Shiny Joe Ryan on his second album, the ‘Ketamine’ music video and the recreation of that Gough Whitlam photo
Shiny Joe Ryan chats with us about his new album Shiny’s Democracy
Photo: Duncan Wright
After seven long years of dormancy, Pond’s Shiny Joe Ryan made a triumphant return last month with the release of his second solo album, Shiny’s Democracy. Eager to discover more, I had a chat with him and delved into the world of his latest offering.
With it’s memorable title and album art, there’s a lot to unpack with Shiny’s Democracy before even heading onto the music. Shiny Joe explains that the album’s title was inspired by “that Guns ‘N’ Roses record, Chinese Democracy, purely for the fact that [it took] Guns ‘N’ Roses like twenty-something years to put it out,” therefore referencing the seven years since the last Shiny Joe Ryan album, Shiny Joe Ryan & The Cosmic Microwave Background. This title choice could also be attributed to the fact that Shiny Joe admits himself to be “definitely one for a good pun”.
Meanwhile, Shiny Joe informs me that the album art is “inspired by a photo from the mid-70s of [the Australian] Prime Minister Gough Whitlam having parliament be dissolved”. For our non-Australian readers, this was a “huge thing [in Australia], that hasn’t been done before or since”, and it should also be noted that it “wasn’t completely legal”.
Inspired, Shiny Joe figured “not only could I get as many friends as possible in my album cover, but I could try and recreate [the Gough Whitlam photograph]”. He states proudly that “everyone did really bloody well, it’s like the spitting image of it.” Shiny Joe then fondly recounts “getting all [his] mates out on a really nice sunny day in winter” with “like 2 cartons of beer [for] everyone”, reminiscing that it was “lots of laughs for sure” and ultimately “just a lot of fun”.
Shiny’s Democracy carries such a distinct, strong sound that I was intrigued to discover what musical influences laid beneath.
Shiny Joe concludes that, although he listens to a “ton of very different [music]”, one influence would definitely be Beck, specifically “The Information, or really any kind of Beck album, its style, high definition country, or pop country.” Shiny Joe also adds that he’s still influenced by his “usual diet of Motorik Krautrock, German 60s and 70s Psych”.
Given the personal nature of many of the lyrics, I was curious as to whether any specific experiences inspired songs on the album. Shiny Joe explains that “there’s a lot of stuff about travelling around, I’ve been on various adventures around the world and sort of drawing on that experience”, he expands that this could “possibly [be] because we couldn’t really go anywhere here in Australia, we were kind of stuck in our own country, drawing on past travelling experiences”.
Shiny Joe further explains, adding he was “writing loosely about what I’ve learned about love and relationships and friendships and that kind of thing. I’ve been asked a few times if there’s anything politically charged about the record but — aside from the art — not really. Just songs about life things, you know?”.
During our chat, Shiny Joe reflects on the impact the pandemic had on his creative process with the album, acknowledging that “it certainly helped in a really weird way — mainly by just keeping me in one place”. He explains that “it was looking like it was going to be a jam-packed couple of years for Pond and Tame Impala (who he roadies for, alongside playing in Pond), with the release of Slow Rush (Tame Impala) and the upcoming release of Pond 9.”
“It would’ve been another few years until I finished [the album] if it wasn’t for the COVID19 outbreak.” He recounts flying “straight back from America, getting back [around] 20 hours before borders closed in Australia, and it was a close call.”
After, Australia went straight into a 4-week lockdown. In this time Shiny Joe recalls getting all his “sleeping in and all that business done. And by the time we were allowed people round again I invited members of the band over.”
Ultimately, Shiny Joe concluded that the pandemic had helped him by giving him “time”: “Time to think about [the album] and write the songs, time to record and finish [the album], and time to do all the photos, all that kind of stuff takes quite a bit of time”.
He concludes that they’ve been “very lucky over here, we haven’t had too many lockdowns, very few infections in WA. We’ve been very lucky and it’s certainly not taken for granted how lucky we are”.
Shiny Joe went through the process of making the album with me. Explaining, at “the end of 2019 I went into the studio with my band and also Jay Watson and James Ireland from Pond and they gave me a hand. We all tracked the songs instrumentally, so no singing or anything, at the studio road. And then the plan was to take it home to my little home studio to finish off vocals and overdub keyboards and guitars. I didn’t know when that was gonna happen. And then COVID came up and everyone was kind of stuck, so it was kind of a weird blessing in disguise, just having an album to finish and whatnot.” He fondly reminisces that “it was so much fun in the actual studio, recording with all the band.”
The Ketamine music video is so much fun to watch, so inevitably I was curious if it was equally fun to make. Shiny Joe clarifies that it was “a terrible amount of fun to make”; he had “a great time” and they “knocked it all out in like 2 days or something, so it was good.”
However, for all of its fun, the process of making the video entailed “jumping into the water fully clothed” and Shiny Joe admits it “illustrated how unfit [he] had become”, with him feeling “very puffed out” at the end of every take. Ever optimistic, Shiny Joe concludes that this was “a nice sort of wake up call to do some exercise.”
As a long time Pond fan, I was intrigued to discover the similarities and differences he had found between creating for Pond and Shiny Joe Ryan. Shiny Joe explains that “I kind of just know in my brain which ones gonna be Pond and which ones gonna be Shiny Joe Ryan. So there wasn’t really too much contention over that at the moment.”
“One of the tracks that was gonna be on Shiny’s Democracy got used on Pond 9 instead. We’re still dropping some singles from [Pond 9] but hopefully, it’s gonna be out in October, the new Pond album. It’s gonna be an interesting one, it was quite a lot of fun to record. We all just sort of went back to that studio where we recorded Shiny’s Democracy and all of us set up, just recorded a bunch of random jams, and then went back and cut up all the bits and made songs out of them, like a good 10 seconds of a 15-minute freakout.”
“It was good though, a very different method of creating songs for us, which is nice to push into new territory. It was different — jamming and chopping up songs for Pond, and teaching my band and mates all of my songs. It’s kind of left hand, right hand. Quite a few differences, but they were both an amazing amount of fun,” he recounts, noting the obvious fun to be had in a band like Pond.
With creating for Shiny Joe Ryan, he clarifies that he “taught everyone the parts, but everyone in my band are great musicians so they were able to sort of let it off, I wasn’t like micromanaging them. They could do their nice infections and bring their style to the instrument. I think that was nice because everyone got to relax a bit and make some wonderful mistakes and all kinds of stuff.” Shiny Joe also humorously points out that unlike with Pond, he’s “in charge if things go wrong in Shiny Joe Ryan”.
The night before Shiny’s Democracy was released, Shiny Joe performed at a local festival and played “the whole record from start to finish”, as a “sneak preview kind of thing”. He happily reveals that “it was a lot of fun. Did the whole thing from start to finish and it was terrific, there are quite a few fun songs on there for sure. But I get to play this one song called Yes Song, Jay Watson does the drums on it at the end and I get to play it live so that’s a lot of fun. Me attempting to play the drums is something fun to watch.”
Going forward, Shiny Joe leaves open the possibility of doing “shows around Australia next year”, as well as considering working out “some kind of solo routine so if I ever find myself with a day off in London or LA, or wherever my travels take me, (when I’m allowed to travel again) I can just throw together something interesting and small, a solo show.” But for the time being, we have plenty of Shiny Joe Ryan content to fulfil us, with Shiny’s Democracy to relish in as well as the upcoming Pond album, Pond 9, to look forward to.
Shiny’s Democracy is out now via Spinning Top Records.
