Artist: Ryanhood (Ryan David Green & Cameron Hood)
Hometown: Tucson, Arizona
Song: “Appy Returns”
Album: Under The Leaves
Release Date: April 16, 2021
In Their Words: “I love instrumental music, having grown up on electric gunslingers like Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson, and later becoming infatuated with acoustic masters like BĂ©la Fleck and Chris Thile. While most of our repertoire features vocals, weâve been peppering our live concerts with instrumentals for years. I came up with the main theme for this one in a green room, just before a show back in 2016. I continued to tinker with it for years until I realized the main motif had some similarities to another instrumental of ours, ‘Appy Jam,’ which is a staple of our live set. I decided to lean into this resemblance and make it a full-blown sequel, referencing some of the rhythmic motifs and phrasings from the original, but taking the listener on a whole new journey. What made the song especially challenging to write was the fact that getting together to play-test it wasnât always possible due to COVID-19. So I used music notation software to make ‘digital versions’ of each of our parts. This allowed us to practice playing the song (with our digital counterpart) for a couple of weeks before going into the studio and cutting our guitars together.” — Ryan David Green
Photo credit: Taylor Noel Mercado
