Ethan Regan and the Art of Art
Ethan Regan just got off the stage and chatted with us on his album, Young Regan plus one of the many memorable moments he’s had with his fans on tour
From North Carolina, Ethan Regan is riding ostriches and playing to huge crowds on the American Express stage at ACL, Weekend Two. We talked about the great and late Mac Miller, a song off Young Regan, (the newly released deluxe version), and art a fan gave him during a meet and greet on tour.
Ultra: So, how was it playing on ACL’s biggest stage today?
ER: A dream come true. It’s such an amazing opportunity and something I will be thankful for the rest of my life.
Ultra: How did it feel seeing so many people there + knowing Josh Dunn and Tyler Joseph are stepping on the same stage? Are you a Twenty One Pilots fan?
ER: Yeah. Their music is incredible. It was truly surreal. I think seeing a crowd like that with so many people that may be unfamiliar with my music, it’s kind of, you see it as a challenge. It’s like, ‘How can we get these people involved? How can we get them excited?’ That’s the magic of opening up the stage and then having a headliner on the same stage. That’s kind of like the gift of that part.
Ultra: Absolutely. I watched your video bio from Youtube and I had a question prepared before I watched the video but after watching, I scratched the question and was like ‘I need to ask him instead: Why is your favorite Mac Miller song, ‘What’s the Use?’’
ER: I think it’s really a question of like, if I’m putting on Mac Miller, what’s the first song that’s coming on? ‘What’s the Use’. I think it’s just produced beautifully. Thundercat’s bass line is ridiculous. It’s magic. Mac, his writing on that is incredible. His rapping, his performance is incredible. But, I think, maybe best Mac Miller song is too specific of a think. He just covers so many bases. He makes music that talks about so many different things. I think his music has made me feel like the man and also made me confront some crazy things about myself. It’s expansive and it makes you feel there’s a spectrum of feelings. He hits the nail on every single kind of adjective that would describe his sentiment.
Ultra: Absolutely. I love Congratulations. That’s always on repeat. Also love Watching Movie with the Sound Off, that’s an oldie.
Dan Lundy - Sax player during Ethan’s set
Ultra: So, you’re currently on a massive tour. You’re going to the UK in December! I’d love to know: What’s the most amazing encounter you’ve had so far during your meet and greets? One that sticks with you even today?
ER: I have one right off the top of my head
Ultra: Perfect
ER: I was signing some vinyls after a show and this girl came up to me and she had this piece of paper in her hand. She was like ‘I was just like watching your set and I fell in love with what you guys were doing, so I drew a picture of you like while you were playing’. So she was standing in the crowd sketching up this photo like in the last 10 minutes of the show. She hands it to me and it’s this beautiful drawing
Ultra: Oh my gosh
ER: I think artists, like visual artists, they do this amazing thing where they can make you look so different from yourself. But also, you look at it and you’re like ‘that’s me.’ Like holy shit. And she totally did that, I think, with this piece of work. It was just like so cool. And it’s really cool to get to witness the talent of the fans I have and the people that come to the shows. There’s so many amazingly talented, creative people that are there and in these rooms. And how cool is it that I got to feel a little bit of that.
Ultra: I love what you said. How you’ve never seen yourself in that light of her style of work. That’s what I think is so beautiful about art. Is that people can write a song about you, draw a picture of you, paint a picture, I could photograph you. And it’s all you but in different versions.
Ultra: So, listening to Young Regan. I interpreted this album to represent your coming of age into the person you are today. If that rings true to you, I wonder if the tracklist was arranged in a way that has to do with the storytelling of that. Is there a musical strategy?
ER: I think it’s a mix of like, I think it’s a mix of the two. I think the music kind of tells the story in a way too. So I think I was focused on maybe the musical aspects like how does this song feel going into the next song, and how does it sound? But I do believe when I write music, that the sound of it and the way that the songs flow together, that tells a story in its own way. I grew up learning how to produce music and write music at the same time. So I think emotionally, there’s as much of a story in the music as there is in the lyrics.
Ultra: “Remember This” is my favorite song. The way I read this song is like, it feels like a vague encounter with somebody and the way you described this person and that correlation with how you isolate the word ‘she’, you make it feel like she is everything but a vague encounter. What was your thought process lyrically with the word isolation?
ER: Yeah, I think it’s like that song is about just finding so much beauty in a human being and being very thankful that you even got to witness that. You got to be around someone so beautiful, so wonderful. And I think that ‘she’ is like giving this person that pronoun, right? It’s giving it its space. This is like, this long, drawn out ‘she’ with these harmonies over it to give her the moment.
Samantha McKaige playing with Ethan Regan
Interview and Photography by Paola Miano for Ultra5280