Go By Ocean

One week from now, Go By Ocean will celebrate the release of their newest single “Ring Around the Sun” with a show at Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley, California, the night before it officially comes out. Vanyaland has a sneak peek at the song — and video — both of which are below. The bouncing track comes from the San Francisco indie rock outfit’s upcoming sophomore album, Sun Machine.

“It’s an anthem proclaiming that even in the darkest of times, one can still look down the road to a better life,” Go By Ocean singer/guitarist Ryan McCaffrey tells Vanyaland. “The title ‘Ring Around the Sun’ refers to the year I spent trying to redefine myself after ages in the abyss.”

The accompanying video is striking in both its simplicity and way it takes the lyrics from “Ring Around the Sun” and transforms them. The directors of the clip call themselves Ugly Pictures, and talked about how they came up with the idea.

“The entire concept for this video stemmed from this line in the song: ‘Somehow made my way to the light again, but the darkness never sleeps,’ they say. The ink clouds represent some kind of darkness — whether that be evil or your own regrets and fears manifesting around you. We bought miniature toys at toy stores and built little scenes in fish tanks of everyday moments like ‘a man playing guitar on the streets,’ ‘a woman at home with her cats,’ etc. took these seemingly normal situations and dropped in some ‘darkness.’ The message for us was clear: The darkness of this world is always around you.” - Vanyaland

If Oasis and My Morning Jacket had a love child, it would be Go By Ocean.

The San Francisco indie-rock band, which is helmed by singer and guitarist Ryan McCaffrey, had been a longtime in the making. After years of what McCaffrey calls “dark hours,” he finally put out his first Go By Ocean album in 2015, Paper Thin Hotel.

Now, he’s following it up with Sun Machine, a lush, textured record filled with mellow rockers and poetic ditties, that was recorded in the span of a week at Panoramic House Studio in Stinson Beach.

Premiered today is “Off The Grid,” the second single to be released from the album. An amalgam of various subgenres and influences, you can hear bits and pieces of shoegaze, psych-rock, and even Britpop in the track, which gets more rousing the longer you listen to it.

Despite the song’s sunny disposition, McCaffrey says it was inspired by a rough time in his life when he was stuck between “addiction and isolation.”

“I was stuck at a dead end,” he says. “I chose to live there for years because the dues I had to pay trying to get healthy were too painful to confront.”

Fortunately, those days are behind McCaffrey, and he can now use those dark times as fuel for his creative endeavors. - SF Weekly

Go By Ocean‘s newest piece of music – Sun Machine – is a dreamy, jangle pop wonderland produced by Jeremy Black. The ten track record comes from the mind of Ryan McCaffery and his bandmates, a group of musicians from San Francisco. Throughout the record, we hear lines of the kind of guitar that will make your heart swell, paired with vocals that feel pure and honest. For a record as soothing as Sun Machine it is almost surprising to find out that it comes from a pretty dark place. McCaffery’s road wasn’t an easy one and it seems clear that this record feels like a catharsis. Through each slow moving, beach rock infused indie track, there is some real melancholy. The band is working through the bad parts of life, figuring it all out, to the tune of something so sweet. - Impose

“I’ve just been obsessed [with music] ever since I was a kid,” confesses singer/songwriter/guitarist Ryan McCaffrey, as we chat over coffee in his woodsy Novato home. That “obsession” continues to shape his life today—he and his band, Go By Ocean, just finished recording their second album, Sun Machine, and will perform at the Sweetwater Music Hall on Thursday, February 23.

The band is tight, and plays eclectic, indie rock. McCaffrey, 36, writes all of the songs, which range from mellow grooves to percussive rock ’n’ roll rhythms. He sings with heart and sincerity in a soft and dreamy style that is distinctive, compelling and personal. “I want to have emotion in it,” McCaffrey says.

He grew up in Southern California, and started playing guitar in grade school. McCaffrey’s early musical influences included Guns N’ Roses, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and Nirvana, which led to the formation of his first punk rock band. In high school, he began singing, and then discovered his true passion—songwriting. “I love songs and I love the craft of writing a song,” he says. “I’m always on the hunt for the next song.”

McCaffrey moved to the Bay Area in 2000 to attend San Francisco State University, organized a band after graduating and started gigging around with a variety of players. Having been through some dark times in his life, McCaffrey says that he’s much happier now, and “living by the light, rather than letting darkness lead the way.” He calls the band’s song “Ring Around the Sun” an “anthem” to a brighter future. “Even in your darkest hour, it’s a song that says that even at your worst, you can look down the road to better days ahead,” McCaffrey says.

Juggling a full-time “day job,” McCaffrey says that music will always be the driving force in his life. “No matter what, this is just what I’m going to be doing. I signed up to play music a long, long time ago—and my soul requires it.” - Pacific Sun