Chapter 5 Mari
Five
Mari
Skip was like a younger, edgier Frank who had tattoos and chewed a lot of gum because he was trying to quit smoking. He had the same music philosophy: Don’t rush things, take the time to make the thing you’re producing good.
It was really lucky that Ryan ended up with a producer like him. Things happen for a reason, I think.
You already know where this went. Of course she did great in the test session—I got the impression that it was more to see whether she and Skip could work together than to gauge her skill.
He seemed to have already made up his mind that she had talent, and it sealed the deal when Ryan came in all professional and friendly even at her young age, cracking jokes with Skip about Austin traffic and the dry heat. Just like an interview.
He had her sing a few things for him—not recording, just to listen—and asked her to try changing keys, swapping out one lyric for another, and so forth. I think he wanted to see whether she was willing to be flexible and work with feedback.
After about forty-five minutes, he thanked Ryan and asked if he could talk with her parents separately.
There was a studio assistant who brought us snacks and chatted with us while we waited, but Ryan could hardly focus enough to have a conversation; she kept looking toward Skip’s office door.
She had a paper Dixie cup in her hands and was slowly crushing it and bouncing her leg.
We figured that Skip wouldn’t have brought the Holdings to his office if he wasn’t interested.
Looking back, it was really decent of him to talk with Barb and John first. He could have easily told Ryan to her face that he wanted to sign her, forcing the pressure on her parents in the same way those toy commercials do.
Tell Mom and Dad to buy Barbie’s tropical beach house today!
or whatever. But I think he was treading very carefully.
It was more than half an hour before they reemerged, and I remember John just having this totally blank look on his face and Barb being dazed. Both of them were blinking like they couldn’t quite remember where they were.
And Skip shook all our hands, said it was nice to meet us, and that he would be in touch. To her credit, Ryan didn’t push it just yet. She only said, “I hope to work with you again soon!” and looked Skip straight on with those green eyes of hers.
The second we were back in the rental car, though: “So? What did he say?”
John answered, “We’ll talk about it when we get home. There’s a lot to talk about.”
“You have to give me something!” Ryan pressed, and honestly, she was right. I was buzzing back there too.
“He was impressed by your music and your work ethic,” Barb said. She was cracking quicker than John; I remember catching this faint smile on her face when she said it. Barb was dazzled, in a word.
“We’ll leave it at that for now,” she went on. Ryan nodded and knew what that meant. She grabbed my hand in the back seat as we drove to the hotel, and I held on tight.
I’m pretty sure the Holdings’ first call when we all got back to Hamilton was to their lawyer.
From what Ryan told me, they spent more than one evening that week at his office, talking late into the night.
It turned out that Skip had presented them with a contract and encouraged them to take as much time as they needed going through it and discussing it with Ryan.
When they finally got through the first phase with the lawyer, they sat Ryan down and had a long, long family meeting.
She told me about it breathlessly over lunch the next day, how they talked about what each of the different legalities meant, but also what would happen if Ryan actually signed.
She did, of course.
And that changed both of our lives for good.
Justin
Ryan didn’t even tell me that she was moving to Texas. I had to hear it from Matt Danvers, who said she’d be gone by the Fourth of July. I remember having this image of Fourth of July fireworks in Texas and how everything would be bigger and better there.
She didn’t say goodbye to me.
Frank
I was sorry to see her go. To see all of them go—I felt like I’d gotten to be good friends with the Holdings over those early years.
But Ryan was on the warpath, and she had important things to do.
I gave her a little care package with all the extra strings and fingerpicks she could want, plus a few treats from around town to remember Hamilton by.
I think she might’ve got a bit choked up during our last lesson. I know I did.
Mari
Of course I tried to convince my parents to move to Texas, and of course my parents, born-and-bred New Englanders, were appalled by the idea.
I knew it was a long shot, anyway. But even though Ryan and I crammed every bit of quality time we possibly could into the end of our eighth-grade year, it felt like I blinked and suddenly we were lying on our backs on a picnic table in Patton Park, throwing Skittles up in the air and trying to catch them in our mouths the night before Ryan left for Austin.
“I don’t want you to go,” I remember saying.
It kind of came out of nowhere, and I immediately felt terrible—like I wasn’t supporting her dream, like all I cared about was keeping her stuck in Hamilton for the rest of our lives so she could go to high school with me and come to my harp recitals and watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, quickly becoming our favorite movie, over and over again.
But she surprised me by saying, “I don’t want to go either.”
I remember sitting up on the table and looking over at her, but she was staring straight into the blue sky. “You don’t?” I asked.
“I don’t and I do,” she said. “I’ll miss the pine trees. I won’t know anyone. And I won’t have you.”
She slid her eyes over to me when she said it, and I saw that they were full of tears.
The whole time I thought she’d been thrilled to move; all she’d talked about nonstop was the town house her parents were renting and the music equipment she had to pack and the weather that would never feel cold—at least to us Hamiltonians.
I’d even tortured myself with the idea that she might be glad to finally get out of our quiet little town.
“But there’s just something in me that says if I don’t take this chance, I’ll never get it again,” she said.
“I don’t know what it is. I have all these ideas—so many ideas, Mari, and I have to get them out somehow.
I have to do something with them. If I just sit on them and waste them, it gives me this itchy, horrible feeling.
And then I listen to other people creating stuff and think, I could have done that.
Or I could do better. And it makes me feel .
. . guilty, I guess. That I didn’t try harder. ”
I nodded. It wasn’t something I could completely relate to or understand, but as I got older, I recognized that feeling in other artists I met.
I’ve thought a lot about the compulsion to create over the years.
Ryan’s wealth was beside the point, especially at the outset; there was no guarantee that she could make any money off of this, at least no more than she was already gathering with festival winnings.
A near fifteen-year-old wasn’t equipped to understand income in that sense, anyway.
Ryan was driven by something beyond herself. And it was powerful enough to force her past fear and discomfort to become something that was truly exceptional.
It was the last time in my life that I viewed her as a kid just like me.
Skip
Ryan Holding moved to Austin in the summer of 2004, a week before her fifteenth birthday. I primarily communicated through her parents at that time; I said to her father, take a week, a month, whatever you need, have her settle in and enjoy her summer for a little bit.
Nothing doing. Ryan showed up with her mother to my office the following Monday and wanted to schedule some studio time.
“I’m free now,” I told her. “Let’s head up and hash this thing out.”
Barb brought a book of crosswords and a copy of Woman’s Day and sat quietly in the corner of our studios while we talked.
“You’re eager,” I told her. “Didn’t you want to take some time to celebrate your birthday?”
She shrugged and said, “We went out to dinner. It’s more important to me that I don’t let you change your mind about all this.”
I chuckled. “We signed a contract, so I’m not going to change my mind. At least not until I see how your first album performs.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Barb raise an eyebrow.
But hey, I wanted to set expectations early, and Ryan looked like she could handle it.
I do my best to never, ever be unkind and to be the best possible advocate for all my artists.
But this was a business relationship, a transactional one, and any new sign-on would go through a probationary period in my book until I could trust them.
I would hope that Ryan held me to the same standards—her parents certainly did.
For her part, Ryan nodded at my comment.
So I went on and said, “Here’s what I’d like to get out of the next year or so in plain terms in case no one’s laid it out for you yet.
We’ll produce an album together, your debut album.
It sounds like you’re an adept songwriter, but if you get stuck, we’ve got folks to help out.
I’ll work on getting you some more appearances.
Festivals, yes, but some meatier gigs if we can swing it—opening acts whenever possible.
” I watched her face for any confusion or hesitancy as I was making my little speech, but she seemed to be tracking.
Then I said, “But it’s also very important to me what you’d like to get out of the next year.
What do you want out of this opportunity, Ryan? ”
She didn’t stop to think, didn’t miss a beat. She looked at me with clear green eyes and said, “Everything.”
“Everything?” I repeated.