruments that she plays, and she’s constantly making up songs so … I can definitely see the family band later on in life.

R&B: What can the audience expect from this tour?

TR: They can expect a really good band, first of all. I’m so excited about the guys that I got together. They all came from different places, and somehow magically it’s been such a good group of guys to play with. We’re creating music that I didn’t even expect to have happen. The weird blend of the four of us is getting me excited about the bands I was super into over the years. We’re capturing some kind of cool energy that I’m excited to take to different towns

Tyler Ramsey's 'White Coat' Tingles With Beauty

via Clash Music

Tyler Ramsey was one of the driving forces behind Band Of Horses, before he decided to take a step back.

Now based in Asheville, North Carolina, he looks out on to one of North America's most pristine landscapes, a lush, beautiful, effervescent canvas of green and yellow.

Pure natural beauty, Tyler Ramsey translates this into music, channelling this sense of location, this reaching into the past, on his new solo album.

'For The Morning' will be released on April 6th, with Tyler touching down on UK soil for show at London's St Pancras Church on May 20th.

"This album came about in the midst of a lot of change,” explains Ramsey. “The birth of my daughter, a move to the country, and the steady realisation that I needed to switch the road I was on in my life as a musician and songwriter."

"I tried to express and balance images of life as a constantly traveling and touring musician with the more connected life I live at home and the time I spend hiking in the mountains where I live."

We're able to share gorgeous, palatial new cut 'White Coat', and it tingles with a raw, unfettered beauty.

Neatly pieced together, it's a folk-hewn piece of Americana with a pastoral gaze, a gentle, heavenly ditty.

On “White Coat,” Tyler Ramsey Strums His Guitar in the Woods

The former Band of Horses guitarist is releasing his new solo album, For the Morning, in April.

via Flood Magazine

Tyler Ramsey, the former Band of Horses co-songwriter and lead guitarist, announced the release of his first major offering since leaving BoH, For the Morning. The new album was written and produced by Ramsey, inspired by his time spent in the mountains outside Asheville, North Carolina where he lives, amongst a verdant pastoral landscape; sonically, it intertwines country, rock, and folk. Guest musicians who make appearances on the album include Joan Shelley, Thad Cockrell, and Molly Parden to sing harmonies, plus pedal steel player Russ Paul, Nathan Salsburg, and Gareth Liddiard from Tropical Fuck Storm on guitar.

“White Coat” is rife with pretty guitarpicking, the steady thump of a drum like a heartbeat, and Ramsey’s languorous vocals. You can practically see him strolling through the woods with his dog or sitting with his wife on the porch watching the sunset (“You went out across the river to lay down in the sunlight where it filters through the pines”).

“It’s a kind of love song that pulls a lot of visual images from the places I spend my time hiking in Western North Carolina,” Ramsey said of the track. “It’s also a nod to some of the music on my album A Long Dream About Swimming Across the Sea. I had some amazing help with the violin ideas by Scott Moore from Louisville, KY. The middle section was a banjo song I wrote for my daughter that I snuck into the song. I love writing songs that have long compositions and instrumental sections, and ‘White Coat’ developed into one of those songs.”

Listen to the track below.

Ramsey’s 2019 tour began last month in Kentucky and continued this month at SXSW. See the list below for upcoming dates, and pre-order the album here. For the Morning will be released on April 5 via Fantasy Records.

Tyler Ramsey On Tour:

3.21 @ Hendershots Coffee in Athens, GA
3.22 @ New Brookland Tavern in Columbia, SC
3.23 @ WOOFstock in Charleston, SC
4.10 @ FM Kirby Center in Wilkes-Barre, PA
4.11 @ U Street Music Hall in Washington, DC
4.12 @ Motorco Music Hall in Durham, NC
4.13 @ The Earl in Atlanta, GA^
4.14 @ Saturn in Birmingham, AL
4.18 @ The Basement in Nashville, TN
4.20 @ Lo Fi Lounge in Indianapolis, IN
4.24 @ Club Café in Pittsburgh, PA
4.26 @ Iron Horse in Northampton, MA
4.27 @ Higher Ground Showcase Room in Burlington, VT
4.28 @ The Word Barn in Exeter, NH
4.29 @ Great Scott in Boston, MA
5.1 @ Mercury Lounge in New York, NY
5.2 @ World Café Live in Philadelphia, PA
5.3 @ The Southern in Charlottesville, VA
5.4 @ The Evening Muse in Charlotte, NC
5.11 @ Masonic Temple in Asheville, NC
5.20 @ St. Pancras Old Church in London, UK
5.22 @ 1999 in Paris, FR
5.23 @ AB Salon in Brussels, BE
5.25 @ Q Factory in Amsterdam, NL
5.26 @ Silent Green in Berlin, DE
6.13-16 @ Mountain Jam in Bethel, NY

Woofstock Festival combines Charleston’s dog and music lovers

via Post and Courier

Canines and concerts, pups and pulses, barks and beats.

Dog and music lovers alike can join in for this inaugural event at Brittlebank Park. In tune with the 50th anniversary of the popular Woodstock Festival, which rocked New York in 1969 with acts like Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Janis Joplin, “Woofstock” is coming to Charleston.

The all-day kid-friendly and dog-friendly music festival, presented by Lowcountry Dog Magazine, 105.5 The Bridge, 98 Rock and the Charleston Parks Conservancy, will include 7 bands, 6 local dog rescue groups and a variety of food trucks on March 23.

Tyler Ramsey, formerly of Band of Horses, will headline the show. He’s joined by Southeast musicians Tyler Boone, Gaslight Street, Greg West, Hans Wenzel & the Eighty Sixers, Finnegan Bell and Sunflowers & Sin.

Ramsey, who just released single “Firewood” from his upcoming April album “For the Morning,” split from Band of Horses two years ago and has since been pursuing a solo career.

“It had been a decade and we had done a lot of great things together as a band, but I think it had run its course for me,” Ramsey says. “I felt like I wasn’t necessarily able to spend any time on what was super close to my heart, which was music that feels like it’s all me.”

Now residing in the mountains in Asheville, Ramsey talks about how nature has played a role in sparking his creativity, whether it’s North Carolina’s Blue Ridge or Edisto’s beachfront tree boneyard.

“I get a similar feeling when I’m close to the mountains or the ocean,” he says. “There’s a wildness to it, and I feel like I can keep walking forever if I want to.”

It’s during some of those walks in nature, with his 9-year-old Windhound, Clementine, that his song lyrics tend to surface. Clementine is pictured with him on the cover of his new album.

“I love dogs,” Ramsey says. “When we were on tour in Chicago, we stayed with friends who had a dog, and I remember noticing how calming it is to have a dog when you’re touring. It just brings you down to earth.”

It’s fitting he’s playing Woofstock and will be surrounded by some pups and good vibes.

For the dog side of the festival, to entertain those four-legged friends and their owners, there will be training demos with Affordable Dog Training, free dental consults with Sweetgrass Animal Hospital, “Ask a Vet” with Veterinary Specialty Care and more pup-tastic happenings.

“Music and dogs are my biggest passions and combining the two only made sense,” says Lowcountry Dog Magazine Publisher and Woofstock organizer Brian Foster. “Most festivals are not dog-friendly, and hopefully this event will be a success and become a new annual event in the Lowcountry.”

Lowcountry Dog Magazine’s other yearly festivities include Eat, Drink & Rescue in January, the May the Dogs Be With You Festival in May, a Magnolia Plantation adoption event in September and the Dia De Los Perros Festival in November.

Featured food trucks and vendors at Woofstock will be Roti Rolls, Kickin’ Chicken, Immortal Lobster, Dave N Dubs Hot Dogs, Dave’s Barnyard BBQ, Holy City Waffles, King of Pops, Kona Ice, Poppy’s Lemonade and All About That Bean.

There also will be alcoholic beverages for sale from Tito’s Vodka, Boone’s Bourbon, PBR, Lagunitas, Palmetto Brewery and Southern Barrel Brewery.

Gates for Woofstock open at 11 a.m. and the party continues through 7 p.m. Tickets are $26 in advance and $30 at the gate, with kids 12 and under getting in for free. Lawn chairs and blankets are allowed, but no coolers or outside food and drinks. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.lowcountrydog.com/woofstock.

Proceeds from Woofstock will benefit local rescue groups Valiant Animal Rescue, Eunoia Rescue, Pet Helpers, Bullies 2 The Rescue, Greyhound Pets of America and Waters Edge Great Dane Rescue, as well as the Charleston Parks Conservancy.

Away From Band of Horses, Tyler Ramsey Redefines His Process

via Free Times

Amidst the hustle and bustle of a grueling show schedule at South By Southwest, Tyler Ramsey is happy to take a break and just chat music.

The Austin, Texas, multimedia megafest serves as the launching pad for a three-month tour in support of For the Morning, Ramsey’s first full-length release since 2011. Eager to escape the madness, he’s set up camp about 45 minutes outside of town, commuting in daily for shows.

“It feels like we’re out in the middle of the hill country — it’s quiet,” Ramsey says. “So you get a little balance there.”

A search for balance contributed to the Asheville musician’s decision to leave his role as lead guitarist and co-writer for Band of Horses in 2017, wanting to take a break from the road and spend more time at home with his family. The irony of being back out touring a new record isn’t lost on him.

“Having a family and having a daughter, I wish I could stay home and write soundtracks for movies and just send them out to people,” he chuckles. “But this is what I’ve chosen to do.”

Ramsey is the master of his domain for the first time since joining Band of Horses in 2007. No longer is he beholden to the schedule of playing in someone else’s band, allowing him to dictate his own creative timeline. It’s led to more structure in his writing process than he’d previously been comfortable with.

“I always relied on that kind of thing happening whenever it happened … getting a song whenever it happens to show up,” Ramsey offers. “It’s been kind of fun to set some time frames — or try to at least — and get down to my little room down there to work and write. Even if it’s just playing piano or something. It’s been a different pace that’s been rewarding so far.”

For the Morning was born from the time Ramsey was able to carve out of his day-to-day being a father and husband. He spent hours recording demos in the small studio he built on his property at the foot of Mt. Pisgah in North Carolina, then headed to La La Land studios in Louisville to track the final product. The resulting album uses warm piano tones as a through line, evoking the pastoral beauty of the nature surrounding Ramsey’s home.

“Your Whole Life,” the album’s opening track, finds Ramsey at his most pensive. “Have you lived your whole life / Regretting some decision / That you made at a time / A choice was needing to be made?” he asks the listener. It’s easy to construe the line as a musician’s self-doubt, grappling with the hectic life they’ve made for themselves as a result of pursuing their art. But Ramsey insists the lyric isn’t overly autobiographical.

“I’d always rather have people interpret things the way that they want to,” he says with a laugh.

Ramsey’s country influences are dotted across the record, yielding some of its most rewarding moments. “Evening Country” is a gorgeous reworking of “Evening Kitchen”, one of his writing contributions to Band of Horses’ 2010 album Infinite Arms. This version sets itself apart through outlaw-style strummed acoustic guitar, while the vocal harmonies anchor it securely to the source material. “Breaking a Heart” features pedal steel swells that wring tears from the premature end of a relationship, while a 10-second pop hook at the end of each chorus provides a brief respite from the song’s emotional weight.

The lead single, “Firewood”, shows Ramsey further exploring the push and pull between sadness and contentment, both sonically and lyrically. The first two-thirds echo the preceding instrumental, “Darkest Clouds”, establishing a somber mood through haunting layers of fingerpicked guitars. The final minute and a half sees the tempo shift to a groovy time signature, as lead guitar lines sear through the mix. Ramsey sings, “Don’t forget that spring will come back, don’t forget the sun is gonna rise,” entering the song’s final act, allowing a small ray of positivity to peek forth from the darkness — something he tries to focus on in both his writing and life.

“I always want to find that the clouds break and everything is fine forever and ever,” Ramsey says. “But I’ve lived long enough to know that there’s ups and downs … constantly, and you roll with them.”

Friday, March 22
New Brookland Tavern
Columbia, SC

Live at Paste Studio Austin

Watch Tyler Ramsey at Paste Studio Austin, live from the Riverview Bungalows during SXSW. New album, For the Morning, out April 5 on Fantasy Records. Pre-Order HERE.

Former Band of Horses Guitarist Tyler Ramsey Returns With 'Firewood': Exclusive Premiere

via Billboard

Tyler Ramsey prefers to stay mum about the "little bit of a dark time" that preceded For the Morning, the singer and guitarist's first album since leaving Band of Horses in 2017 after a 10-year run. But a track like "Firewood," premiering exclusively below, reflects on coming out of that time.

"It's about trying to remember that there is light and better things coming up," Ramsey, whose wife gave birth to a daughter while the family moved to North Carolina leading up to the album, tells Billboard. "A lot of dynamics were going on in my life at the time with some people I was having to keep coming with. I'm trying to dance around the subject a little bit ... 'cause, really, I'd love to let people decide for themselves what it means to them."

That said, "Firewood" -- with its ringing acoustic guitars, spare arrangement and elegiac melody -- also shows off the spirit of musical adventure Ramsey wanted to apply to For the Morning. "It's a song I worked on for a while," he explains. "It's a story and a cohesive piece, but it's got a lot of levels to it for sure. I always appreciated Paul McCartney or people like that -- their songs came out of nowhere with a new part or new idea. I tried to apply that to [‘Firewood']; it kind of builds steadily and then has this big ending that takes you in a different direction, which is fun to do in a song."

Ramsey started writing the songs on For the Morning -- due April 5 on Fantasy Records -- while he was still in Band of Horses, compiling "fairly thorough demos at home" before taking them into La La Land studios in Louisville. He populated the session with both friends and musicians he hadn't met before, including Russ Paul on pedal steel and Paul Nathan Salsburg and Gareth Liddiars (The Drones) on guitar, while Joan Shelley, Thad Cockrell and Molly Parden provided backing vocals.

"One of the goals was to have people come in and play on it a little more than I'd done in the past," Ramsey explains. "I really wanted some harmony vocals from other people, so I had a great cast of characters come in and sing harmonies and some great instrumentals come in and play. It really elevated the songs, at least for me; when I listen to them, I get super excited about the parts they did. It turned out really cool and was definitely what I hoped to accomplish."

Ramsey is in the midst of a U.S. tour that started back in February and will include performances at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. He then heads to Europe for dates starting May 20 and has signed on to play at Mountain Jam on June 15 in Bethel, N.Y. And while his departure from Band of Horses is "another touchy subject," Ramsey is clearly happy to be the master of his own destiny now.

"This was just something I had to do," he says. "I was in that band for a decade, which is a long time. I wanted to move in a direction where I felt a little more like I was doing something that felt creative. Even boiling down to scheduling with people when you're in a band with five people is hard. It's hard to say no to anything at that point because you don't ever want to take work away from your friends. But after my daughter was born, I wanted to be more selective with my time. So that and wanting to feel more creative made me go in this direction where I'm at now."

Watch the video below.

The Austin 100: NPR

The Austin 100: Tyler Ramsey

Hometown: Asheville, North Carolina

Genre: Americana

Why We're Excited: Tyler Ramsey has reached his widest audience during the years he spent as a guitarist and songwriter in Band of Horses, though he's also enjoyed a creatively fruitful solo career dating back to 2005. Sometimes, that solo work has sounded like the beardily searching, Fleet Foxes-style ballad "1000 Blackbirds," but on his new single "A Dream of Home," the singer and multi-instrumentalist finds a sweet spot that brings to mind the lush folk-rock rambles of Damien Jurado.

Featured Single: Band of Horses’ Tyler Ramsey swoons with “A Dream of Home”

via Ear To The Ground

Tyler Ramsey lives near Asheville, NC and likes to reflect the sweetness of his life, member of the band Band of Horses, in his music. This lush folk rock track is everything that’s right about music production in 2019.

It’s easy to come up with comparisons like Neil Young, but honestly it’s the way that Ramsey’s “complete package” comes together that has us excited. It’s what we love about others in this space like Noah Gundersen and David Ramirez. This single’s got us looking forward to the rest of the music this chill folk rocker has coming soon.

A Dream Of Home, a song by Tyler Ramsey on Spotify

Carl Broemel & Tyler Ramsey in Illinois (A Gallery)

via Relix

My Morning Jacket guitarist Carl Broemel and former Band of Horses lead guitarist Tyler Ramsay recently teamed up for a short duo tour throughout the Midwest. Stephen Bloch shared some photos from the guitarists’ stop at Evanston, IL’s S.P.A.C.E. on Friday night. View the full gallery at Relix.com.