FAISAL RYAN | INTERVIEW + TRACK REVIEW
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Faisal Ryan doesn't write like someone chasing a scene, he writes like someone who has already lived through a few. The Brisbane songwriter and producer treats a song the way a builder treats a house, one line laying the foundation for the next, an hour later the whole thing standing up on its own. There's a quiet confidence to that method. He hears the finished song in his head before the ink dries, and the production instincts he's sharpened over years now sit alongside the writing rather than fighting it.
The new EP is a deliberate pivot. He calls it a Viking funeral to the 60s pop and rock that shaped him, moving toward dance punk and heavier territory, unlearning his own love of distortion and echo in favour of performances that speak for themselves. Along the way he's had to sit with the same song for four years, chase melodies that sound slightly wrong on purpose, and get comfortable letting hooks do the slow burn work of hiding meaning in plain sight. In the interview below he talks about tension and release, the Neil Young approach to capture over polish, and why most art is never finished, just abandoned.
TRACK REVIEW - SHE SIGHS
She Sighs opens on an angsty drum pattern and a guitar progression that walks in like it already knows where it's going. Then the vocals arrive with a high harmony doubled underneath and the whole thing lifts. There's a happy, pop vibe threaded through the track but it never leans too far into pop.
The snare tone is the real trick. It's a colour choice you don't hear often, unique in a way that keeps pulling your ear back. Paired with a persistent tambourine it carries the verse without ever giving anything away. Nothing lets go until the chorus, and when it does the whole track elevates.
Your earlier work often seemed to begin with a scene, a person or something you observed in Brisbane. Has production changed the way you write, where you now hear the sonic world before you understand what the song is actually about?
I never really sit down and think about a story or character. I just start with one line which leads to the next and an hour later I have a song. Production has really pulled me in, in terms of structure and knowing how long verses and choruses are, but I do tend to hear a finished song in my head when I finish writing.
There's often a battle between the songwriter who wants to preserve the first emotional instinct and the producer who knows a song could be improved. How do you recognise the difference between refining an idea and slowly editing the life out of it?
I think it's a balance of both. I try to record as much as I can to capture the emotional performance and energy from that initial burst of creativity, then I'll leave for a day or two, and my producer instincts will help pick apart what needs rerecording, what stays, and what needs to be added. If I have the time, I'll sit with a song until I think it's time to release it cause most art isn't finished; it's just abandoned.
Your influences are known for making strange choices feel immediately catchy. When you're writing, what excites you more: discovering a melody that feels inevitable or finding one that initially sounds slightly wrong?
Always slightly wrong; it catches people's ears before they think about it, and it creates tension, so they will listen for the release. A lot of great songs have odd melodies and riffs, but it's often just tension and release.
A lot of alternative rock relies on distortion and volume to create intensity. What production choice have you discovered can make a song feel heavier without simply making everything louder?
The biggest choice is usually between reverb and delay, choosing what needs to be drenched and what needs to be lightly sprinkled, along with a chorusing effect to help thicken up bass and vocals; it gives me the sound of doubled vocals like John Lennon without the hassle of recording twice.
You've described yourself as someone who writes from real experiences but draws on older memories to complete the picture. Do you think songwriting preserves the truth of an experience, or inevitably rewrites it every time you return to the memory?
Depends on how personal the memory is and how much you want to share it with the world. I think memories always change the further you get away from them; time and age will do that naturally. I think songwriting preserves the memory at a point of time when it was felt most.
There's a particular confidence required to leave an unusual sound, imperfect vocal or uncomfortable lyric untouched. What have you become less afraid of as a producer and songwriter?
I've stepped back from making the performance perfect, like, making live drums sound like a machine and the guitars and bass sound squeaky clean and the vocals tuned and cleaned to hell and back, and moved to a more Neil Young approach of capture the performance and clean up what needs to be cleaned up and let the song and performance speak for itself.
Some songs arrive with obvious potential, while others reveal themselves only after months of work. Have you ever nearly abandoned a song that eventually taught you something important about your own creative identity?
Probably I'll Find You from my latest EP. It has about 120 tracks, and I've been trying to record it for about four years with no luck but somehow, I persevered and made a version of it I liked, and it taught me to never give up on a good song.
Your music balances sharp observation with hooks that can survive outside the story surrounding them. Do you ever worry that making something too catchy can hide what you're actually trying to say?
I don't mind it being too catchy cause one day you'll be singing it and it'll hit you that this song is more than a catchy hook, and you'll look deeper into the lyrics and find out more. It's a slow burn technique, but it seems to work for the greats.
As a solo artist, you can build a song privately without negotiating every decision with a band. Has that freedom made your music more instinctive, or has having nobody there to challenge an idea made you more demanding of yourself?
Both; my instincts help me keep true to the core of the song and not stray into wall of sound territory, but when I've recorded my song in full I like to challenge myself and see what I can add and take or manipulate to make it sound a bit different from the last song and better than the next song.
The last time we spoke, Blue Hands felt like an artist becoming more intentional with structure, pacing and identity. Since then, what have you had to unlearn to move closer to the songwriter and producer you want to become?
This EP is kind my Viking funeral to the 60's pop and rock with a youthful twist and I'm moving more towards dance punk and heavier music, so I've been focusing on making every instrument in the mix as bold and even as possible, I've had to unlearn my love of distortion, echo and compression and lean more into capturing a performance and cleaning it up a little which was a million miles away from where I started.
A POEM
The best way to describe this EP is a little Poem I wrote.
The last breaths of a younger poet
Who thought life was a Rubik's cube and solved it
To an audience of empty chairs folded
Now all that's left is a mind full
Of times when it was beautiful
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