Ryan Calder Band

Crazy World is the oldest song on the album.

I started writing it over two years ago while on holiday in Cape Town. I remember the vast, crazy contrast while I was there: the immense opulence of Camps Bay versus the in-your-face drags of Khayelitsha. I remember how foreign both ways of life were to me. I pondered over it for weeks. In the end, (more…)

It’s not often that I get to just sit and play guitar, but on this particular Saturday afternoon, I was strumming the chords that would become this song when Tam walked into the room and started singing spontaneously.

I remember we’d both been pretty busy and it was nice to just be at home, with no agenda for the day. Tam walked in, heard the chords and said, (more…)

It was inevitable that the engineer who mastered the album – Brent Quintin – would pick out the E9 chord at the beginning of Wide Open World.

“Hey Earle, what does this sound like?” he asks his fellow Sesalos engineer.

“Welcome to the real world!” Earle bursts out, reciting the John Mayer classic. (more…)

I’ve long been a fan of Eric Clapton.

Now I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. This is not a lyrical derivative of Wonderful Tonight, although I sometimes wonder if those kind of songs just lie dormant in our sub-conscience and make their way to the surface in subtle ways. As the band tells me, everything we listen to influences the music we create, some of it is just more dominant.

In actual fact, it was the (more…)

This song was the first one penned for the new album, about four years ago. It was one of those songs which very quickly had a structure, but developed slowly lyrically… so much so that it was only completed last year.

So for those who don’t know, my beautiful wife Tamlyn Mary is the inspiration behind this tune. Without boring you with too many details, Tam and I met at a time when I was fairly rogue. (more…)

This was a song which was birthed out of the music. The songwriting process is a strange one, because there’s never any true way of knowing when and where inspiration will come from. I’ve resolved to follow Bob Dylan’s advice and make a conscientious effort to hang around the ink well.

When I penned this song, it came out of a (more…)

There really is nothing like the sounds of Africa… particularly African rhythm: that lilted 4/4 which most of us wit ous know through the likes of Johnny Clegg.

Yes, he was a big musical influence on this song… rhythmically it was Spirit of the Great Heart and musically it was also Scatterlings of Africa. I thought we only just started to (more…)

My good mate Brad and I were sitting on the patio outside at my in-laws’ farm near Albert Falls, jamming and fiddling around on our acoustic guitars. It was one of those real lazy afternoons, where kids and adults were all over the place doing their own thing in the afternoon winter sunshine. (more…)

The last song to be written ended up as the first song on the album.

I enjoy some of the chords in Jim Croche songs, and for this song the inspiration was the same sequence from the chorus of Time In A Bottle, which runs down the D scale. Except for On The Edge, the rhythm is more upbeat.

I remember it so clearly, sitting on my bed in my room with pen and paper on my lap, trying to finish the song by putting words that matched the mood of the rhythm and the chords. I knew what I wanted the song to be about, but just couldn’t find an opening line. (more…)