[Photo courtesy of Megan Young]

By Jenell Taylor, Contributor 

Formed 10 years ago in Columbus, Ohio, Natural Sway is a genre-bending five-piece band consisting of Ryan Eilbeck (guitar/lead vocals), his twin brother Austin Eilbeck (drums/vocals), Drew Cline (bass/vocals), Riley Kelleher (guitar) and Jessi Bream (guitar/vocals). This year was especially exciting for the band, as it was their first performance at the Nelsonville Music Festival, where they sang many songs from their 2023 album, Natural Sway & The Squished Lilies. Afterward, I was able to speak one-on-one with Ryan and gain some insight into his mind and the inner-workings of the band’s process. 

[This interview has been edited for length and clarity.]

Jenell Taylor (JT): Your fourth album, Natural Sway & The Squished Lilies, was released in November of 2023. Can you describe the band’s method for achieving the album’s sound?

Ryan Eilbeck (RE): A lot of the songs on the album started as raw demos through a cassette recorder or into my phone, just little fragments. You get the songs realized and you only have so much time to get everyone to agree on a time to be in a place and fully commit to running tape. 

JT: How long did it take from start to finish?

RE: Long. If I thought from the time that I wrote the songs till the record came out, it’s kind of a long time. I think the artistic process and bringing it to actuality – a long time. The first demo I have of the first track “Jonah” is from about 10 to 12 years ago on tape. It took that long to have the ignition to feel like it was worth finishing the song. Ultimately, it was worth it.

JT: Do you have a background story for how “Jonah” came to be?

RE: Growing up going to church and seeing my sister be Jonah in that biblical story. She was running up and down the aisles singing about running away from God. It’s rooted in that story and about your own experience with yourself, you know? And how striking it can be to be alone. 

JT: I also have a religious upbringing of my own, do you consider yourself to be a religious person?

RE: I was raised to be a Christian, but I can’t subscribe to that. I once heard from a folk musician, I want to say John Harrod – he was one of the old time jams down here at The Happy Hollow Hootenanny folk workshop. He was playing all of these deeply spiritual songs and he said something that I thought was so poignant. He said, “I was a Christian, I am a Christain, but it is so woefully distorted.” I wrote that in my notebook. I don’t subscribe to any of it. But, do I believe in the G-O-D, God? Absolutely. 

JT: Do you consider yourself a spiritual person?

Yeah, I feel like creating something is being in a spiritual space. That practice of creating feels like anything could happen and offering up that you’re interested. 

JT: What inspired the album’s title, Natural Sway & The Squished Lilies? 

RE: I thought it was kind of hard and fun to say. I started the band four or five times, where I’m initiating it and writing a lot of the songs and then trying to have people be interested in it. So then I think to myself: I’m the remaining Natural Sway, and on the recording, we all are. I tried to sing “squished lilies” a bunch, and the more I sang, the more it felt like nonsense. I was telling Riley, who plays guitar on it – “Hey, our band should be called the Squished Lilies.” And it became the album title because lilies also represent innocence. Kind of like squished innocence. It makes it cuter. 

JT: Are there any specific lyrics from other songs on the album inspired by true events?

RE: Pretty much everything. Everything that we have written is some real life event that I’m trying to distill into something that makes me feel better when I say it. Maybe other people can relate and feel it too. The song, “2008,” I wrote about being in love with your friends. It would sound corny for me to just sing that. Instead, I was singing about this attitude of when I get to see the people that I love, or have a vibe with. So, the real life event is being in the same room with your friends and playing records with them. 

JT: Do you have a favorite on the album?

RE: “The Delaware Lighting Bug.” There was something that happened in our playing that was very live and in the moment. The intro lead-up is entirely ad-libbed in the studio. I went back home and I played some trumpet on it, sang more parts and put a bunch more guitars on it. It became a distinct end of the record. And you know, here in Nelsonville, you’re gonna see some lighting bugs. 

JT: Did you grow up with a distinct connection to music?

RE: Totally. My dad writes, and my mom is a lover of music and books. They would write, sing, play and perform music at church. My dad wrote his own songs, so it felt normal to me. It’s pretty surprising, like a time machine.

JT: When you consider your musical inspirations, who first comes to mind?

RE: Wow, big question. Number one is my dad and then my mom. When you’re a baby and your parents are singing, that’s good. That’s a good sign. Then after that is the obvious stuff that explodes your brain when you hear it for the first time. Jimi Hendrix, and his song “Machine Gun.” Punk music that was on the radio when I was a kid, like Green Day. Everything sounded so urgent and possible and maybe so sad at the same time. 

JT: In what way do you feel that music interacts with the physical world?

RE: Sound is air pressure, so what it does to the physical world is move it. That’s just something that everybody feels in the room and probably up to the day they die. That sense of how air pressure is hitting your body and hitting your ears. It’s the ruler. 

JT: Do you have a dream performance venue?

RE: One dream was playing in Nelsonville, and we just did it, which is super cool. 

JT: If you could go back in time to the beginning of your career, what’s a piece of advice that you would give yourself?

RE: I would tell myself to look beyond. It’s good to look at your peers, and look to the past, but also ask: Well, what do I actually want to do in this moment? 

JT: In the spirit of the Nelsonville Music Festival, can you share with us your favorite folk artist?

RE: It feels like a set up to say Michael Hurley, but I would say Micheal Hurley. Some people would say that it sounds like he’s making it up as he goes. But who cares? That’s what he wanted to share. It’s about that spirit of sharing. Like, you could do this too. He has that sound, but when you try to play one of his guitar chords, you’re like “What the f— is he actually doing?” I could play the same notes, but it’s not Michael Hurley.