Ryanhood, the folk-pop duo of Ryan Green and Cameron Hood, is back in Tucson a year after the release of its fourth and most recent album, After Night Came Sun.
The local duo is known for its infectious songwriting and extensive touring, having opened for Jason Mraz and Train, as well as performing in small college venues. Following a tour of college campuses across the country to promote Sun, Green and Hood are preparing for a Saturday night performance at the Rialto Theatre. The show will also feature Green and Hood’s respective side projects including The Great Collision and Cameron and Callie, as well as the UA’s men’s acappella group, CatCall. Ecstatic about its first show in Tucson in a year, Ryanhood will look to reconnect with its massive local fan base, and deliver its unique brand of accessible, easygoing folk pop.
What have you guys been up to since After Night Came Sun was released?
We toured in little pieces — we’d go up the West Coast for a month, then go up the East Coast for a couple weeks or something, but largely we haven’t toured this record anywhere near as much as past records because we got burned out on touring.
For an indie band you have a couple different choices. One is you can get a song in a movie or on YouTube and get some kind of buzz phenomenon that gets you through without major label support. Another would be extensive touring where you play everywhere in the U.S. ten times each — or really good management would be a good way to do it. What we did was college touring.
Most universities have a set aside budget just for entertaining their students, but it’s not like a big theater show like Centennial Hall or something. It’s more like a show in a café. We did that a ton, but it wasn’t really fulfilling and it wasn’t really worth being away from home for long periods of time.
Ryanhood is headlining the Rialto show this Saturday, but both you and Ryan have side projects performing as well. What are these projects about?
Since we chose not to tour right now, we’re just involved in other stuff. One of them is Ryan’s project The Great Collision. He’s the singer and songwriter and the main thrust, whereas in Ryanhood I do more of that and he’s the harmonist and blazing guitar guy. This gives him a chance to step out and sing from his heart, and kind of let people get to know him more. It’s a little bit more dreamy, cinematic than Ryanhood, which is more folk-stomp pop.
I’ve got just a little side project with my friend Carlie, who I just think has a honey voice, and she doesn’t really have aspirations to be a rock star. We actually have a Christmas record coming out. Initially we made it for our family and friends, but we thought it was good enough to release.
Are you excited to work with CatCall? What will their involvement be with the show?
It’s awesome. They picked one of our songs “Around the Sun,” totally unknown to us, to use in their competition. We heard about that and gave them rights to do that and they put it on their newest CD. We worked with them a little bit in the past but this time it was like, “Why don’t you come be our background singers?” They’re all of that for this show; they’re filling in all those kind of meaty backup parts. We’re going to do a couple songs with them a cappella, where they’re our band. It’s kind of flattering when you’re a band and another band is like, “Hey, we like you enough to record your song on our CD and to do it at competitions.” So we’re charmed. I like the connection with the U of A. CatCall is awesome. They belong to the U of A and it’s our way of connecting and saying, “I went here. This is my hometown.”
Follow us on Twitter @wildcatarts and follow Grant @IsThisGrant Hull.
