I’m certain I’ve read more than one features where various members of Ride have offered their thoughts on various entries of their back catalog, but this one by Bandcamp is notable because it’s new, having been published just a couple weeks ago, and features commentary from all four band members. And as a bonus, it finally touches on the topic of new music from the band.
The interview was conducted on the occasion of the new wave of vinyl reissues which reached stores earlier this month. Nowhere and Going Blank Again are back in print in all formats, and their first four EPs – Ride, Play, Fall, and Today Forever – have been compiled as 4 EPs. On why they opted to collect and re-release the early material again, bassist Steve Queralt said:
“Well, they’ve been out of print. It’s always depressing when you go into a record shop and you look in the Ride section—if there is a Ride section—and there’s no vinyl there. Vinyl is such a big thing now; we thought we ought to get it out. It’s also repackaging the early stuff, all the first few EPs—it was too good an opportunity to miss.”
Steve Queralt, Ride
The Bandcamp Guide To Ride @ Bandcamp
There’s so much good material in this feature, from their fondness for the EP format reminiscences about the recording sessions for Nowhere and Going Blank Again. It’s possible that I’ve read these accounts in previous pieces over the years, but if so I’d forgotten and it was great to hear the stories again. I had previously speculated that this was just the first wave of reissues, and that Carnival Of Light and Tarantula would get some re-assessment in a few years. That those entries are dimissed in this feature with just this doesn’t make me so optimistic:
First of all, they aren’t on Bandcamp, and secondly, they’re acknowledged, even by the band themselves, as not being their best work. “We weren’t playing to our strengths, you could put it that way,” says Bell.
The Bandcamp Guide To Ride @ Bandcamp
They do include their reunion records, though – 2017’s Weather Diaries and 2019’s This Is Not A Safe Place. About the former, Loz Colbert offers:
Weather Diaries marks the time when Ride really got into our studio shit and really made it start to work, thinking about sounds and getting proper takes and trying to build our studio craft a bit. It was a studio album that we then learned to play live.
Loz Colbert, Ride
The Bandcamp Guide To Ride @ Bandcamp
And for why Safe Place seemed like an absolute necessity to record and release so soon after its predecessor,
“There’s echoes of the way we recorded in that first year. We were hungry to make another record. For me, it was a nice way of saying that Ride is back. I think plenty of bands in the last 10 years have reformed, gone on a big tour, recorded and released an album, and then done nothing else since. I didn’t want to be one of those bands. I think it makes a statement to come back with a second ‘comeback’ album so quickly. It’s not all about reunion. It’s not all about one comeback record. Ride are a proper working band.
Steve Queralt, Ride
The Bandcamp Guide To Ride @ Bandcamp
And looking to the future, Mark Gardener was excited to talk about their new record, which will be out in 2023 or maybe 2024:
[Gardener’s newly-built OX4 Sounds studio] felt like Ride’s studio, and we’ve never really had that before. It’s just nice to come and go a bit more as we please. Rather than think too much, we’d just jam and play and see what came out of that. And because of that, it’s gone to some really interesting places.
There are two or three songs on [the new record] which I think are outstanding, like really outstanding. Ultimately, the biggest part for me is that feeling that there’s still something we’re going to surprise people with, and I surprised myself with a few of the things in the new record.
Mark Gardener, Ride
The Bandcamp Guide To Ride @ Bandcamp
And as I note that Andy Bell was the only member I didn’t pullquote, I’ll offer a mea culpa with this video he put out in 2018 where he teaches you to play a few tracks off of Weather Diaries.
