Don't Sleep on Ryan Woods' New Song, "Pillow"
YOU DON’T WANT TO SLEEP ON RYAN WOODS’ LATEST RELEASE, “PILLOW.”
Ryan Woods just released his second single ever, accompanied by a music video that you can find here. His new song “Pillow” tackles themes of unrequited love, which is embodied in the track’s title line, “I wish my pillow would hug me back.” I got the chance to speak with Ryan about the song, and although he might be a self proclaimed “Bad Texter,” he is one of the easiest people to talk to. Read our interview below to learn about his latest release, creative process, and more.
HOW DID YOU GET THE IDEA FOR “PILLOW?”
I was in LA for the third time ever and I met this girl. She was one of those people that you fall in love with on the spot. But it was a party setting, and she was older than me. It wasn’t that realistic. I was only 18 or 19. I just couldn’t help but let my mind wander to those things. I’m a very heady person. I reflect about things a lot. After that night, I came back to my manager's house. It was four or five in the morning and I was still thinking about that girl. The first few lyrics of the song,“I can’t tell what's on my mind / I can’t tell if I’m your favorite guy,” was me processing my emotions. She was so nice to everybody, but she also made me feel so individually special when I got to talk to her. I wrote the first verse and the chorus that night. It was the best way for me to get my feelings out without sounding like a creep—I couldn’t tell her all of this because I didn’t even really know her.
DOES SHE KNOW YOU WROTE THIS SONG ABOUT HER?
No. It was totally not okay for me to be this caught up about a girl I just met. “Pillow” was just my way of expressing where my head was at. I got really caught up in the whole situation. I was up thinking about things like, “Will I ever be in love?” or “Will anyone ever love me?” I think the biggest part of it was that she made me realize I was lonely. I never really thought about trying to get into a relationship until I saw her, but I felt so helpless in the situation. The only thing I could do was write about it.
WHAT WAS THE WRITING PROCESS LIKE?
“Pillow” started with just my acoustic guitar and voice. I took a memo of the first verse and chorus, and then I kept it in the bag for a long time. I loved the idea, but I didn’t want to spoil it by rushing into it. I sat on it for a while until I realized that I had processed my feelings enough and was ready to finish it.
DO YOU TAKE A LOT OF TIME TO THINK ABOUT YOUR SONGS?
I like to take things slow. I don’t know if that is just my excuse for being lazy, but if I had all the time in the world to do something, I would take up all of it. I think the world is a little too fast for me, personally. The whole nine to five work schedule —I never really fit into that. I feel like I was meant to be raised on Mars because the days are longer there. If I didn’t discipline myself at all, I would probably stay up for twenty hours and then sleep for twenty hours. There are times where I’ll start a week waking up at nine am on Sunday, and by Saturday I’m going to sleep at eight in the morning. It'd be a lot easier to go about my day and have rhythm and structure in my life, but I am so the opposite. I think the narrative around that is that I’m irresponsible. But my thought is that maybe I'm more responsible, because I was smart enough to recognize that I needed something else. Maybe I'm meant to be living on Mars. That’s one of my life goals actually—to play the first concert on Mars.
HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN WAITING TO RELEASE THE SONG?
Since December of 2018. That’s when I started the song. It was almost a year until I revisited it. I had a session in December 2019 with this guy named Colin Munroe. He’s a great dude and he killed it on the co-production. I brought in the idea and we went from there. By the end of that day, I’d written the rest of the song. Production wise we had some drums, bass, guitars, and then one lead vocal over it. It was a pretty rough demo. We worked on it three or four times until COVID hit and then we couldn’t work on it together for three or four months. We were definitely trying to get the song going, and so I opened the track up and touched it up. That was the second demo. And then we did the final mix.
HOW DO YOU KNOW WHEN A SONG IS DONE?
I don’t think anyone can answer that. Sometimes I don’t know when to stop myself and I end up adding too much to a song. Sometimes it's the other way around and I don’t know where to go with an idea. It’s about figuring out the best case scenario for the song—when there is no way it could be made any better than it already is. It’s my favorite and hardest challenge. That’s why I love songwriting. There are so many complexities involved and different ways to say things. There are a lot of processes within the processes that lead to getting the song to its best case scenario.
NOW THAT YOU’VE FINISHED “PILLOW,” HOW ARE YOU FEELING HEADING INTO THIS RELEASE?
It’s the best feeling. I’m a very soft spoken person and the things I write about are not normally things that come out of my mouth. The only place in the world for them is within a song. With “Pillow,” I was torn up about a girl I didn’t even know— anyone I talk to about that is going to tell me I’m crazy. And with “Bad Texter” too, I don’t think there’s really a time and place to tell people that I’m bad at communicating. It’s funny because I'm one of the easiest people to talk to, but one of the hardest people to reach. When I release a song, it's this feeling of relief because people now know what I’m feeling.
WHAT ARE YOU THE MOST PROUD OF ABOUT THE SONG?
“Pillow” was one of the first songs I wrote that turned out exactly how I wanted it to lyrically. I took a step back and I was like, “Wow. I understand myself so much better now.” I never had a single thought to change a single line in the song. Normally, I’ll write a song fairly quickly just to get the idea out. And then as I work on it, I get to go in and say, “This isn’t good enough,” or “Let’s change this line or this word.” When I wrote the first verse and chorus, and then when I wrote the rest of the song a year later, I was like, “This is sick.” I never had to do a revision.
DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE LYRIC?
Yeah, it's in the second verse. The line is, “No offense but you look like a mom.” Whenever I sing it it's always a moment. The quirkiness of it and the irrationality are so me. I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of a song lyrically.
THAT’S AWESOME. TO ROUND THIS INTERVIEW OUT, I HAVE A FEW RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS:
IF YOU COULD PLACE THE SONG IN ANY MOVIE, WHAT MOVIE WOULD YOU PLACE IT IN?
The Notebook. I would have it playing during the scene where Noah is trying to win over Allie by hanging on the ferris wheel.
WHAT WOULD BE YOUR IDEAL PLACE TO LISTEN TO THE SONG?
It’s definitely a car song. I would say driving through the mountains around golden hour with all of your friends.
IF YOU COULD PLAY THE SONG FOR ANY CELEBRITY, WHAT CELEBRITY WOULD YOU PLAY IT FOR?
Justin Bieber. I love Justin Bieber.
“PILLOW” BY RYAN WOODS IS OUT NOW. YOU CAN LISTEN TO THE SONG ON STREAMING SERVICES LIKE SPOTIFY AND APPLE MUSIC. GO LISTEN AND FOLLOW @itsryanwoods ON INSTAGRAM TO STAY UPDATED ON UPCOMING PROJECTS.
