Ryder The Eagle Talks New Album, Mental Health, and His Artistic Lifestyle

French musician Ryder The Eagle may not have all the answers to love, but since beginning his artistic career he has come close to finding peace with the uncertainties a romantic life can bring. Born under the astrological sign of Cancer, Ryder’s tendency to devote himself entirely to both his musical works and the people around him has allowed for the birth of an original entity: a musician with a larger-than-life persona who never shies away from the darkest, and ugliest, aspects of humanity. His 2022 debut album Follymoon charted the musician’s divorce; his following collection Megachurch focused on tearing his ex-wife down from her pedestal; and his long-awaited third release Autotango, released April 26, 2024, independently, takes listeners directly into his convoluted mind.

With tracks centered around self-doubt, anxiety, and the true meaning of romantic love, Ryder’s third album is more than just a new him, it’s the beginning of a “fresh” start. We spoke with Ryder a day before Autotango was released about his new album, touring, anxiety, and the dangers of love.

You’re currently on tour right now, how has it been going?

I’m doing the Mexican tour first and the album is coming out tomorrow. I got mentally sick these last few days, it was kind of an anxiety thing because the tour is starting at the same time as the album is getting released. And the booking of the rest of the tour is going on too. And it’s pretty intense, but it’s gonna be all right. It’s usually the worst moment of the year because I have to get everything ready, but then when I’m on tour I get inside this groove, and it’s just like driving, playing my show, driving, playing my show.

Do you have any pre-show rituals?

I’m always dressing up for my shows, so that’s always kind of a ritual. On previous tours when my hair was long the big ritual was the hair. And because my hair is super curly and big, I was always wetting it and putting grease to tame it. The fact of taming it was like Okay, now you’re ready for the show, and you’re a different person, you’re not this fluffy guy.

Now that I cut my hair I don’t have this ritual. Now, it’s just the dressing up part, which is still calming but I don’t have the hair thing to hold on to. So, I’ll have to make something up or just wait until the hair grows back.

Are you planning to grow it back to its former length?

I’m not sure to be honest. I’ve always had long hair and it was really freeing for me to shave it all off. I like myself better with long hair but, at the same time, I’m like Thank God. I’m not my hair. Some other guy can have short hair and still be Adrien or Ryder or whatever. So, I might not grow it again, but I think I will eventually. Because I’ll miss it. But I’m happy with the short hair situation right now.

It’s a change of pace.

It’s just a rebirth kind of thing.

On Instagram, when you announced this album, you said it came from many “long, panic-inducing walks.” What made these walks so “panic-inducing?”

When I was writing this album, I had a lot of self-doubts and questions and a weird self-crisis. In Portugal, where I was recording the album, I forced myself to go on long walks every morning through the countryside, for an hour at least. And it was very regular. And I now realize that it really helped me go through what I was going through at the time, which was maybe the same as what I’m going through right now, but I had the space and calmness to take care of it then.

The questions that were raised on these long walks were very intense and deep, and it was kind of questioning my songs, my art, my relationship towards art, towards love. It was super deep, but because I had time to take care of it and process it and write a song about it, it was not that bad because I made an album out of it. This album is really like therapy for me, and I’m super glad I made something out of it.

Photo via @inlovingmemoryofryder

Have you always been an anxious person? Even when you were a kid?

I don’t know. I guess I would say I’ve always been really melancholic. And I don’t want to admit it, but I think I’ve always been really sad, like deep inside. But in a weird way, because I’ve been really happy at the same time, but then have this mellow but consistent sadness deep inside.

It’s not making me depressed, I’ve never been depressed my whole life. I’ve been melancholic my whole life; and nostalgic; and needing art; needing to write songs; to make music; to find love when I didn’t have love; to make love really big when I did find love. And, I really had to make something of my hands, of my mind, of my words to soothe me. Because there’s something pretty dark inside of me, but I don’t know exactly what it is.

And it’s not preventing me from living my life but it’s definitely fuel for my songs and the way I’m living. The fuel is this suffering that I cannot really put a finger on.

Do you think it’s important to figure out what this “dark thing” is? Because, if you were to figure it out, do you think your art would suffer from the realization?

That’s the big question that artists ask themselves. If you lose the thing that brought you to art in the first place, are you losing your art? And to be honest, it’s a real possibility. But, I’m not really scared of that. I don’t know if I want to stay this way and keep living my life like I’m living it right now: always being on edge but writing songs that I like, and being on tour, and sharing that with people. Or if I would want to be super healthy and be super grounded. I don’t know, maybe I would love that, I’m not sure. So, I’m not against it, I’m not scared of finding what’s happening, even if it tears the whole music thing down. If I end up cooking pizza somewhere and having a family, I’m not against it if I’m happy, and if it makes the people around me happy.

I do think that if I were to get rid of that thing, whatever it is, it would impact my art. It would definitely impact my art in some ways. I don’t know if it would be a bad thing or a good thing. But, to be honest, I don’t think I will ever find the thing that we’re talking about. I think me not trying to find it is a process, and it helps me live with it. But I don’t think one ever finds these things out. To be honest, it feels so scary when I get close to it that I don’t think it belongs to me that much.

I do believe that art is a really good way to express these things and to put them in the outside world, to take them out of yourself. Because these things are a burden if you keep them inside of you, and they can make you sick, it can fucking kill you. But if you have a medium, like it could be any kind of art, and you make it something real and put it outside in the world and have other people relating to it, then there’s less of a burden to be carried on your own. 

It almost sounds like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.

Yeah, you’re right, maybe that’s the problem. I don’t know why I feel that way. Because that’s not the case. It’s an emotional thing, it might also be hypersensitive. When you’re hypersensitive, you can absorb what’s around you, and people’s emotions, and stuff like that. So, in the end, if it stacks up, you’re holding the whole world on your shoulders. 

There seems to be a spectrum to being super aware. You’re either so incredibly empathetic toward everyone around you that it consumes you, or you're so empathetic that it’s overwhelming and you choose to shut it all off.

I’m very polarized, and I’m on both sides of the spectrum. All my feelings have to be on either one side of the spectrum or the other, and I have a really hard time finding a middle ground. It’s like, if I go on tour, it’s going to be a hundred shows and not less than that. And if I record an album, it’s going to be full of all the things that scare me. I cannot do something that’s not all the way. And because of this, I feel very polarized and mentally tired, because I don’t have the ability to put things in perspective, and do things with a little less passion and a little more reason. I have to work on that.

Let’s say you make an album that you don’t put 100% of yourself into. Would you find that unsatisfying? Would it have been worth it to make something like that?

When it comes to art, it’s really hard to do something 50%, or it’s not going to be that interesting. Because art has this quality of putting what’s buried deep inside ourselves in it and making it available for other people to connect to. I don’t think there’s any other way to do it, to be honest, but it’s tiring. It’s intense.

So, are all these dark things -- the anxiety, the self-doubt -- the central themes of the album coming out tomorrow?

Yeah, pretty much. The central theme is me analyzing myself. Before this album, all of my albums were really about love. My first album was about my ten-year relationship and my divorce. My second album was about taking down my ex-wife from her pedestal and trying to find hope again in the idea of love. To try and find some new faith in love. And it was telling the beginning of my new relationship. But this album is more of a kind of therapy, and it’s me really asking myself the questions, Why do you have to love? Why do you feel these things? What’s behind this idea of love, and what does it mean for you?

Did you figure these things out? Why love, why do you have to love?

That’s a good question. It wasn’t even a question, it was just feelings to be honest. Well, the answer is, I’m using love, which is a very powerful thing, maybe because it’s my drug. When people have a really big sadness they try to cure it with heroin, cocaine, alcohol, but I’ve always used love since I was a teenager. I’ve never done drugs, never smoked, I’ve never been drunk in my whole life. But I think my one drug was love, and I built this idealistic love, like true romance, and all these themes were pretty ingrained deep inside of me.

And then I had all the disillusions with the divorce and now, I’m trying to make sense of all that. It’s a big mess of everything. It’s like me still believing in love, still being really romantic, and looking for that kind of connection with someone. And at the same time, me being really bitter about it, and being really scared about trusting somebody again, and scared of things going to shit again. That’s why I can’t really make sense of this album. It was just the first step of me trying to clean the mess and see what was left after that. I would say this album is like a first album for a new process that will take lots of albums to deliver.

I think it’s admirable that you can still believe that this almost idealistic love exists -- one that is so intense and well-meaning -- even after the experiences you’ve had that have been less than ideal.

The thing is, I’ve always been super hopeful. Even when I was going through my divorce I made something out of it: I made an album, I moved to Mexico City. I kind of made something positive when I could have easily let myself sink really deep and no longer be able to ever be in another relationship again. So, I’m resourceful when it comes to finding faith again in something that you lose faith in. That being said, with each emotional blow that you take -- yes, you’re going to recover -- but it’s like that scar will always be there. You don’t approach the thing the same way, which is maybe a good thing for me because I used to approach love with some kind of innocence that was beautiful in a way, but also super suicidal.

And it forces you to see things differently, and to try things differently, because it was my fault, my vision of love, and the way I was approaching it in the end, that exploded right in my face. It’s a new discovery. It’s not going to feel the same way as before, it’s going to feel different, and that’s good. But you don’t know where it’s leading, and you might make other mistakes, but you’re trying something different.

The good thing is through all these things, I’m not losing faith in this idea that connecting with someone is the most beautiful and magical thing that you can have. 

Going back to what you said earlier about love being your drug, do you think love is a better thing to rely on than something more hardcore? Do you find it useful to rely on, or is it just as destructive?

I’ve been asking myself these questions too. I think it’s a good comparison to drugs. Some people would say it’s not a fair comparison. But, drugs are something that’s gonna kill you faster. Something that’s gonna be less intense in the long run. Love can kill you, but in a way that seems to be operating behind closed doors. If someone’s taking heroin and dies, everybody would say, “Okay, heroin killed him.” And that’s easy to see because there’s proof. But love is rooted so deep inside ourselves that it’s more complicated.

Whether your mom is loving toward you or not loving toward you, taking care of you or not taking care of you, that’s all going to change your life and kind of predict how you act. All the craziness that’s happening in the world, the people who hurt other people and stuff, all that always comes down to a matter of love, of abandonment of someone who never received love. And then their whole psyche is fucked from that. And there’s nothing you can do about it. And because love is so powerful in that sense, for the rest of our lives we’re going to be chasing that. 

And everybody has been missing some type of love in this capacity, and we’re always going to try to fill the void with this idea. We know it exists, but we don’t really know how it’s supposed to be received or given. It’s the most powerful drug. So for someone like me, who doesn’t want to take drugs, I focus on this idea of love and identifying what I’ve been missing. I’m not saying I’ve been missing love because my parents were super loving, but obviously, something was missing because it made me sad. And because it made me crave love that much. I put all my energy into filling that void and making me feel better. From my perspective, I thought it was more clever, that it makes more sense to be seeking love than to be seeking the instant satisfaction of getting high.

So, is it as bad as drugs? Maybe it is, but it’s hard to tell. Maybe we just see things from a perspective that’s so love-deprived that not even the highest scientists can consider that maybe this idea of love is what makes us feel never complete. That we’re always seeking more of this love.

On the topic of love, your girlfriend kind of heads the creative aspects of your brand outside of the music. She does the music videos, cover art -- how has it been working creatively together?

I was used to doing everything by myself, but it’s been nice because I love her art, and I love the collaboration. Her vibe is much calmer and more ethereal, whereas mine tends to be really forceful and bold. She can tame it down in a good way for the videos because I’m still writing the videos myself, but most of the time the stories are super intense. And then I tell her about it and we think about how to put it on screen, and she softens it. She balances out my intensity. 

And because she came with me to Portugal to record the album, it was great to see the album taking shape. And then we shot the video there as well; she shot the cover there. Everything was really creative; it was full of love and creation and adventure. It was a fascinating experience to be able to share that with someone, because I was used to always being on my own and it was nice to have some perspective given by someone you love and trust.

You’ve been living in Mexico City for a while, you recorded the album in Portugal, in your single “Autotango,” you sing a verse in Spanish; what have these new environments added to your music?

I didn’t speak any Spanish before moving to Mexico, and when you learn a new language it’s inspiring because it makes you think in a different way. You don’t say the same things the same way depending on the culture and the language. So, learning Spanish really brought a different perspective on all of that. It was good for me to just do that one verse in Spanish, mostly because I don’t speak enough Spanish well enough to say more, but it was nice because the song is about me. It’s about me hiding from myself when I moved to Mexico, and when I was trying to do all these crazy things and have this crazy life. And I was just running away from myself. I was trying to be at peace with myself in that song.

I don’t like singing in French that much, but Spanish, I love it. So, I don’t exclude writing more in Spanish in the future, I just have to get better at it.

Photo via @inlovingmemoryofryder

Why don’t you like singing in French?

It’s kind of trauma, actually. There’s some good French music, but I’ve been around a lot of shitty French music. And because of that, I’ve always rejected French as a way to express myself musically. Maybe one day I’ll be at peace with singing in French and enjoying it, but right now it’s too attached to the French scene. And there are not a lot of bands in France that I feel close to, so I kind of reject the French music side of me. So, If I try to sing in French, it just doesn’t come out naturally.

Who are your biggest musical inspirations? Not French, of course.

I don’t listen to a lot of music because it’s overloading to me, with feelings and stuff. I really like to sit in silence and do things in silence. The older I get, the less I listen to music. But, when I was a teenager, I was listening to a lot of music from the sixties, seventies, and eighties. I was a big fan of The Doors. Jim Morrison and his writing; his poetic approach and the intensity of the vibe, and the fact that it was a rock band but it didn’t sound like rock n’ roll. It was something more romantic, more poetic, and more epic in some way. The Beatles, of course, were big for me melody-wise. 

And then Leonard Cohen, which is my biggest influence of all. My mom had a Best of Leonard Cohen album, that had very cheesy, almost elevator music. It's mostly his eighties stuff. And it really stuck with me forever. His songs are something super personal and romantic in a very real way. It’s someone who really carries with himself this power to write something super simple that everybody is going to think is beautiful. It’s a wit that shows sensitive cleverness. It just sounds like truthful music, really graceful, truthful.

I think sometimes we fall into this trap of needing to label musicians to a specific genre instead of focusing on the actual importance of the song. Like whether it’s honest or if it resonates with you.

It’s crazy to me that some people nowadays are so strict with what appears to be more than what it is. I’ve played shows with backing tracks and rock fans, mostly 60-year-old rock fans, were coming to me after the show and were like, “I thought you were shit because you were playing with a backing track. But then at the end, you really have something like Iggy and the Stooges.” They have to find something in their ballpark. They cannot just take it as it is. Yeah, it’s a guy with a backing track and he’s jumping on stage, but listen to the lyrics, be open to the vibe that he’s trying to give. Because I like the fact that people have to question themselves: Why do I like this? Why do I hate this? 

I think it can come from fear of the unknown most of the time. People have a need to label things they don’t understand just so they can fear it less.

I think you’re right, I think it comes from a place of fear most of the time. That’s why we also have to look at it with tenderness and softness, and not be like Hey, why don’t you understand what I’m trying to do? Because everybody has their own pace to discover something, to understand something, to connect with something. I think it’s important to let people say what they have to say, even if they’re confused about it, even if they’re shocked by it.

It’s interesting to see that sometimes you do something and it’s not being appreciated the way you want it to be appreciated, but you have to do things at your pace and know that people are going to receive it at their pace. And it’s not a bad thing. The importance of art is doing something that you feel is right at the moment where it feels like you. It’s not guaranteed that people are going to receive it the right way, but maybe one day they will, or maybe they won’t. But it has to be released in a very truthful way, at the moment where it was true for you. It’s good to remind yourself to chill out and just do your thing. If things have to happen, they will happen. If they don’t happen, they don’t happen. As long as you’re being sincere, and you’re exploring sides of yourself and expressing yourself, there’s beauty.

I love how you describe the importance of art as being truthful. The writer Elizabeth Gilbert said something like “The work wants to be made, and it wants to be made by you.” And it’s this whole idea that you should work on this piece when it’s real to you, or else it will go to someone else.

Exactly. Because it’s something that gets passed on from antenna to antenna. As an artist, you’re an antenna. And if it has to be expressed by you at this moment, you have to express it, because otherwise, it’s going to be passed along to somebody else who will express it in a different way. If there’s one more creative thing in the world, there’s one more channel. There’s something that people can explore and connect to, and that’s how you have to put it out there when you feel it, whether it’s good or not good, whether it makes sense or doesn’t. If you feel like you have the need to do it, do it.

What do you love about music?

What I love about music is how invisible it is, and how powerful it is. 

It makes sense, music. It feels magical because it’s invisible. It makes you feel feelings that are so strong that, for me, it was the art medium that brought me the most. And I think that just fascinated me instantly. I think it’s the art medium that resembles magic the most. Something you cannot really see, but you can feel. And you can’t really explain it either. Of course, you can talk about sound waves and stuff but, you couldn’t really explain the feeling of music to a kid. But if a kid experiences it, even at a very early age, it will have such a powerful impact on him. 

It’s just too powerful for me to put into words. You can sing a song to someone just acapella and it conveys such great emotions that seem super complicated, but also super simple. It’s the one thing anybody can do, anyone can open their mouth and sing. But you can also dive deeper and create these songs, pieces, that’s like a whole other world.

Autotango is out on all streaming platforms. Ryder The Eagle is preparing for a tour in the latter half of the year.