Ryan Bingham Sheds 'Country' Label With New Album

Posted on Aug 30th 2010 10:00AM by Linda Laban
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Lost Highway

If there's one thing Ryan Bingham doesn't really get, it's why people think he plays country music. It's a preconception the Oscar-winning singer-songwriter is eager to dispel as he and his band, the Dead Horses, release a third album, 'Junky Star,' for Lost Highway Records this week.

"I just don't get that. I wouldn't call what we do country music," Bingham tells Spinner. "I grew up in Texas and New Mexico and I do wear a cowboy hat a lot, so I guess if you wear a cowboy hat people automatically think you play country music."

Perhaps it's a fair enough assumption, though. Earlier this year, Bingham won the Best Original Song Oscar and Golden Globe for the dusty ballad 'The Weary Kind,' which formed the moving theme to the Jeff Bridges film 'Crazy Heart.' After all, it was a heart-warming film about a down-on-his-luck country singer. The 29-year-old Los Angeles-based Bingham co-wrote the song with music biz legend T Bone Burnett, who also produced 'Junky Star,' and like the 10-time Grammy winner, Bingham certainly has a rootsy swing to his songs.

However, one of the biggest influences on his career, he says, is far from a country music maker. Before working with Burnett, Marc Ford, the former Black Crowes guitarist and co-founder of blistering '80s rockers Burning Tree, was something of a mentor. Ford produced Bingham's label debut, 2007's 'Mescalito,' and his first record with the Dead Horses, 2009's 'Roadhouse Sun.' Bingham credits Ford with both giving him his Dead Horses bass player, his son Elijah Ford, and teaching him how to be more than a solo troubadour strumming a guitar.

"I met Marc when I first came out to L.A. and he really taught me a lot about music and about playing in a band," Bingham says. "I was just used to playing by myself acoustically. I didn't read music. I didn't know about being in a band and playing with other musicians. He taught me how to do it."

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