Chapter 9 Jasmine
Nine
Jasmine
Istill count the Firebird tour as one of Ryan’s best, hands down. I didn’t come along on all of it, but when I did, the energy was electric.
There’s a sweet spot an artist hits when they’re growing fast but not quite mainstream, an exclusivity and hype that can’t be manufactured or bought.
And Skip wanted us to harness that as best we could.
Skip
Andre and I had been talking about expanding operations out to Los Angeles for some time, and Ryan became the impetus to do that.
I think we all saw it coming before she did—the inevitable identity crisis she was about to have.
Look, I’ll say it bluntly: Ryan was outgrowing bluegrass.
There’s nothing wrong with the genre. It was her home. It was where she was comfortable, and I think she felt she owed a lot to Frank, to the musicians on the festival circuits, to bluegrass fans—and rightly so.
But I could tell, and Jas even more so, that Ryan wanted to experiment.
She wanted to push those boundaries. Hell, press the mute button when you’re watching the Firebird trilogy and you’d never know they’re supposed to be music videos for bluegrass songs.
The cinematography, the styling of those videos, was all Old Hollywood in my opinion. And Serge agreed.
There was a natural separation that was becoming clear: Andre had our older mainstays in his portfolio, I had Ryan and our other young eclectics.
LA would not only help them grow, but it’d double our entry points for discovering new talent.
The cost of doing business in California was higher, obviously, but Ryan had earned us the means and the money, and it was worth a shot.
I talked through it with Ryan and her parents over dinner. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted it to be everyone’s decision, not just mine. If Ryan wanted to stay in Austin, so be it.
But as I suspected, she liked the idea. LA would open us up to a wider range of resources—particularly film.
It was decided that she and Barb would find an apartment out there, and John would stay behind in Austin to maintain the house and property, keep working.
Their marriage by that point was, well .
. . Ryan didn’t talk about it much. But this decision was telling to me.
By the time we set up the Madcap offices in Los Angeles, we were starting to look a little more like the major labels Andre and I had left all those years ago.
We didn’t sell out, I’m not saying that.
But I mean, we got interns, man. We got Ryan a proper tour bus and, most importantly, a more permanent band.
We trimmed the fat of the backup musicians who just weren’t cutting it and held auditions for the ones who could really jell with Ryan.
It was another step toward an expanded, versatile sound for her.
This was no longer your bluegrass jug band; not to be pejorative, but—you know.
These were professionals who had longtime experience as backing musicians.
That crew was razor sharp. We managed to poach Kelly Clarkson’s bassist Jared Angel, and we had Celine Williams on electric fiddle, Elliott McNeal on drums, Chris Murano on keyboard, just to name a few.
Oh, and Wilder. Of course.
Mari
It really was a happy coincidence that I ended up at UCLA. Honestly, the closest place to home that I even applied was Duke, and even that was pretty half-hearted. It’s funny that I ended up back here because, at that point in my life, I wanted out.
It wasn’t that I disliked Hamilton and the East Coast—I love it, obviously. But seeing everything that Ryan was doing made me want to leave home too. To be at least a plane ride away.
I wanted to be far-flung, and of all the colleges I went for on the West Coast, I got the best scholarship from UCLA. When Ryan told me she’d be there, too, it was like the stars had aligned.
I was working toward a double major in English and business with a minor in music education—the harp had played a role in the scholarship.
I didn’t know exactly what I’d do with any of that.
But I’d liked the few conversations I’d been able to have with Skip about music production and thought there might be a role for me somewhere in the industry.
It was fascinating to me the way that Ryan’s presence grew online—by the time I got to school in 2009, everyone knew her most popular songs and videos.
She still interacted with fans directly on her Myspace page back then, and YouTube was taking off.
Facebook was really blowing up. You had more access to these artists than ever before—you could actually talk to them, if you were lucky.
And the pictures that were published, the videos, the content—it was all free. It was only the beginning.
Nick
I was really glad to hear that Ryan was coming to LA. Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t like I’d waited for her or anything—I’d seen a few other girls since Vegas, but the timing worked out that I was just doing my own thing when she moved to town.
She called me first, and I liked that. We were taking a break in rehearsal, and my phone rang with her number—when I answered, she said, “Guess where I am!”
“Where?” I was smiling like an idiot already, it was stupid.
“Pasadena.”
“What the hell are you doing there?”
I heard her laugh through the phone. “I live here now, and I’m having a housewarming party this weekend. So if you feel like stopping by . . .”
She didn’t have to ask me twice.
It was wild; we were able to just pick up where we left off. I went to her shows, she went to mine; we partied with Kylie’s crowd and hit the LA nightlife every weekend. I think she was still getting used to the attention in those days.
It was cute how shy she was. She’d hide her face behind a menu in a restaurant or duck down in my car driving back from the movies.
I just smiled and waved to the paparazzi.
Sometimes I even walked us to the car on a longer route so they could get more pictures.
I was used to it, and I wasn’t shy about having someone that good-looking going around town with me.
Sorry, but is it bad to want to show off your hot and talented girlfriend?
Look, we didn’t . . . we didn’t really talk about what our expectations were about the relationship. We were “seeing each other,” but I assumed she understood the way tabloids put you under a microscope out there. I thought she understood the loyalty we needed to have to our fans too.
Obviously, that was my mistake. You know what happened next.
Justin
No, I did not go to UCLA just because of Ryan. Have people even looked at the timeline? She moved to Los Angeles after the fall semester had already started. I swear, no one actually researches this shit. They parrot each other until they’re all whipped up into a hissy fit.
Mari and I were in the same English class at Hamilton-Wenham, though, I’ll admit that.
We went to the same college fair. She and I talked about screenwriting, and she told me they had a good film program, so I applied.
Sue me. There was a screenplay I was working really hard on, this idea I had for a sort of tragicomedy portrait about a man who devotes his whole life and all his savings to finding Bigfoot.
I wanted to see if I could find a home for it out in Hollywood.
It was a coincidence that the three of us ended up in California together. I hadn’t talked to Ryan in years.
But did I ever wonder if I’d run into her around town?
Sure. Sure, I did.