Features

Man At Work: Band of Horses’ Tyler Ramsey

Photo by Chris Wilson

Band of Horses multi-instrumentalist Tyler Ramsey sounds like After the Gold Rush -era Neil Young—that is, when he’s not conjuring the ambiguous sadness of early Ryan Adams. He looks like a supersized version of actor Christian Bale and he writes songs like a transcendental poet.

Ramsey joined BOH after the group’s bassist—and his longtime friend—Bill Reynolds asked him for a ride to his Nashville, Tenn. studio where the group was rehearsing. “I canceled a gig so I could drive him,” Ramsey recalls. “Once we got there, I ended up hanging with everyone. That night, [band leader] Ben [Bridwell] asked me if I wanted to be in that band—right after he asked me if I wanted to open for the band.”

This was just about the same time that the Cincinnati-born Ramsey was readying his second solo album, Long Dream about Swimming across the Sea, for release. In one of those classic, having-your-cake and-eating-it-too moments, the musician was able to integrate both sides of himself—and for most of his early tenure with BOH, Ramsey opened for the band as well as played in it.

When they were off the road, Ramsey rented a small cabin outside of Nashville, holed up for four days and wrote the majority of what would become Valley Wind, his third album. The organizing property—or perhaps the creative catalyst for the record—was a flock of black-colored birds that had taken up residence in Ramsey’s garden.

“I’m not the most skilled [visual] artist in the world and I could never quite capture what was in my head, but I knew I needed to capture them somehow,” Ramsey explains of the birds’ presence. “I definitely felt like it was some kind of weird message to me.”

The song “The Nightbird” transpired and started his songwriting process. It was quickly followed by a haunting instrumental called “Raven Shadow,” and then “1000 Blackbirds”—completing an avian sound cycle that had its roots in “Bird Wings” from Long Dream about Swimming across the Sea.

As if to reinforce the album’s creative foundation, Ramsey had a rather surreal experience not long ago while hiking in the Grand Canyon. “I was walking along the edge of the canyon, off-trail, going as far as I could go before I ran out of water and these ravens were everywhere, going crazy.” It had an effect on me. Sometimes you feel like you’re being led, so all you can do is relax and enjoy the scenery.”