Chapter 14
Fourteen
Reddit user u/kill_bill
There’s no way Justin didn’t murder her. Take a coddled white man who already feels entitled to this woman and acts like he owns all her creative ideas and then have Ryan ruin his life—there’s no way he takes that lying down. We’ve seen the pattern again and again.
Justin claims he was at his job in Encino the night of the VMAs, but we know that he didn’t show up to his shift at Shake Shack (thanks to u/ancient_jellyfish and their amazing network of fast food friends! You guys rock!).
Justin Still Works at the Shake Shack on Ventura Blvd in Encino if any of my LA friends are brave enough to confront him!!!
#RescueRyan
Jasmine
Ryan and I had coffee again when she got back from her hiatus in Seattle. We sat on the rooftop patio at Madcap, and I waited for her to go first. The smog was particularly spectacular that day—I could hardly even see the First Republic Bank building. Lovely.
When Ryan didn’t say anything, I asked, “Are you feeling better?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
“Not really.”
“You have people in your corner,” I said. “It’s not always gonna feel that way, but you have to remember that. You’re not alone in this.”
Ryan took a sip of her coffee and then looked at me.
I could tell she was trying to frame what she wanted to say, and to be careful about her wording: “But very few people know what it’s like, right?
You don’t get mobbed. Mari doesn’t. I was hurrying to my hotel in Seattle, and this dark car pulled up out of nowhere; two men got out and started running at me.
I didn’t know it was the media until they pulled out the microphone.
“I don’t want to feel sorry for myself for being famous,” she went on. “It’s not that. But . . . sometimes it does feel like I’m alone.”
I nodded, and we were both quiet for a long time. She was right. I didn’t know how that felt. Neither did Skip.
Finally, I asked, “What do you want to do next, Ryan? It’s up to you now.”
She thought for a moment and then finally gave me just a hint of a smile. “I got some good advice from someone one time,” she said. “I think I’ll turn to my fellow musicians and see what they think.”
Skip
While all the celebrity news junkies and crackpots got off on Ryan’s LA Minute outburst, the more serious publications laid off.
Ryan was included in a few articles about music leaks and data security in the industry, a piece about the media pressure on young female artists in the age of the internet.
But those were good. They made her a sympathetic character whose boundaries were overstepped during a very bad day in her career.
And even better was the fact that other artists knew what she was going through. They’d had music leaked or been threatened by the same risk.
So when Ryan came to me and asked, “How fast can we get some guest artists on this album?”
I said, “Tell me more.”
“People have already heard those three tracks,” she said.
I could tell she’d come back from whatever ledge she’d been on, because her momentum was starting up again.
“I’m not in denial about it—I know they’re everywhere.
The lady at the check-in desk had it playing on her laptop, for crying out loud.
And they’ve heard the singles, so . . . that’s more than half the album. ”
“Yes,” I said.
“I worked hard on those songs. I’m not going to let them go to waste.” She looked me straight in the eyes. “But we can make them fresh and new.”
Music Now Magazine, May 2012
“Count Your Days,” music thieves, because Ryan Holding isn’t going to let you stand in the way of success.
After a recent three-track leak ahead of the forthcoming release of Diatribe, Holding’s third studio album, Holding and her label Madcap Records have decided to rebuild anticipation of the drop with a little help from friends in the industry.
The label announced Tuesday that a last-minute list of guest artists will sing on the album, adding new voices to the leaked tracks as well as the record’s three singles, which will be rereleased.
The stars lending a helping hand include such former tour mates as Dust and Roses and Montana Line, but the lineup also boasts new and unexpected collaborations: rap artist Tame J, pop sensation Victor!
a, indie rock band Brace for Impact, and—perhaps most surprising of all—model Kylie Cameron, who recently released a number of self-produced songs on her social channels.
Kylie
The whole music-leak thing was where things started to crumble between me and the girls. I mean, they were all so judgmental of Ryan when she yelled at LA Minute. They were all like, Why is she so angry? Look how red her face is. Nothing is tackier than screaming in public like some cokehead.
Savannah was especially bad. I don’t think she ever forgave Ryan for her fling with Nick Hoffmann—which, fair. That was kind of shitty of Ryan.
But it wasn’t an excuse to bad-mouth her as terribly as any of them did.
I was like, you guys, we know what it feels like to be painted in a harsh light by the press.
For Chrissake, Savannah’d just had an exposé written up about her supposedly cheating on Nick—who she was dating at the time—with the male model on the Versace fall campaign.
Just because they’d gotten dinner together after a shoot.
God forbid a woman eats with her coworker when she’s hungry.
Plus, I did feel . . . really shitty about what Ryan was going through. We’ve all trusted guys we shouldn’t have. We’ve all worked really hard on a project just for something to go wrong. And I thought the girls would be more understanding.
They weren’t. They laughed at her any chance they got—not to her face, but that made it worse—and they would play the leaked tracks at parties just before she arrived, and then giggle behind their hands all night whenever she would look at them and say, “What?”
I should have called them out on it earlier. But I did finally tell Savannah, “What’s your goddamn problem?”
We were sitting out by her pool, and she was reading some smear piece aloud about how female artists can’t handle fame, how girls like Ryan are too delicate and sensitive to do their jobs well. And she looked at me and said, “What’s my problem?”
“You should be supporting her,” I said. “Someone could write a piece like that about us in a heartbeat.”
She snorted. “Oh. So because I’m a woman, I should be supporting some other woman’s shitty behavior, just because we’ve both got boobs?”
“No, but we’re supposed to be her friend,” I said. “And I don’t want to be friends with a bitch.”
And I got up and went to Ryan’s.
It took a second for her to let me in at first—I realized when I was standing at the door that she hadn’t been to the last few of our gatherings, and I felt like an idiot for not noticing it. She’d been avoiding us. Of course she knew what Savannah and everyone were saying behind her back.
But Ryan still smiled when she saw me and said, “Hey, Kylie. How are you?”
I said, “I’ve been an asshole, Ryan. I’m sorry.”
Savannah
So I guess you just have to grovel at Ryan Holding’s feet and you’ll get a collab. Some people have no backbone.
Victor!a, pop vocalist and songwriter
It was a great experience singing with Ryan! I loved the raw, unleashed feel of “Listen!” Look, I’ve experienced some shitty career setbacks, too, and when she and I got in that booth together, screaming Shut up, shut up, just for one minute! it was the best feeling ever.
She was my homegirl. I hope she’s okay, wherever she is.
Gavin
It was wild to see how much Ryan had changed since the Southwest Sands tour. Her whole demeanor was different—less bubbly, more businesslike. Even “Angeline,” which we sang on, was nothing like her old bluegrass.
And maybe that’s just part of growing up. Montana Line sounds a lot different now than we did in the early days, I’ll tell you that. But Ryan was so carefree when she was just a little thing doing all those crazy tours, and during the Diatribe sessions, she seemed . . . guarded.
There was just one moment when we were killing time in the studio, waiting for the tech guys to work out some problem they had on the soundboard, that us guys were messing around telling each other our stupidest jokes.
A blind man walks into a bar. Then a chair, then a table.
Or, Why do divers fall off the boat backward?
Because if they fell forward, they’d still be on the boat.
And Ryan’s guitarist Wilder comes in and says, What do you call a chicken looking at a bowl of lettuce? . . . A chicken sees her salad. Without missing a beat, Ryan cuts through the groans and says, “Caesar? I hardly know her!”
It was so stupid and goofy and she knew it, and we all busted out laughing.
I was like, yeah. There’s the Ryan I remember.
Jasmine
Sure, she was learning, but I’ve come to be convinced that Ryan was often very aware of what she was doing. She ended up being more strategic than Skip and me combined.
The collabs were exactly the right move to reignite anticipation around Diatribe. Even the bad press was good press.
And Skip and Mari don’t like to dwell on it, but there was plenty of bad press—articles about Ryan not picking a genre, commentary that her glitzy performances and videos disguised what was actually mediocre music, critics trying to discredit her and her fan base.
That was a big one. It’s just young girls who listen to Ryan Holding, right?
So it’s not serious music. Teen girls can’t tell the difference between cheap, flashy glamour and quality sound.
Her lyrics are all about boys and high school and petty girlie rivalries.
And if you like Ryan Holding, you’re not a serious musician either.
It’s the same age-old bullshit. They said it about Beatlemania, about the Monkees. Only things that men like are serious things, hurr-durr.
So I think Ryan’s collaboration with this slate of “serious,” well-respected musicians ruffled some feathers.
It suddenly gave her a lot of credibility.
And all their fan bases would have to admit—hey, I like Brace for Impact.
I like Dust and Roses. And if they like Ryan, maybe she’s onto something.
Skip pulled me into his office one day, and he had that wild look in his eye.
“Artist of the Year?” he said to me quietly. It was like he was afraid to say it loud enough for the universe to hear. “Do you think we could do it?”
I smiled. I said, “We know she’s got the chops. All you can do is put her name in the hat.”
We both knew what it would mean. Ryan’s fan base wasn’t going anywhere—that was solid. Some strong recognition from the Academy would be gold for truly cementing her fame, putting her up into that upper echelon of music industry legend.
I crossed my fingers.
Mari
I don’t know who Ryan spent her time with after coming back from Seattle, but it wasn’t me. Kylie Cameron, I guess. And Wilder. I saw her out with him once or twice and walked the other way.
It was . . . a tough time for me. I still wasn’t completely sure what had happened between us. It was summer, I was working hard at a marketing internship in downtown LA, and my boyfriend, Ben, was back home for the break. So I kept busy and tried not to think about it.
I barely saw anything of Ryan until the promos for Diatribe’s launch came out—they’d reshot the whole campaign when the guest artists came on.
I remember standing on Spring Street in Chinatown and staring at the billboard with my jaw hanging open.
Ryan’s red hair was cut and straightened into a chic long bob and bangs. Her signature red lipstick and cat-eye liner had been exchanged for soft pink and natural bronzer.
Her look had completely changed, and she’d changed along with it.