![]()
Known for spinning a slo-mo style of island-infused house and nu-disco, New York-based Ryan Cavanagh, AKA Slow Hands, is more than just your run-of-the-mill DJ, he's a bona fide musician. With years of formal training under his belt before going rogue in the underground, he's making it his musical mission to bring live instrumentation back. Wise beyond his years, and more frustrated than jaded, he spoke candidly with us from his studio in Vermont ahead of his performance at the Crew Love showcase at Moogfest. He shared with us some of his concerns with the current trends in electronic music, including the over-inflated and unjustified attitudes of his peers, told us about the music that inspires him, and drew some interesting parallels between Pop music and the direction electronic music has taken of late.
<br>
I know you went to school for music in Philly, but dropped out after your first year “as all successful musicians do.” Did you have any formal training before that? I studied a lot in high school. I got a guitar for my 15th birthday, going in to my sophomore year. I was playing a lot and studying with a teacher in my little town here, and then the summer between my Junior and Senior year I went to a guitar camp on the East Coast. There were only maybe five other guys there my age - the rest were all these middle-aged men that wanted to be blazing guitar heroes. I remember walking into my first class and sitting there with fifteen dudes between the ages of 40 and 60, and they all had these insane guitars. And this shredder guy who was the head of the class said he was going to audition us privately to see what class we should be in, so I was just sitting there with all these old dudes talking about their guitars all day.
After my audition the instructor told me he had some bad news. I originally wanted to be a blues player so I thought shit, I'm not ready to be in Blues Guitar 2. It turned out he thought I should be in Jazz 2 or 3. I was there for 2 weeks, and they bumped me up the first week, so I didn't know what to do the second week. There wasn't really anything past that, even though they had all these amazing guitar and piano players on site. There was this guy there named James Dalton. He was basically the world music guy on site, and is one of the premiere experts on mandolin playing to this day. He was really cool and I basically just followed him around. I told him I was going to this private school in Vermont and we didn't have a music program. So I called my Headmaster up and they let me start one. I brought him in and studied with him for two years. If it weren't for him I'd probably be pumping gas. Even when I was in college I would come back and do classes with him. That was high school, though. All I did was play music.
So you did two years with him in high school, then the one year of college, and then took off to really do your own thing? Yea. It was really strange going to school for music after three years of studying privately with James. It was kind of like the military, in the sense that they broke you down and then rebuilt you. There were definitely some aspects of it that were good, though. I mean, I got to study with some amazing and talented musicians like Kevin Eubanks and Pat Martino. It was also a very strange time for music because Jazz had already sort of been going away. I had grown up for the last ten years thinking that I could go on to become a session musician, or play backup in a band, and then that all went out the window.
The same year I went to school, Pro Tools came out with these portable audio interfaces, and it really shifted things. Computers became so much more powerful. It allowed you to have a studio at home. I was in Philly where you had Josh Wink and Dieselboy and all those guys coming out. I was sneaking into clubs on South Street to see them play, and I got really into that. So I left school, took my student loans, bought a computer and started dabbling in electronic music.
I love Philadelphia, it's a great town, but I just always wanted to be in New York. So as soon as I dropped out I started bartending, and moved to New York about a year later. At first I just absorbed what was going on, and then over the last five years I've really gotten more involved in the scene and the music that's being made.
![]()
There was an interview you did a few years back with Autobrennt where you said that what drew you to DJing was its ability as a musical format to allow for evolution. How do you see your own style evolving in the last five years or so, and how do you see yourself as part of the greater evolution of music? Lately I've started going back to my roots, and have been incorporating more live music into my sets. It's just more attractive to me than DJing. Sometimes I feel like what I'm doing now, which feels like an evolution, is just going back and doing what I was doing before I got bitten by the electronic music bug. It's never really not been a part of it. I guess it just evolved to become much more a part of it. There were some other people incorporating live instrumentation but, generally speaking, it was this thing that set my music apart, that I could attain easily and didn't sound like anything else. It's just what I'm good at. It's always been there. There was a two-year lag where I sold all my instruments, but that was just me being an idiot.
I've also been inspired to use the guitar a lot more lately from a bit of frustration around these trends that people tend to get stuck in. That general lack of change. I wish more young people got into producing with the idea of changing things, instead of recreating them. You go a lot of places and kids are just doing the same bass lines as what Hot Creations or Art Department are doing, for instance. It's like, these guys already did it in such a good way, and that's their sound. Anyone you listen to is going to have a somewhat distinct sound. Even with my music, I have certain intervals I fall back on, or melodic directions that I go in frequently. I think that's something that kids need to focus on now. It sucks to me that people seem way more concerned with the gear side of things than the musical side of things. What makes Nico Jaar Nico Jaar isn't that he uses a Prophet-08 or whatever. The music shouldn't be secondary.
Also, everyone looks cool on stage with a guitar. It's got this rock star aspect to it. Kids are growing up with this idea that two turntables and headphones is equal to what Led Zeppelin did. So just pushing live music forward is sort of my mission statement with the guitar. I don't think Bob Moog invented the Theremin with the idea that 60 years later people were never going to play it live and everything was just going to be sequenced. My evolution really is about going back to the roots of it all.
![]()
In that same interview with Autobrennt you mentioned that a lack of pretension within club culture was part of what attracted you to it initially. Do you still think that's the case, or is it becoming more of an elitist entity? It is 1,000 times worse now. I can't even express enough how bad it was at BPM this year. I decided not to go to Miami this year as a result of it. The pretension in DJing is so ludicrously high. If I go to another goddamn party where there are more people in the DJ booth than there are on the dancefloor... And the things I've heard come out of so many DJs' mouths are just jaw-dropping.
You see a lot of people getting big who, five years ago, were nobodies, and they're not even putting the energy in. DJing is NOT fucking work. I don't care what anybody tells you, it's not. And most of these people are playing the same sets time and time again, to the point that even the fans notice. There's a lack of hard work and energy going into the job, coupled with a bad attitude and a lack of appreciation. I understand becoming jaded, and you travel for years on end, but if you're at that point you should just take some time off and go in the studio, or go on a vacation or something.
Somebody said to me recently that DJ culture has become a parody of itself. It's like a Saturday Night Live skit going to some of these places. I think everybody needs to take a step back and look at the music that's being created and the attitude around it. Ewan Pearson said that once you stop being a fan you should stop making music. And when I step back as a fan and look at what's going on, I'm pretty insulted by it. I'm not a huge fan of Kings of Leon anymore, but at least when you go see those guys they're fucking playing music, and they're pouring every ounce of their soul into it. In my opinion, you're not entitled to an attitude like that if all you're doing is DJing.
It's gotten to a point where clubs and promoters are literally putting these DJs on a pedestal. I've played some places where it's actually embarrassing and I just want to crawl in a hole. To me, a booth is meant to be stuck in a corner. The focal point should be the music. If you're a DJ, most likely you're playing somebody else's music. To stand on a stage and do that takes away from the spirit of what it all is. It's the same as Moodymann putting up a sheet while he plays.
One of the greatest things I've ever seen Soul Clap and Wolf & Lamb do was last year at Sonar. All the live acts performed on this huge stage, and then when the DJs came on they set up the booth practically in the crowd, so they had the energy of the people all around them. It just made so much more sense to see that. It's customary for live music to be elevated. You want to see the artists playing and reacting to one another. DJing is supposed to be about the music. It's silly to get the attention for music other people made. This is just coming from a jaded old jazz musician, I guess.
![]()
Who are some artists and albums you've been inspired by lately? I know you've admitted that you don't listen to a lot of electronic music in your free time, which I'm finding is surprisingly common amongst a lot of DJs and producers. Today I listened to Alexander Desplat's soundtrack for Wes Anderson's new film The Grand Budapest Hotel, which was really well scored. I listened to a little bit of the new record from Kevin Drew of Broken Social Scene. That led me to listen to Brendan Canning, another member of Broken Social Scene. I listened to a little of the new Metronomy record, which was cool, and a little of the new Ray Lamontagne record. I've been listening to a lot of film scores lately. Film scores were really, really good this past year. The scores for "Nebraska," "Her," which was scored by Arcade Fire and Owen Pallett and "The Grandmaster" all stand out.
I pretty much have Father John Misty on all the time. I listen to a lot of acoustic music more than anything. I'm kind of drawn away from a lot of electronic music. It's not as easy to listen to, especially not in the background. It's really intense to listen to all the time, and it's hard to listen to eight-minute songs that are very repetitious. I prefer to listen to three-minute songs that have a lot of dynamic to them. I tend to be geared more towards orchestral music, or stuff that's performed live, be it in a studio or on a stage.
I've also been really inspired by Pop music and its evolution and innovations lately. It really started with Justin Timberlake's first solo album and the surge of Indie Rock. It's awesome to see all the successes that are coming out of it, the Bon Ivers, the Arcade Fires, the Pharrell Williams'. I find it really funny to see this scene go in the same direction as Pop music was going in the late 90's early 2000's, where it's becoming very much a formula. We're still technically underground, but it's not really underground if you're just doing what everybody else is doing, even if it's on a small scale. I get way more excited about some of this Pop stuff versus if I go on Beatport's Top 100 and hear the same music I've been hearing for the last four years. That's kind of sad when the Pop charts trump the underground music.
Meanwhile, Justin Timberlake and Pharrell and those guys are really pushing the envelope, and so are the producers behind those records, the Timbalands and the Rick Rubins. I mean, that last Kanye West album? That dude just blew the roof off! This is all personal preference, but that's one of the best albums of my lifetime. Sonically, it's amazing. The music is super original. He brought in kids to produce this record for him and I think that's so cool. I hope that if I ever become that successful I'm that smart. I guess that musically, for me, that's what I want. I want to be able to make something that is that original and that driving and has that much of an impact.
![]()
You mentioned somewhere before a general concern that most kids these days could name all the members of Swedish House Mafia, but couldn't tell you who John Coltrane is. Do you have any ideas of what can be done to ensure future generations grow up knowing the history of the music? It's funny, I'm here in Vermont where my parents live, and I talk to my mom about this a lot. There's really no radio anymore, and the radio that we do have is controlled, iTunes is controlled. It's all about digging and finding new musicians. When I was younger we would listen to somebody like John Coltrane, and then you wanted to know who the bass player was, who the piano player was, who the drummer was, who the other horn players were. That meant that another $150 from your dishwashing was gone because you bought all the albums that his band members made, and then that launched into other things.
It's good to read interviews with artists that you love, they often talk about musicians that they listen to. I guess it just takes research and a desire to hear different things. I don't even know if young people's ears are trained to listen to a jazz record anymore. I'm sounding incredibly like an old man here, but I don't know what the solution to the problem is. I wish I could say “go to a jazz club because it will change your life” but there's not really even any of those around anymore. And the ones that do exist tend to be so commercialized and ludicrously expensive.
Go to a record store, find somewhere that carries independent music, and just buy a record that you don't know. It's so easy to put yourself into a box these days and not escape the confines of your computer or your iTunes library and I think that's a bummer. I think just listening to all kinds of music is important.
Since we're here talking about the upcoming Crew Love showcase at Moogfest, I thought I'd ask what it means to you to be part of that group, and what the dynamic between you guys is like? It really is like a family. There's a lot of love, a lot of fighting. I think what's great about it is that it's challenging for everybody. There's good days and bad days with that. It pushes art and it pushes the music a lot. Recently there have been times where they aren't into what I'm doing, and that sucks, but it doesn't stop me from doing what I'm doing. It always comes from a place of trying to help. And, vice versa, there have been times I've said the same thing to them. It's just a really good thing.
What about a Crew Love party separates it from any other party besides, obviously, that it's you guys playing? The Crew tends to dress a lot differently than other crews! It's fun for us, and I think it's just really nice to all be together in one place. It doesn't happen that often anymore, as much as it may seem like it does. The parties have a very family-oriented vibe. Musically, it's not going to be a party that is banging from the beginning to the end. When the party starts you know there's not going to be a ton of people there, so we all just kind of stand around the turntables and nobody really mixes, we just take turns playing whatever fun, loose music we want until the place starts filling up a bit. Then we'll start focusing on the live shows, which are usually all over the place tempo and energy-wise. And then the last couple hours will usually end with Soul Clap and Wolf & Lamb playing house, and it's great.
Crew Love parties are across the board, musically, and that's really nice. There's nothing worse than hearing the same music the whole time when you're at an eight-hour party. There's instruments strewn all over the place, and any of us might just come up on stage and play together. So in that sense it's different, because it's really not DJ driven. And that's something you've got to give Wolf & Lamb and Soul Clap a lot of credit for, is being able to step out of the spotlight and let the live acts shine. They shine as label owners, because it's their artists playing and performing, but it takes a lot of modesty and pride to be able to do that.
Is there anything in particular you're looking forward to about Moogfest? I think it's just awesome that they can get this kind of broad lineup together in celebration of Moog and what he's done for music over such a long time. It's great to be able to do something like this and not have it be some massive stadium festival you have to get out your neon and tutus for. That's really awesome to me. I'm going to be down there for a whole week and I'm looking forward to being in a part of the world I'm not in that often, the South. Asheville seems super cool.
![]()
Are there any other upcoming gigs or projects you're working on that you're especially excited about right now? I have an EP coming out in May, and the single for the album should be out in June. The album should be out sometime in the Fall. There's the live set, which is what I'll be doing at Moogfest. There's also a collaborative live set I've been working on with Cameo Culture, who also has an album coming out very soon.
As far as gigs go, I head to Europe in early April, and I hit Dubai and Tunisia, then Watergate in Berlin and London for a little Crew Love bus tour before heading back for Moogfest. It's a lot of Crew Love stuff in the Spring, all the way up through June, which I'm looking forward to. I do quite a lot of traveling on my own, so it's always nice to get on an airplane with other people and hold somebody's hand. I still hate airplanes.
The Crew Love Showcase will take place on Wednesday night, April 23rd at Moogfest. Single day passes are available. Find the full lineup (including a day-by-day schedule) and purchase tickets on the official website!
Listen to Slow Hands on Pulse Radio
