Formed in 2013, The Other Words made waves with a unique blend of pop, folk, and country. The band is led by Aaron Crankshaw and Jenna Ryin, whose combined vocals provide a bridge between the twang of old rock and the powerful soul of today’s pop and blues. Accompaniment includes talented banjo/guitar player, Choco Freta, energetic upright bass player, Steve Friar, and Sam Light who plays everything from harmonica and mandolin to slide guitar. With the addition of dynamic percussionist Dave Sussman, the band’s energy and sound gives The Other Words a style all their own.
In this interview, we have a virtual sit down with The Other Words to discuss influences, their history, and, of course, their newest project.
Full Q&A, links, and their video for “Days Like Gold” below.
Let’s dive a little deeper into You, the artist and your music. What attracted you to this genre(s) or style(s)?
The story of how we came to be in the country/folk/indie genre is actually complete happenstance. Jenna and I met at an open mic by pure coincidence and began writing together about 3 years ago. We had an independent investor reach out about making a demo and so before we even knew what we had we were in studio cutting a record. We had an idea of the sound we were going for ie Mumford or Lumineers type vibe at first, as we grew as a band we started to find our own sound and we feel we have a nice blend that ranges from Bluegrass to Pop Country. Simply put we loved the stories and the honesty in country music but wanted to do it our own way. We didn’t want it to be all bubblegum and love stories.
What led you into this journey with music? And further, what drives you to push it out to the public?
Almost everyone in the band and that would be all 6 of us have loved music since we were young. All of us had been in several different bands before coming together for The Other Words. Music had such a profound influence on all of us and really helped to shape us not just into the musicians we became but also the people we are today. We feel that we just want to put something positive out into the world, there is so much bad shit happening it seems like that people need things like music just to help get them through it, we write and perform with our hearts on our sleeves, when we put something out its apart of us and extension of who we are as artists and all we can hope for is ours fans will feel that and connect w the music.
Who or what influences your creativity? Have your tastes in music changed over time?
Most of our families were the early influence on us for music, personally speaking (this is Aaron BTW) my dad always had an old nylon string guitar just sitting around the house and I used to pick it up and just wail on that thing, I of course had no idea what I was doing but didn’t matter I just remember loving it regardless. In addition to that there were all these chord books around everything from The Eagles and Jimmy Buffet to Alan Jackson and Randy Travis. I think one of our greatest assets as a band is we all sort of came into it with different styles, so everyone brings their own flavor to the table. Their are 6 of us and we operate democratically as a band, everyone has a voice and we take each idea to the table with an open mind and try our best to make it all work with in the constructs of the song. Influences range from bands like The Stones and The Beatles to Garth Brooks and Fleetwood Mac, we’ve even thrown some punk into some of our songs from time to time. Its a melting pot of different ingredients.
Were you trying to accomplish anything specific on this new project? Creatively or otherwise?
Creatively we are always trying to push ourselves to be unique and to put out songs that are signature to us and only us, that is always the challenge in that sense. Make good shit that people want to hear but know that if it catches on your playing that song the rest of your lives so you better be able to love those songs regardless of time and age. I think as a band our biggest accomplishment with this latest EP was the fact that we did it on our own, we raised the money via Kickstarter and let me just take a moment to thank all you wonderful folks who donated WE LOVE YOU!! then we put in the hours and time, sometimes recording until 5 or 6 in the morning just to turn around and go back to our day jobs a few hours later.
What was the last song you listened to?
The last song I heard again this is Aaron today was our friends in The Griswolds new single “Out of My Head”
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
Thats tricky to say because its really a matter of how you look at it. Obviously nothing beats the quality of a good old fashioned record on wax, something about dropping the needle and those couple moments of silence before the music kicks in. However in an age of instant gratification people want it on the go and as a band and a fan we can appreciate that, kind of hard to blast a record with the windows down carrying around a record player, we grew up when CD’s were king and heading to Tower Records on a Friday when all the new albums were out will always carry a certain nostalgia. I guess what we’re saying is good music is good music and you will take it any which way you can.
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
To be honest we really dig Soundcloud, its free and you can upload instantly so your fans get it much faster. You can even put a few demos out just to get some feed back, its pretty fucking awesome. Plus we get a lot of love from Soundcloud so maybe we are biased.
Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what is the biggest challenge you face when trying to connect with or find new fans?
For us the challenge isn’t so much getting new fans but keeping them, we are in a market (Los Angeles) where one our genre (Folk/Country/Indie) is not the show horse that the indie/rock/pop scene is and like you said there are a number of great acts out there, I mean on any given night in this city you can go see National Acts from all over the world. You have to really be committed if you want to draw out here, it isn’t just building a Facebook event and hoping for the best, you have to get out there promote, make flyers, beg friends. If you really want to put on a good show for more than just Joe at the bar you have to convince people your worth coming to see and most importantly once you have done that…. be worth coming to see!!
Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more music?
We are all over social media so you can find us on Facebook, Spotify, Soundcloud, iTunes, Reverb Nation, Instagram and Twitter.
Anything else you’d like to add before signing off?
Thank you! Thank you to everyone who has supported us, to you for giving us a platform to tell our story and to our families and friends who stick by our sides through this journey. We know it isn’t easy but your there regardless.
