A Conversation with Ryan Star – HuffPost 4.28.10

Ryan Star: You grew up in Manhattan or outside of New York?

Mike Ragogna: Manhattan. I’m an East Side kid from Second Avenue and Twenty-Fourth Street, kind of near Peter Cooper and Stuyvesant Town.

RS: I live on Houston. I’m sure it was way different when you were growing up than it is right now. It’s the most posh street you can imagine.

MR: It definitely wasn’t gentrified when I was a kid. Okay, enough about me and the Stone Age. Let’s talk about your tour. How long will it last?

RS: I think a little over a month. We’re hitting a bunch of good cities. It’s pretty much taking me all over the whole country, so it’ll be fun. It’s actually funny.

MR: In addition to the recent dates, you toured a little with your pal Serena Ryder a while back, right? What interesting story do you have about the lady?

RS: We played this one-off show together while I was on the West coast doing some other stuff, it was a little over a year ago. There were like four people in the crowd, and we were just starting together.

MR: For the moment, it’s like you’re on the same trajectory.

RS: We’re kind of on the same path. On an artistic level, there is a similarity too because she’s a girl. You know when you hear a girl on guitar or a solo guy, you always think coffee house…singer-songwriter. But she knows how to rock, she gets in there. You can hear the bigger sound when it’s just her, and that’s something I can relate to a lot.

MR: It must have been interesting to have had your self-titled album on Maverick. You’ve also had your share of really cool breaks so far like that reality show Rock Star. During the second season, you got real close. Dave Navarro called you the dark horse.

RS: That show is quite a circus, to be honest with you. For artists, there’s a big difference between that show and American Idol. On American Idol, it’s the Cinderella success story where you get some waitress from Iowa and, boom, they become stars overnight which is why people love that show. It’s just a phenomenon, about watching that process happen. For the show I did, it was a little different ’cause like you said, I had a background, I had a record on Maverick.

MR: You started young.

RS: My first gig was when I was 15 years old, and I’ve kind of been out there for a long time, doing my thing, pushing, pushing, pushing.

MR: What was being on Rock Star like?

RS: They were real musicians. They’d been out there, doing it pursuing it. So, it made for a great show, great talent on the show, but probably not as big a phenomenon as American Idol only because it didn’t have that zero-to-a-million miles per hour success story. But for me, it was great because it launched me as a solo artist. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just came off being in a band.

MR: You broke up, typical story.

RS: We moved on. This is a band that I grew up with, a band of brothers. For me, it was like wow, I’m going to do a solo thing because of this stuff I got to do on the show. I got to play original music on my own. Dave Navarro kind of pointing me out as somehow someone that might have been right to win the contest, but someone to do their own thing. And it helped me to gain some fans right off the bat. Then I got to make a record with some great people. And then here we are. So, it’s a whole process. No different than what you do. It’s a long process, day in and day out.

MR: Your new EP is like a greatest hits record already because of the song placements in film and TV: “Last Train Home” is from P.S. I Love You, “Brand New Day” is from Lie To Me, and “Right Now” was used as the promo piece for The Philanthropist.

RS: Yeah, right now that’s been in the #2 spot, and then “Breathe,” of course, which is doing its thing. That’s funny because that’s the idea behind EP. It’s a strange time in music, as you know. Years ago, it used to be…you heard the expression, throw it to the wall and see if it sticks?

MR: It stuck. Why did it?

RS: I was very careful. When I was in New York building my base before being a solo artist, I had the mindset of, you know, they will screw all this stuff up. I tried it with my band and it didn’t really work. They took your dreams and they squashed ’em. With that mindset, for me, I was like going to take a look at Ani Difranco. I loved her and I loved the idea of just doing it yourself and empowering yourself. So I started doing that in New York. But you get to a point where you’re hustling, selling out smaller venues in New York City, doing my thing, but there’s still so much more out there. There is this part where you do need a bigger machine of some kind to help get it out there if you’re playing that kind of music.

I realized that with the kind of music I’m playing, I do want to get it out there. It’s not so underground that I needed to be hidden away. So, these songs that are on the EP are kind of the mentality of what I had done pre-record label. Now they’re getting out there.

MR: And you have a full album coming soon.

RS: Hats off to Atlantic Records who got my record. They’re not in the business of just like throwing it at the wall anymore. They’re really developing things. Serena can tell you the same. It’s a nice feeling to know it’s just a slow and steady pace.

MR: I’m very familiar with most of your label mates because I’ve been very impressed by folks like Robert Francis and Matt Hires. Atlantic seems to know how to build acts properly, slow and steady, like A&M and Geffen did, and not burn them out for the quick buck.

RS: You’re saying it. It’s different than most. First of all, you probably never hear an artist compliment their label. For me, that’s been great because that’s been my path for a long time, since I was a kid. Not so slow, but the steady thing…getting to make records and learning how I want to make records. The process wasn’t being thrown in it overnight and being told here’s your one shot–go.

MR: Are all four EP songs going to make the new record?

RS: They most likely will, I’m making those final decisions now. The record will have plenty more. I over-recorded, if anything. When I was working with my producer, it was the opposite of what I always thought I’d work with. My background was from the indie world, and it was a little more left of center. But having this opportunity to collaborate, I was like, I’m going to go the other way. I’d rather like come and butt heads with someone straight in the middle and get into fights every day just to make something new out of that.

MR: One of the pictures of you that are floating around the internet shows you wearing a Leonard Cohen Songs Of Love And Hate album shirt. Who are some of your influences and inspirations?

RS: I played the saxophone and that was my thing. So, up until I was eleven or twelve, I believed that my calling was to be the next Kenny G. Thankfully, a band called Pearl Jam came out and changed my life forever. I remember getting the CD and saying to myself that’s what I want to do, and the next day, I formed my band called Stage.

MR: How old were you?

RS: We were 14 at the time. And since that day I haven’t stopped. So, those are my early influences. The whole Seattle scene was a very big influence on me. Then, I also was into east coast side of things. I loved the Lemonheads and the Pixies and Morphine and that New England scene. Juliana Hatfield…do you know her music?

MR: Absolutely.

RS: She sang on my record. It turned out she was a fan, you know, it goes years back. I saw her was younger, gave her one of my demos, and it turns out she knew who I was and was excited to sing.

MR: Dude, you’re humble and a New Yorker. This is good.

RS: I learned a lot, especially being on that TV show. I grew up in New York. Madonna walks down my street or Lenny Kravitz and no one cares. For me, I think what has kept me humble is the fact that at the end of the day, I have to go back and see all the people I’ve always seen, all the great musicians, and all the bands that are killing it in New York. You never really let anything get to your head because there’s always something great right next door, and it just keeps your game up and keeps your head small which is a good thing. It’s hard to let anything get to your head because there’s always someone way bigger than yourself down the street.