Ryan Cox: The Enigmatic Man Behind The Good Things

Story by Jeff Milo
Artwork by Allison Laakko

Album Release Party July 2 @ Loving Touch

Ask Ryan Cox if he’s in a band, and he won’t know how to answer you. While his answer won’t be “…no,” he’s still not quite sure what, exactly, you might call The Good Things.

Now, while we’re here to tell you about the release party for the Good Things’ new album, Bedroom Sessions, (hosted at The Loving Touch on July 2), we should probably elaborate more on Cox and the methods to his creative madness. The Clawson-based song tactician tries to solve the equation of human emotion with carefully constructed bursts of melodious pop-rock, rollicking with exuberant pianos, resonant with warm harmonies and percolated by peculiar percussive arrangements.

As an artist, he’s interested in irony: he scoops out the murky melodrama, bitter pills, and worn-down wills of the broken-hearted and brightens it all up with a bit of buoyancy and brio. As a musician, well, he doesn’t consider himself one. As a songwriter, he’s more of a storyteller. Cox has an associate’s degree in both liberal arts and cinematic arts and a bachelor’s in English with a minor in film studies. He’s got his eye on being a professor, someday, and currently balances time between being a dad, a musician, and a teacher.

Cox has been playing music for almost half of his 29-year-life. He started playing in bands in his late teens and formed The Good Things around 2007, with his writing partner John Morales and other collaborators. They recorded an E.P. and went on a handful of tours, flirting with regional fame and stoking some local buzz. Until…until the Good Things, which was always built around Cox’s songwriting, frayed apart and wound down to a one-man operation, in early 2010. In July of 2012, four years ago almost to the day, Cox coordinated a small orchestra of talented players to interpret a full set of songs to perform live at the Loving Touch under The Good Things moniker. After that, the Good Things seemed to disappear…

I still remember that show with fondness and a twinge of the bittersweet. The Good Things numbered about 10 players that night, each performing an eclectic array of instruments, with Cox not really at the center or in the spotlight, but elusively bobbing along around the edges with the rest of the waving energies from these palpably excited humans. It was full of life and curtained by quirks; the kind of good time pop that gets you lowering your guard and inching closer to the stage. It manifested movement, encouraged undulation and fastened fun melodies into your ear. You wanted to be in this band, after seeing them. More than that, you felt like you could be in this band…that there might not be any reason that you couldn’t come on board…

And then the set ended and I told Cox about how inspiring it all was and he said, ‘Great, I’m glad you enjoyed it, I think this is the last Good Things show ever…!’

That was four years ago. Now, Cox and I convene for coffee and ruminating/wandering conversations at least once a month and he’s remained resilient to refuse resurrecting “the band” in a traditional performing state.

THAT SAID: He continued writing and recording music over these last four years, ceaselessly…and secretly. He told few others about it, but he never stopped The Good Things as a songwriting and production entity. He not only finished this new album (mostly by himself, in bedrooms), but has also begun work on another E.P. and even two more concept albums to follow after that…

Bedroom Sessions isn’t a debut, but it will still feel like an introduction. “The new beginning,” says Cox. “The sequel is the prequel…”If we’re introducing you, then you have to know just how intense he can be about making music, not just in analyzing equalization levels of certain frequencies or in scrutinizing the meter of lyrics, but also in a more capricious sense of exploration, or experimentation. Cox wants to find new sounds. Much like Brian Wilson (of The Beach Boys) before him, he’s hearing fantastic pitches and strange timbres in his head that he’ll work meticulously toward capturing, mic-ing up outrageous riggings of everyday household materials and turning them into drums, or noisemakers of some fresh variety.

That’s why he calls it “garbage-pop…”

“Everything makes noise,” said Cox. “You can figure out how to make something good out of it if you experiment with it long enough. And I’m patient….sometimes. But I’m still keeping the songs sounding familiar.” (You’ll notice influences like The Beatles, or Black Keys, maybe the Rolling Stones or newer groups like The Generationals and The High Strung.) “But ‘garbage’ is the perfect metaphor! Open a garbage can and it’s this chaotic, collage-y mess of things! But also, some cool stuff is in there and sometimes it still works! Also, it keeps a degree of humility in there…”

“These (songs) are supposed to be representations of me…But they’re very cryptic, and play with fantasy and alternate history. I can’t make them sound perfect because I’m far from that capacity, in terms of audio engineering. But, if they’re representations of me, they should reflect the flaws, the benefits, the interesting things, the intriguing things; they should all be there, in their own modes, whether it’s my performance on the guitar, or me forming a kick drum sound out of nine different things. It’s like…I’m always in rough-draft mode! Then I get to the end and ask: What if I changed THIS? And what if I changed that!??”

And that’s the main reason it’s taken Cox four years to put out this record; every other month or so, he’s changed something. Or worse, he’s changed lots of things. But it’s all Good Things. I can’t even get into how elaborate and fantastically scoped his next three albums will be; I’d much rather you start that conversation with Cox in person, at the Loving Touch on July 2nd, when eight new performers will be backing him up and interpreting the Good Things’ new songs.

And even as you read this, he’s probably in his makeshift studio, neurotically doubting his decision to finally come back. But it’s gonna be good! Whether he believes it or not; it’s gonna be good!

More info:
http://www.thegoodthings.com/
http://thegoodthings.bandcamp.com/

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