“When Harry Met RUACH”

A couple months ago I got to do an interview with the band and chat about things like the writing and recording process and band dynamics.

Recently the band posted on Facebook about the myriad of trials and obstacles they have faced in their personal and musical lives. Through all the hard times, they are pressing on, and stoked to release a full length album this year, and they announced Harry Scannell as RUACH’s new bassist.

With the official announcement of Harry in the band, I wanted to post an excerpt from that interview that wasn’t included the first time.

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So I’d like to speak with the new member in the band, Harry, what’s it like joining this family? And how long have you been with these guys?

Harry: Let’s see.. officially.. a month now I think.

But I came in to jam with these guys because I know I guy they used to play with who works next door. He basically was like “Hey, these guys are looking for a bass player, and I know you’d like to be playing in a band. They’re pretty awesome.” So I was like “sweet.” I hit them up and started talking to them, and playing with them on and off for a little bit. And it’s been really fun to kind of find what I’ve been looking for for a really long time, but not realizing that’s what I’ve been looking for. If that makes any sense.

 I think so.

H: these guys kind of embody what I feel a band should be. That’s more than just a band. Know what I mean? It’s not just like “oh, yeah, we come in, we record, we leave here.” It’s a relationship. Like he said, it’s a marriage, it’s a lifestyle. But now especially that we have our own studio and stuff it literally is a lifestyle. Like coming in and getting to be able to record at 3 in the morning and having other people here being like “yeah, that’s awesome, let’s do this. “ or “hey, I’ll play drums for you”.

The other day Jon was sitting here and I was like “well, I don’t really know what I’m going to record.” And he said “I’ll play whatever for you. We’ll record.” It’s awesome . Having that kind of acceptance right away is really cool. And it’s really fun to be able to play with these guys musically as well. I think these guys shred.

Rob: aw, shucks… thanks..

 Cool. Thank you. I like that. And you guys, how did you know that he was “the guy” to fill this slot?

Jon: it was kind of right away. It was just one of those things. He walked in, he was really cool and stuff but he was so confident with learning. Right away he had a fire and a passion and he wasn’t hesitant, and he started learning stuff really quick. And hanging out with him, his personality matched with us.

And then something that he brings to the table that we kind of lack is – he’s classically trained. He has a degree in music. So he knows a lot of the educational side of it that we’ve just learned on our own and working with each other. So he’s able to teach us and show us, you know, the scales and time signatures and stuff and what we’re actually doing, to make sense of certain things. So, it’s really cool. But like I say, it was right away everyone was like “that was awesome. He jams well, he gels well with us, musically and personally” and we just saw eye to eye on everything.

R: one big factor of it was that he had no ego at all. Like, I will say that we’re all very humble. You know what I mean, that we’re all very thankful for any kind of like “oh you guys are great”, any kind of compliment that we get. And that was a big thing. We don’t want anybody just going out there like “yeah, I know I’m good.” Nobody likes you. Know what I mean?

Another big factor is that we saw he got our humor, he got our ….  well, we say some pretty rough jokes. And if you really genuinely find some laughter out of it, then you’re most likely a friend of ours.

J: He’s got some rough jokes himself, too. He’s Irish, dude, so he gets kinda feisty.

[laughter]

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You can read the full interview with RUACH here.

Keep up to date with the band on Facebook, Twitter, and www.ruachtheworld.com,

And pick up their self-titled EP at iTunes.

Check out the first recording Harry did with the band: A medley of Metallica songs, titled “The Metally.”