Zach Ryan and the Renegades

The new guys about town that will likely wind up on next year’s list? Zach Ryan of Zach Ryan and the Renegades, Steven Ray Tankersley, and Carl Andrew Seals (a.k.a. Hot Carl) – these boys had, literally, just arrived in Music City, all the way from Sin City, and had that infectious youthful energy that goes along with hitting the road and chasing a dream. After 24-hours in Nashville, their BON experiences included the annual Scream on the Green Halloween Party, smoking weed in front of Robert’s Western World while the Titans bus took out the handicap sign, and hearing some guy on Music Row singing Guy Clark’s “L.A. Freeway” — not a bad 24 hours, not a bad 24 hours at all. - Impose Magazine

Zach Ryan, new band in tow, gets to the heart of the matter -- his heart

There's a directly correlative relationship between Zach Ryan's music and his clothing. We've seen him in Beatles/Bowie buttoned-up suits and a shaven face during his tenure with The Rooks. We watched as '70s power pop started sinking its teeth in, turning him ragged-faced and wife-beater-donned. And on a recent Thursday morning, as he tries to fit his Jolly Pale Giant body onto a couch at The Beat coffeehouse, we catch him in all black Western wear, an outfit you'd expect of a posse member in a Clint Eastwood flick. It marks a noticeably twangier, southern rock sound as Zach Ryan, until recently known as Zach Ryan and the Rouge, brings Americana to his set lists and closet.

"I got tired of trying to write straight pop songs," Ryan says, trying to shake his eye bags with a small coffee. "I wanted to write something that mattered more to me. I found myself explaining songs as being written from a hypothetical standpoint. But I don't want to write from a hypothetical standpoint anymore. These songs directly correlate with my life or past."

The progression to a more honest, Springsteenian sound was almost inevitable. The dude already had the cowboy boots and a love of Bob Dylan, and the '70s rock of The Rooks made his style too heavy to be some tambourine man. At his Bunkhouse show two days after the coffeeshop chat, he's practically undergoing a Springsteen possession onstage, his song "Wake Up Call" fitting The Boss' "I'm Going Down" vibe, just with Rhodes keyboard riff complements. It feels like Americana, the kind of music found on the stereo of someone you'd call a ramblin' man (Ryan's song "Terrible Town," especially).

In fact, the band's upcoming E.P., Terrible Town, follows the ramblin' theme, however subtly. There are three songs about Ryan's current home, Las Vegas, in a literal sense. Another is about his old home in small-town Oregon. He closes with a love song -- a sort of emotional home (whether or not he'd phrase it that way). "I've always stayed single and always have friends who are busy, so I'm alone a lot," he says about the album's concept. "I think I was focusing on that more, noticing it more when I wrote these songs. It's about the past and where my life is going."
At the Bunkhouse, he's wearing that same posse ensemble, but without the sleepy eyes. Now he's grinning, spitting up pieces of his heart onto the microphone with every strumming chorus. He's optimistic. For the past month, he and his bandmates -- Ali Una on bass, Dan Conway on drums, Steve Ardri on keys -- have spent every nonwork waking moment putting together their five-track debut to the sonic universe, opting out of engineering their musical blemishes, instead spending that time to nail the track better. It's harder work, takes more self-scrutiny and risks getting sloppy, since Ryan wants this album finished for Christmas. Tonight you can see that effort coming to fruition in meticulously rehearsed songs. Onstage, Ryan looks like a kid with a crush. And maybe that's what he has for this band, and how comfortable he feels in front of them.

"It's like dating," he says. "You have to go through a lot of players to find who works for you. I've been dating for a while, and now I have a band I like. There's a really good feeling when we're all together."
- Las Vegas CityLife