elevatedmole said:
It's really a pity that Love is Hell wasn't Ryan's full, new album, because it really is better.
Way to go, Lost Highway!
Some quotes from Ryan about it...
"Love Is Hell kind of had - has - the potential to be a doomy record that can befriend people who are in a doomy place. And that wasn't a career move that my label felt like I needed to make at that time. I was going through a lot of personal things, a lot of heaviness. All you have to do is listen to the album, and all the answers are there."
"When I turned in [Love Is Hell], they went, 'It sounds like The Smiths.' And I'm like, 'That's a huge fucking compliment. Of course you don't like it. You live in Nashville.' I'm on a major label, but I should be on an indie. The money's the same, and the fame doesn't fucking mean shit. At least on an indie I'd get to make the art I want to make."
"I turned [Love Is Hell] in, and the record company were not excited about it. They said it wasn't my best stuff. Certain people thought I would really fuck myself by releasing that record. They weren't used to me doing music that wasn't male-driven classic rock."
"[Lost Highway] thought [Love Is Hell] was excessive. But I wanted to make a really fucked up and excessive record. Jesse Malin said it reminded him of Tonight's The Night. It was very damaged, and I loved how disturbing it was. I was in a deep depression, and I wasn't dealing with it. That was a really interesting place to be, and that's where the record came from."
"[Lost Highway] thought I was too drugged out and was leading them on a wild goose chase with an album that was unreleasable. So they sent us to New Orleans with John Porter to re-do it."
"I thought I'd reached the most radical, different, and honest I could be about my feelings on Love Is Hell. And it was rejected. The one thing I had ever done that doesn't owe shit to anybody else except for a few borrowed Smiths riffs, and they didn't want it. Those songs are me going out of my head. I made this totally bombed-out record about killing yourself. And they didn't get it. They didn't hear a single."
"I quit. I said, 'Fuck you guys.' I got really angry. [Lost Highway] already had four records of mine sitting in the can. I was already in a depression, and that was it."