Ryan Sweezey

Starting Over came out of one of the most creatively intense periods of my life.

After college, I was living outside Boston and pursuing music full time. The end of a five-year relationship had sent me into a prolific stretch of songwriting, while nights at places like the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge introduced me to a community of songwriters who pushed me to get better. I started thinking more critically about structure, lyrics and what made a song connect with people beyond my own experience.

“Bartender” was the song that changed things for me. It was one of the first times I finished something and thought, I didn't know I could write a song like that.

After a couple of false starts trying to record the next project, I began working with producer George Woods in late 2015. We deliberately set out to make a pop album, and George challenged me to be more ruthless about editing my songs, rethink arrangements I had grown attached to, and approach my vocals as performances rather than simply singing the notes correctly. Some changes were easier for me to embrace than others, but the experience fundamentally changed the way I made records.

We recorded the bulk of the album in early 2016 at The Record Company in Boston, funded in part through my first crowdfunding campaign. “Bartender” arrived that September, followed by “Alright (For a Little While)” and “Late Is the Hour.”

Then, just as the record was finally ready, my life changed completely.

After years of trying to build a music career around Boston, I moved to Vermont in October 2016. Suddenly I was starting from scratch in a place where I had almost no musical connections or audience. When Starting Over was released in January 2017, its title meant something very different than it had when I chose it.

Looking back, the album sits at a turning point. I became a more deliberate songwriter, a more expressive singer and a more collaborative recording artist while making it.

Then I had to figure out where all of that would take me next.

Starting Over

Listen On

The Story

CREDITS


CD Download	In cart Not available Out of stock

Starting Over

Ryan Sweezey

CD Download

Listen On

The Story

CREDITS