Forcing an album may be the biggest mistake a musician can make. And we can all probably think of a prominent musician or two who has been guilty of it. Local singer-songwriter Ryan Dunlap didn't want to fall into that trap, so when things weren't going according to plan with his second full length — that is still set to be a full-band, electric project due out late this summer — he stepped away and instead recorded a stripped-down four-song EP, Love is Letting Go, which was released February 12. TCP caught up with Dunlap to talk about taking a break from an album that wasn't shaping up the way he envisioned, how the EP helped him regain his focus and his songwriting process.
How has your sound or style changed or progressed since your 2010 full-length?
The writing is a lot better. The last one was decent, but I've grown up a lot: It's more detailed, but I'm able to say more with less words. But they were different times, two different albums. This is more of a true singer-songwriter album; it is just two guitars. The next project I'm working on is going in more of a folk rock direction. The only reason we even did this album is that when I started working on the second full-length, we kept running into speed bump after speed bump. I wanted to get something out there. I was playing songs live that I had not recorded and people were asking about them.
Were you planning on recording the songs on Love is Letting Go with the full band on the next project? Or were these kind of live songs without a home?
The one, "Traci's Song," has been around for years and I never knew what I wanted to do with it. I really wasn't sure where it would fit. The biggest thing I've learned from the [full band] project I'm currently working on is to keep things how you want them, to a point: Listen to other people's ideas and open the songs up, but there were a few times we got too into what we were doing, kept messing around with a song, when we should have left it alone, leaving it clean and stripped.
Has stepping away from the electric project by recording Love is Letting Go helped you clear your head and have a fresh perspective for the upcoming electric album?
It has definitely given me time to think about those songs. Since we have taken a break [from the electric project] and I wrote the songs on Love is Letting Go, it has me thinking that maybe I don't want to do as much of the full-band songs, maybe keep it more quiet.
During the gap between albums, are you constantly writing or do the creative floodgates open and close?
It's usually constant. I don't sit down and write, especially now. I think more of words and rhythms and let them snowball, until I'm singing the whole song in my head — then the hard part comes, when I say, 'Shit, I've got to put music to this thing that's stuck inside my head.'
Love is Letting Go and Dunlap's debut, Sometimes the World's Just Ugly, are available on Spotify.
