Welcome to “Running Buds,” in which we talk to musicians about running, and runners about music. Want to be featured in a future edition? Shoot me an email! Today, we are talking to Ryan Kenter of The Vaughns.
There are some songs that when you hear it for the first time, you know right away they’re something special. “Raina” by New Jersey duo The Vaughns is exactly that. Built around gently plucked guitars and the pulse of an electronic drum pad, “Raina” is a beautiful, sophisticated ode to a blossoming new love. “I can’t get enough of you babe, what more can I say?” singer/guitarist Anna Lies breathlessly admits in the song’s chorus. Both the arrangement and orchestration are absolutely lovely, and it can’t help but warm your heart even in the coldest of winters.
“Raina” is one track of three on the band’s new EP rom-coms + take-out (Equal Vision Records). The two other tracks – “Bushwick” and “All Summer” – are fresh, indie-pop vignettes about dealing with heartbreak, change, and finding love again in a pandemic.
“At the end of 2018, our lead guitarist and our bassist both left the band, and at the same time, Anna dealt with a breakup of a three year relationship,” Ryan tells me over the phone in early March. “So, we lost some of our best friends and she lost her relationship. I think she wrote a lot of the lyrics for these songs when everything was falling apart.”
Engineered/produced/mixed by Joe Reinhart of Philly indie darlings Hop Along, the EP is a testament to Anna and drummer Ryan Kenter’s shared vision for a band that has undergone plenty of changes already since forming in 2014. “When it came to the songwriting, Anna and I had to take an active role in the creation of the full song and not just the parts we play,” he tells me. Working as a duo for the first time forced Anna and Ryan to work outside of their comfort zones, beyond the instruments they played. “Up until now, I was just the drummer and that’s all I was doing. Now I gotta think about bass and other instruments that I don’t always play. So, there were a lot of changes in our lives, in the makeup of the band, and how we come up with songs in the first place.”
For Anna and Ryan, as fans of Hop Along and Headroom productions in general, working with Joe Reinhart was a perfect fit. “If you like somebody’s work and you like their sound,” says Ryan, “there’s a pretty high chance that you’re going to get what you like out of what they put on the table.” Having Reinhart involved also gave them a mentor and an experienced voice in the studio as they ventured into new terrain during the songwriting process. “Joe has really good intuition when it comes to the songs,” Ryan tells me. “It was a great experience from start to finish.”
The band hopes to return to the studio again soon with new tunes in tow, but for now, rom-coms and take out is a strong beginning to this new chapter in the Vaughns story. Naturally, I could’ve talked all day to him about the band and the new EP, but this being a running blog, I also wanted to ask him about his thoughts on running, especially since we don’t often hear about an artist’s extracurricular activities outside of music. This is one of the main reasons why I wanted to start this newsletter in the first place: to talk to musicians about running.
One of the themes of rom-coms + take-out is the idea of finding oneself within new beginnings. Life throws changes at you, chapters close, but new ones begin. As Ryan puts it, “it’s okay to fail, as long as you get back up.” After talking with Ryan about his love/hate relationship with running, getting back up is quite literally half of the battle.
When did you start running?
Ryan: When I grew up, I wasn’t big into exercise, it wasn’t something that my family valued the most. I put on a bunch of weight and I had a weight issue when I was younger. Then when I got to college I started really exercising and trying to do something about it for the first time. I guess maybe at that time, maybe 2012 or 2013, is when I started running/exercising. I think it was maybe 4 years ago when I actually bought like running sneakers, and not like the 20 dollars clearance things.
How far do you usually run on average?
I pretty consistently on average do 3 miles. I think once I ran 4, maybe 5 once in my life. I think the nice thing about running vs weight lifting or going on the cycle bike or things like that is the aspect of adventure. Even if you’re running the same loop that you always do, at least you can see things. I feel like living in the COVID times right now it’s like I have cabin fever all the freaking time, and it feels so good to just like go outside and breathe real air. It just feels so good to just see people being alive and existing.
What do you listen to when you run?
Ryan: It depends on the mood I’m in. I would say it’s depends on whether or not I feel like running with the phone in my pocket and adjusting my headphones every 3 seconds when my ears sweat. I feel like it more depends on that vs whether I want to listen to music right now. I’ve been into music for so long that I go through these cycles of what kind of music I feel like listening to. I also think it kinda depends on where I am. If I’m making the attempt to run around the park or something or like on a trail where I can listen to nature, then I probably won’t put headphones on. I don’t know. I don’t always plan out when I’m going to do it or how far I’m going to do it or what I’m going to listen to. It’s just what I’m feeling at that moment.
What is your relationship with running?
Ryan: Running for me is this weird love/hate relationship. When I’m doing it, I’m happy I’m doing it. Sometimes I have really enjoyable experiences, but a lot of the time I’m like “I don’t wanna fucking run, I just want to nothing.
Just to give you an example of how running has been in my life, I went for a run last week. It was the first time it’s been decent outside since we had all that snow in Jersey and it’s been horrible. I put on my running shoes, and there’s a 2.7 mile loop around my house here and I was all excited to do it. So, I’m halfway on the run, I got my headphones on I’m listening to Unknown Mortal Orchestra, having a great time in my head. I’m halfway through the run and I look across the street to see if I can cross and I totally trip on the sidewalk and eat total shit! I got bloody hands, bloody knees, I’m on a main street, the only main street of my loop.
That’s been my experience. Sometimes I’ll have nice, introspective moments where like I’m really able to separate from all the million things I have going on, like life and work and the band and the 27 other activities I have to do. Sometimes it’s like really nice for me to run with no music on and just think about ideas that we’re having or parts that we’re writing, any of those things. And then I have a horrible run, it always seems to go like that for me.
About a year or two ago, I decided I was gonna run my first race. I never ran one before. I’ve known a bunch a people who have done a 5k, the entry level race, and I just wanted to say like “I can do this. I’m gonna run a 5k in 25 minutes and it’ll be awesome.” It’s just a goal that I wanted to set for myself and accomplish. So, I trained for a couple weeks and I was really watching what I was eating, and I signed up for this race which was two minutes from my house. The morning of the race I got so nervous. I’m so nervous but I’m ready to go. So, I drive to where the race is and everybody’s gone. I can’t even find the starting line. I had no idea where it is. I looked at my paper. It says this time but there’s nobody there. It made no sense. I walk all the way back to my car because the road’s closed, and I drive around and I see a full group of people that are like really close to the finish. And I realize what happened is for some reason on the same sheet they gave the time to get there, they also have the time that you applied for the race. So, the race started at 9 o’clock and the time I applied was like 9:17 or something. I missed the entire race that I trained for! And I remember driving the two minutes home and just sitting in my shorts in the driveway, so freaking upset. I haven’t done a race since then. So, between me falling when running and me missing a race, it just totally fits this like narrative that I have for running.
The Vaughns, rom-coms + take out EP is out now via Equal Vision.
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