An interview with Ryan Hater of White Reaper

[Ottawa correspondent Ross MacDonald had a chance for a sit-down during Bluesfest. – AC]

Just ahead of their show opening for Foo Fighters at Ottawa Bluesfest, A Journal of Musical Things sat down with Ryan Hater of White Reaper to catch up with the band. 

AJOMT: When I think of Kentucky, I think of bluegrass. But Louisville has a thriving arts scene. Did you grow up going to clubs on Fourth Street and other parts of town?

Ryan: Not on fourth street, the punkier stuff was a little bit off the beaten path more. [They performed] kind of wherever they could do shows, a lot of house shows, a lot of VFW shows, really kind of anywhere, DIY style. When we were growing up, there was an all ages club called Skull Alley. That is where we cut our teeth as young people, and changed my life.

AJOMT: Did you start with open mic stuff even or was it just the house shows?

Ryan: It was straight to house shows and punk shows and stuff like that. Random punk bands, just kind of doing stuff until we got bored with that and then started a different band. All of us, all we ever wanted to do was be in bands. Once we kind of saw that people our age were just doing it, and that’s the hardest part is just taking the step and just getting on a stage and doing it. Anybody can do it.

AJOMT: Some bands have a ‘strained’ relationship with each other, while others (like the Foo Fighters) seem to hang out a lot together. Is White Reaper like one or the other?

Ryan: It’s definitely a family vibe. We’re all okay. For the good and the bad. We fight like we’re family, for sure. But we also love each other like we’re family. I’ve known a lot of these guys for 15 plus years. So we’re definitely close in a crazy way. Constantly making each other laugh. 90% of the band is that. You have to or you go crazy touring so much.

AJOMT: What is your writing process like? Does everyone come forward with different ideas that are built on collectively?

Ryan: Our lead guy Tony, he gets the skeletal part of a song together with a demo and then we each come in and add our own little flavour to it. And that’s kind of just how it’s been in the past and it’s good. This last record was more collaborative because of the nature of over COVID and trying to get stuff together and figuring out what we wanted to put out and the direction we wanted to go in as a band. Tony does the bulk of the actual writing as far as the singer songwriter vibe goes [but] lyrics we do the most collaboration on and lyrics are hard. Hunter does a lot of the guitar writing. We all just kind of add or try to service the song the best we can to our talents. 

AJOMT: ‘Pages’ has had enormous success, followed by ‘Fog Machine’ which is a hard and fast song. What will be the next single released?

Ryan: We put out an online single, the song Pink Slip. It came out ahead of the record and then the record came out in late January.

AJOMT: You and Hunter are doing backing vocals. Will we hear you take the lead?

Ryan: It’s funny that you brought up the song ‘Pink Slip’ [because] we sing a verse on that song, which is the first time we’ve done that. [The song] does this like A and B kind of verse style where Tony says one thing and then we come in and go back out, call and response. So we kind of are, nothing too serious, we like to keep it fun and light and experiment with new things. That was a fun way to do that.

AJOMT: Will there be more of that coming up? 

Ryan: I could see it either way. We’ll always try to experiment with stuff.

AJOMT: Was 2019’s ‘You Deserve Love’ your breakout year? Did you go from sleeping in the tour van to staying in hotels?

Ryan: That was our major label debut. We got a little more comfortable for sure. We were going crazy in 2018 for pretty much the whole year and we were on tour when everything got shut down [in March 2020.] We had to drive from New Mexico all the way back to Kentucky.

AJOMT: Do you have one or two epic stories from a road trip on tour?

Ryan: It’s a lot of running into strange people and when you travel that much you’re bound to see anything and everything, and it goes crazy. And then also there’s a fair amount of partying that has gone on.

I guess the one of the most scared I’ve ever been was [when] we were driving through Montana, in February and there was a blizzard out of nowhere. And we got stuck in really rural Montana, for three days in a Super Eight motel. [Four of us] were stuck in one room because there was only one room left at the motel. The tour was starting in Seattle and we missed three shows. That was terrifying. We did push the van up the highway. I’m sure to you true northerners, it would have been nothing. It would have been easy peasy. But it was quite scary.

AJOMT: How did The Foos choose you as their opener?

Ryan: I don’t know, I’m not sure how that whole situation goes down but it an easy yes. It’s a really good fit. We’ve opened for a lot of huge rock bands. So we’re prepared to step into that spotlight. We’ve played with Pearl Jam, The Killers, we just got off tour with blink-182. We’re very ready to step into the wild.

And then Ryan had to head off for his final preparations just ahead of their fantastic performance opening for the Foo Fighters.