Ryan Nelson is a musician and visual artist who resides in the Washington D.C. area. Formerly in the bands the Most Secret Method and Beauty Pill, Nelson currently plays in Michigan’s Minutes and the D.C. group Soccer Team, which he co-founded 10 years ago with Melissa Quinley. Nine years since their debut, Soccer Team just released their second album, a sharp, witty, pop affair called Real Lessons in Cynicism, which is out now via Dischord Records, and they plan to play Baltimore at Make Studio on November 28 at 3 PM and at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington D.C. on December 11 at noon. Here, Ryan and I discuss my nerve-induced and unnecessary pluralization of album titles, good names, that time he left Washington D.C. for Kalamazoo, Michigan for five years and then came back and Soccer Team was still a thing, wanting to be a teacher and isolating himself, avoiding music and art, a life-altering gym membership, Danzig, no presh, Star Wars Monopoly, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Samuel L. Jackson, the stupid prequels, how Minutes started, what’s up in D.C. and with Dischord, raising twins and letting music scenes pass by, the band Puff Pieces, the band Priests, songs based on conversations, the aging body, why dancers smoke, observational songwriting, mediation, the story of Francesca da Rimini, delving into someone else’s area of expertise, overcoming the stigma of reading comics and getting into making visual art, Roy Lichtenstein and Aquaman, the intricate criminal underworld within Atlantis, funny Justice League comics of the late ‘80s, comics in movies and mainstream culture, making his own comics, the transition from skateboard artwork to album art for Real Lessons in Cynicism, drawing paused motion pictures, The Blob, the future of Minutes and Soccer Team, the song “Vacations on the Lam,” and that was that.
Related links: dischord.com/band/soccer-team vishkhanna.com
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