SPILL FEATURE: A BIG WALL OF SOUND THAT HITS YOU AT THE RIGHT TIMES – A CONVERSATION WITH RYAN POLICKY OF A SHORELINE DREAM

A BIG WALL OF SOUND THAT HITS YOU AT THE RIGHT TIMES

A CONVERSATION WITH RYAN POLICKY OF A SHORELINE DREAM

“Anything that is creative is cool,” exclaims Ryan Policky. Chances are you will not come across someone as multi-talented artistically as he. He is a musician, photographer, animator, motion designer, an illustrator, and has made several horror short films, among many other things. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Policky about A Shoreline Dream’s newest album, Whitelined and his career as a multimedia artist.

Reflecting on how Whitelined came into fruition, Policky notes, “[After the early 2020s, I was] still reacclimating to reality again. I was inspired to fill my time with making music, and making music about what that was like coming out of this whole weird era that we’re still in. I had been writing all this new material for that, but as soon as we met up with Mark Gardener [of Ride], it kicked me in the rear that you need to get this done because I knew they would be releasing an album. I was like, ‘I have 10 songs, let’s see if Mark likes them.’”

Collaborating with Gardener, a legend in the shoegaze community, led to some brilliant tracks on Whitelined, most notably “Everything Turns”. The big introduction between the two happened because A Shoreline Dream and Gardener had the same publicist who helped Policky get in touch with Gardener to pitch him a few ideas and see if he would be interested in working on some music. Looking back at this interaction, Policky states, “It was on my birthday… [Ride] were on tour with The Charlatans, and right after the show I went up to him and we started talking. I was like, ‘let’s do some music together. Would you be into that?… Would you sing on the songs?’ He was like, ‘I’d love to do that. That would be sweet. Let’s get in touch after our tour.’ You ask people, and sometimes they say yes, and you’d never thought they’d ever do that. It’s the same thing when I worked with Ulrich Schnauss. I found out he’d been listening to us, and I just asked him if he’d want to write music together because it’s cool to collaborate with other musicians, [and] I wanna collaborate with these people who are legendary.”

Whitelined has a melodic and moody atmosphere along with vivid soundscapes. Policky shares how A Shoreline Dream establishes atmosphere and creates soundscapes in the tracks, noting, “When you’re coming at it as a producer, and you want the mix to be something that you feel represents something, you have to give it a sound design. You have to think about what your sound design is going to be. I think a lot of the techniques are super basic stuff, just like recording the ambience of rooms because my house is a really old house and has weird spaces. We can get weird sounds in these different spaces. Even just utilizing sounds like samples, morphing them, and making them a layer… It’s just like this big wall of sound that hits you at the right times. You’ve got to think dynamically how that’s going to work, not just with the music and the notes being used, but how you are going to hit it with the actual sound design of the song… Each song is approached a different way but a lot of the techniques are all within the environment around us.”

Reflecting on the songwriting process behind Whitelined, Policky says, “You have this emotion at the time, you have these notes and sounds that I can hear in my head, and I always want to get a tempo and get a bass going with the main melody lines and the main key structure. All these elements somehow come together… With me and, Erik Jeffries, the guitarist, we’ll just jam. Sometimes, we will record those jams. Sometimes, those jams actually turn out to be the final recording because we can never recreate that moment again. I think that’s what’s cool about music. You have these moments, and you never know how they’re gonna form, but it’s exciting because that’s why you want to do it again, like, ‘oh man, that happened! That was so cool! We just made that song out of nowhere! I want to do that again!’ A couple of songs on this album were that way.”

PURCHASE WHITELINED VIA BANDCAMP

Shoegaze has an instantly recognizable and immersive sound design that completely mesmerizes listeners. Policky notes, “Shoegaze just has this huge sound, and that’s why it was so interesting working with Mark because it was one of the first bands that really did that sound. I asked him, ‘where did this shoegaze sound come from?’ He [said], ‘there’s this recording studio where they would record us in a weird cave, and we would record there. That’s where the sound came from.’  All the bands went there and recorded because it had this sound and space… Kind of the goth aesthetic. I think shoegaze is more gothy than anything else. I mean Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins and all those older 4AD bands were the ones that kind of made that goth sound that’s really shoegaze.

A Shoreline Dream is often labeled as a shoegaze band. However, Policky does not believe A Shoreline Dream fits into the shoegaze genre, as he mentions, “When we started, the only reason we got thrown in with all that was because our marketing company loved our stuff so much and said we were like Slowdive and we’re gonna push you that way… I think we are goth-progressive. It still has that cavern or cathedral [feeling] that sounds like it’s in the Dark Ages, and you can hear and see it as you listen to it. You see these environments. I love that shit… When music can somehow give you a visual, I love that vibe.”

Working on various art forms has helped Policky grow as an artist and inspire creativity. Speaking on the importance of experiencing new things and his love of all things creative, Policky states, “I think that everybody should experience as much as they can and do what they can. Try things and fail and succeed. Just keep trying. It doesn’t even matter if you’re an artist, whatever you are, just a human, you should experience things and try new things. I think that’s why I became this multimedia artist. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a photographer, then an animator, then I wanted to work on video games, and then I saw a Bon Jovi video and wanted to be a musician. Everyone is like, ‘oh no, you shouldn’t do that. You should only pick one. Pick one and only do that.’ I’m like, ‘that doesn’t seem right for me.’ I just kind of broke the mold and did as much stuff as I could just to try things. See what I like. See what was fun. I’ve been working for a video game company, Bungie, who does Destiny, and I’ve been working on some of their trailers doing motion design. I worked on a Bon Jovi documentary [Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story] for Hulu, which is weird because the fact that their video inspired me to want to go play live shows is crazy, kind of like the circle of life… The Colorado Festival of Horrors happened, and they played one of my movies, which is cool… I just love all these different art forms, so why not try them.”

Being involved in many different art forms has taught Policky a lot throughout his career. One of the most important things he learned, he discusses, is, “You can’t expect anything, and you just go to do it. A lot of times, you see this expectation, like ‘if I try this, I’ll succeed in this way.’ You never really hit that exactly. I’ve learned to experience the moment more than worry about the future of what is the next thing you’re going to be doing and what the achievement might be. Achievement is so personal anyway, and you’re not gonna succeed in everything. We all know that. We’re humans. We don’t do everything right. I think that’s what I taught myself because, in the beginning, I was like, ‘oh yeah, I’m gonna be able to do all this stuff. I know what I’m doing. I’m gonna be awesome.’ You can’t go into it with an ego. You got to go into it like you can feel what you’re doing. You’re not doing it for anything but to get that feeling that you’re trying to achieve for yourself.”

Artist Links

Main Photo Credit: Ryan Policky & Steve Gullick | Background Photo Credit: Ryan Policky

Please leave this field empty

STAY UP-TO-DATE
WITH OUR WEEKLY NEWSLETTER!

* Mandatory Field

Check your inbox or spam folder now (just in case!) to confirm your subscription.