Artist Interview: David Ramirez
The Austin-based singer-songwriter talks about his current tour and upcoming album, his music career “unquitting,” and more.
David Ramirez. Photo credit: Starla Dawn Photo.
Austin-based David Ramirez is heading back on tour with Dylan LeBlanc, with a stop at the Parkway Theater on January 28th. In anticipation of his March 21st release All The Not So Gentle Reminders, Ramirez reflects about his two newest singles, unrequited love, gratitude, his first cassette tape, and the motivating camaraderie of touring with Dylan LeBlanc, which reignited his love for music and derailed his plans on quitting. We also discussed an upcoming movie starring Ramirez, the future of his band Glorietta, his landmark shows in Minnesota, and the age-old question about a plumber from Arkansas.
Tom Smouse: As a musician, there are cycles of writing music, recording, touring, and then releasing new music. Do you have a favorite part of that cycle?
David Ramirez: I just look forward to working and being busy. Writing is different from the studio, and then playing live is different from writing, but I adore the whole thing. If I had all the money in the world, I would be in the studio six months out of the year and on the road for the other six. It's just really fun to see things evolve and little tiny nuggets that pop into your brain of a line or a thought or a story, and then you get to flesh that out in the studio and then put it on stage.
TS: Congrats on your second single release “I Got People.” This song is such a contrast of celebrating that you have this community of people, but at the same time, there’s a little melancholy of missing one person. I had a lightbulb moment when listening to that song, thinking back to “Bad Days” and “Find the Light.” Over your career you’ve excelled at addressing both sides of a feeling in your songs. There can be this melancholy element, but there’s always the counterpart of hope. “I Got People” straddles both sides of the spectrum. Tell me about that song.
DR: I had fallen in love with someone and it wasn’t mutual. I try my best to live in gratitude and be thankful for my life and the people within my life, but you get down and out if there’s one individual that you would devote your entire calendar and schedule to. She’d come around from time to time and it would light me up and it was just beautiful and sweet. But she didn’t love me; I think she was just having a good time. So I wouldn’t hear from her when she didn’t want to be heard from, but when she did, it was full tilt and I was just clearing my schedule and wouldn’t make plans with anybody because on the off chance that she would call. I have really good friends and a really good family, and so my phone would ring, but I wouldn’t answer because I wanted her to call.
So one night that just popped into my head: “I got people,” they’re calling, and I love them and they’re great, but I want you. That's where it all came from. However, as melancholy as that sounds, my favorite part of the song is the bridge. Maybe it’s because my experience with a lot of failed relationships is to find joy and gratitude for them even happening at all. So when the bridge picks up and all the strings come out and it’s just beautiful and musical. That's my favorite part about the song and the story is, yeah, I don't have you, but I'm thankful that we even had a moment together. I got hurt a few years back and I thought that I was broken, and even though this last one didn’t work out, it felt really great to know that I could love again, and my heart was not cold and chipped:
In the midst of this crooked world
Topsy-turvy tilt-a-whirl
I got one thing on my mind …
Giving thanks to all my lucky stars for letting me hang just a little longer to look you in the eyes
TS: Back in January 2023, it sounds like you were close to quitting music, even calling your manager and asking them to cancel any future bookings. Keeping your current dates, you went out on the road with Dylan LeBlanc, which ironically ties back to this upcoming tour with him. Dylan had a profound effect on your decision to un-quit during that prior run of shows. Was there a specific moment you can identify when you changed your mind?
DR: I’m not sure what day of the tour it was, but it was early on. We were doing the same thing that we’re about to do: a co-headline tour where we swap nights. I’d open one night and he’d open the next night. There was this one evening where he did his 90-minute opening set and then came into the green room, drenched in sweat. He’d played his ass off and crushed, and it was a standing ovation, and he came in and he was talking shit, and he said, try to top that, bro. I said, excuse me. He said, standing ovation opening.
I tried to top it and it lit a fire under my ass and put me to work, and it was a friendly, competitive thing, and just that simple pleasure of wanting to impress your best friend and play the best show you've ever played, made me fall in love and have a good time behind the microphone in a way that I hadn’t had for a minute.
TS: You’ve also mentioned that you owe it to your parents, not throwing in the towel. Your first new single “The Music Man” pays tribute to your father, who gifted you a Walkman. What was 10-year-old David listening to back then? And can you pinpoint an album or musician that really kind of opened your brain to becoming someone that wants to write music?
DR: Well, the first cassette he gave me when he gifted me the Walkman was The Cars’ Greatest Hits. And the whole cassette is great. I mean, it’s their greatest hits, and that band is amazing. But the song “Drive” was on repeat. And for some reason as a 10-year-old, I just gravitated towards that moody, vibey, melancholy stuff.
I didn’t pick up guitar and start writing until I met some kids my senior year who were all theater and choir folks, and they were all in bands. I think my push to pick up an instrument and start writing was mostly because the people around me were doing it. But my father is probably the biggest influence musically for me. He’s not a musician, nor does he write, but he’s so devoted to music and hunting down new things and introducing me to all the old greats and legends. I owe him so much. By the time I was 14, he was showing me Fiona Apple, which is, in my mind, too young for someone to be understanding or trying to process her feelings and her emotions.
So by the time I did pick up a pen, that’s where my heart went: to the melancholy and the pain. But it was also, I dunno, laced in hope, which is my mother’s side of the story; she likes soul and country music.
TS: As someone who’s appreciated your music since American Soil, even digging back into the Human and 11503 Lansbury albums, it’s a huge pleasure to have followed your sound and evolution as a songwriter. We’ve heard you lean into hymns, R&B, folk, and rock throughout the years, while still maintaining a lyricism that always hits home. Can you give us an idea of where your newest album, All the Not So Gentle Reminders is going to take us?
DR: It’s a dreamscape, this record. I love all the songs on this album and all the lyrics and all the stories. I pushed myself in a way that I hadn’t in a minute. And so I love all that. But what I really wanted to do was, for the first time, write something like a movie score. So there’s an intro song with no lyrics, just a piano ballad that builds with a bunch of orchestration, and there are long outros to songs. I will always focus on lyrics, on the story, but for the first time, I wanted to tell stories with music in a way I hadn’t done before.
It’s kind of a wakeup call to admit yes, there are things that I’ve been through in my life that I’m not necessarily proud of or that still bring me pain, but not to be afraid of the reminders that kind of tap you on the shoulder and force you to look in the mirror or your past. It’s one of the most hopeful and beautiful records I’ve made.
TS: In 2010, the movie Between Notes came out and it gave your song “Argue with Heaven” a boost. I know you’ve recently spent some time shooting with Ryan Booth, whom you worked with on your own documentary. Any hints of the new movie release date? Is it going to feature any songs off your new album? Did you write songs for that movie?
DR: I think most of those questions are above my pay grade. It’s Ryan’s film, and I know they’re editing right now, but I haven’t seen any of it. But yes, I got to play the lead, and it’s a music-based film, and I wrote all the music that’s performed in it. I threw in a couple old songs, but most of it is new music written specifically for the movie.
TS: I’ve had the privilege of seeing some really impactful shows of yours over the years. Is there anything that stands out about touring through Minnesota? Favorite spots, venues?
DR: I mean, playing the Turf Club is always a delight. There's just something about walking through that back door. The staff is unlike any other. I adore Turf Club and I love all the shows I’ve had the opportunity to play there. I got to open for my friend Shakey Graves at First Avenue, and that was mind-blowing. I’ve played 7th Street Entry quite a bit, and I will say CC Club is one of my favorite bars in the country. I think the first time I ever played Minneapolis was opening up for Drew Holcomb at the Triple Rock.
TS: Is there another project in the future for Glorietta, your supergroup founded by Matthew Logan Vasquez?
DR: Oh, no. Glorietta was intentionally meant to be a one and done. When Vasquez and I end up in the same town, or if he has a show or I have a show and he wants to come be a guest, then we do throw down a couple of Glorietta songs. But it was an ambitious endeavor that worked out really, really well. And it’s his grandchild, but everybody who’s involved has their own careers and very, very busy schedules. And so I think the way that he was able to get all of us was by setting an expiration date.
It was really great; I’m not sure I’ll ever be a part of anything like that again. I’ve never been a part of a band. There are people who have played with me and who still do, but it’s my name on the marquee, not a band. And so to step back and just play guitar and sing some harmonies and do a couple tunes and work out every little part with a whole group was life-changing. I’m not sure I’ll have an experience like that ever again, which is a bummer.
TS: What motivates you to continue to write? What keeps you going?
DR: I mean, that motivation changes every few years. When I was younger, the goal was to have a career, and then the goal changed to I want to be the best American songwriter of all time. But the older I get, the more I do it, the more I’ve learned about who I am as a human and how I operate in the world, and I’m just very, very desperate to understand myself more. I find that understanding comes when I look myself in the mirror and ask the question, who am I? And what do I believe? Then I get to write it down and sing it, and I just get to understand myself better.
In a world where we will never fully understand each other, not you and I, or our partners or our parents—it would take a lifetime to try to be understood by someone else—I find it to be such a beautiful endeavor to understand oneself; what makes you tick, what makes you move? Right now I just want to understand me. And I think the only way that any of us can actually do that is by creating. I mean, therapy sure helps for sure, but to create, if everyone were to just do a couple hours a week, and it doesn't have to be with the intention of having a career or being in showbiz or making records, but just to sit down and struggle with oneself, the outcome is self-understanding and what a beautiful gift that is. So my motivation now is just to know myself more. I adore it so much.
David Ramirez at Raccoon Motel, 2022. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
TS: The last question I have to try and at least ask (long-time fans, if you know you know): Has the plumber down in Arkansas released that CD yet?
DR: [chuckling] If he has, then I’m not aware. There was a brief moment, I think it was two years ago, I was in Durham, North Carolina, and this guy approached me after the show and said, I think I know who you're talking about in that song. I’m going to call a friend and see if I can hunt it down. It was the most excited I’d been in so, so long. I was like, don’t fuck with me, dude. You think so? And he made some phone calls, we exchanged numbers. He came back and was like, I think I was thinking of the wrong person.
No, I’m not sure I’ll ever see that fellow again. But from that moment I shared with him, I don’t think that that was something he really cared to do.
TS: Well, thank you for your time, David. This has meant a lot to me, and I’m excited that you un-quit.
DR: It’s all motivation, thank you. I think I got it twisted for a minute, and I’m glad that I’ve realigned with the importance of just creating, and I hope I never go through that curiosity ever again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Smouse. Photo credit: Chris Taylor.
Tom Smouse is an innovative collaborator with 20 years of experience in the Minnesota music industry. As a professional photographer, podcaster, and music journalist, sharing stories from the community remains his core passion. When not at a show you can find him at a record store.
