A few words with Josh Ritter

Josh Ritter assures me that he’s doing very well indeed when I ask him, and I can’t but believe him. Reached all the way from New York over a crackling phone line, his voice is just as warm and friendly as his songs. The Idaho-born singer tells about taking a walk in the autumn NY, hanging out around his house and making a cup of tea, and suddenly I’m convinced – the mundane everyday life can actually be quite sweet. Especially if you are pretty much the redeemer of the 21st century folk, that is.

He is definitely doing good – during the course of the past seven years, since the self-titled debut album in 2001, Josh Ritter has put out five full-length studio recordings, and gradually established an eager fan-base in Ireland as well as a warm welcome from the critics. After his highly praised album “The Historical Conquest of Josh Ritter” about a year ago, he has released a live recording, been on tour and popped in to play a gig in Electric Picnic. Now it’s finally time to relax. “I’ve had three months of no travelling and I have been able to hang out with the band – they are good guys. It’s been great,” he says and laughs, “just, you know, making your own food.” However, for Mr. Ritter, even the chill-out can be somewhat productive: he tells me that some of his relaxation time has been spent in the studio with his band, playing around with instruments, trying out different things and coming up with new material.

After five successful albums, of which the latest has been praised to be the most adventurous and inventive, it might be quite a task to come up with something life-changing once again. Ritter is only just starting to work on fresh ideas but I still dare to ask him if the new material is going to be very different and what the next album is going to be like in relation to the earlier ones. The answer is simple: ”Of course it’s going to be different. The thing is that you are a different person than you were at the time of recording your earlier albums. I have to remind myself not to put pressure on myself – I’m not trying to make one of my old albums.” When we start talking about influences, Ritter tells me that he has lately been listening to jazz and soul, music that he hasn’t listened to before. It’s not clear, though, if his current playlist will affect the music he is making: “Sometimes you think you are influenced by something but then people don’t even hear that, and then sometimes they hear things you wouldn’t have heard yourself, things that you wouldn’t have noticed or realized that even influenced you. Like The Beatles always wanted only to play Chuck Berry, but they ended up playing The Beatles instead”, he says, and then swiftly continues asking me what kind of music I am listening to at the moment. So genuine and heartfelt is his interest that I’m left speechless for a while and then, after a moment of subconsciously deciding that he is the friendliest musician – no, actually the friendliest person – in the world, panickingly splutter out the words: “Mostly yours.” Josh Ritter really seems to appreciate his fans.

The singer-songwriter is coming to Dublin in December to play two already sold-out gigs, and is looking forward to it. “I’ve been playing gigs around the Christmas time for the last four years. People are always so nice during the holiday season. It’s beautiful.” He says that for him Dublin is a place always to go back to and, after a little prompting, admits that it almost feels like a second home. However, Ritter will be bringing a new element with him to his “second home” gigs – he is going to play the concerts not only with his band but also with a full 24-piece orchestra. The orchestra played with him for the first time in Boston a few months ago, and Ritter tells me he enjoyed the experience. “It’s exciting hearing all the volume with your own songs,” he says, and when I ask him if they still, despite the new composition, feel like his own, familiar pieces, he goes on: “They are my songs, I claim ownership of them, but they do sound different teamed up with an orchestra.” Ritter says it is exciting to see how his music has grown and changed. “It’s like meeting an old friend and seeing how he’s changed, even though he’s still the same person.”

Speaking of old friends, let’s go back a couple of years, to those oh-so-sweet college days. Before his career in music, Ritter, a child of two neuroscientists, followed in his parents’ footsteps and attended university to study neuroscience for a couple of years. I ask him if there was any outside pressure put on him to go to college and he says that there definitely was, but not as much from his family as one might assume. “It’s the whole society, the things around you, your friends as much as your parents. When I started making music, I was making no money at all and had friends who were doing law and making the bucks. Sometimes I felt like a loser,” Ritter reveals, and in doing so, gives a whole amount of peer support to those with artistic tendencies. “There wasn’t a single moment of revelation that I’m going to become a musician but I remember when I picked up the guitar in high school, I knew instantly that this is what I will be doing forever. I just love it.”

As he doesn’t have a background of having a Von Trapp-like musical family, Ritter brings hope to all the burdened poets who every now and then pour their aching hearts out into a melancholic three-chord pop ballad or two. “Hold on to doing what you love and care about. You might not become famous, but if you stick with it, what needs to come, comes. You will have experiences that you could never have had, and you will meet people you wouldn’t have otherwise met. You don’t do it for the money. You do it because you love it,” he says, and again I’m convinced that he means every word he says. When asked for a last piece of advice for the thousands of college kids roaming around Trinity campus trying to find themselves, Ritter gives a genial little pep-talk: “Enjoy it! College is an amazing time. It is the chance to realize that you know nearly nothing and you have the whole world to learn about.” Oh Josh, we will, and maybe when we grow up, we’ll be as nice and friendly as you are!