Ryan Keyse & Casey Maunder on The Pure Local Extra Show

Today, on the 28th of September, The Pure Local extra show at Newport City Radio was once again joined by guests to talk about themselves and their music. This week, we were joined by Ryan Keyse and Casey Maunder, two local musicians who had never met before and have very different musical styles. 

Throughout the show we played many of their songs. Casey’s music takes a more rock style whereas Ryan does almost the opposite and plays country.  We opened with Casey’s song “Stone in My Shoe”, a song about how those in life who annoy or frustrate you are only a small part of your life and you shouldn’t let them get to you. We also listened to “Make Me Humble” a brand new song by Ryan  As said by Ryan, the title is quite literal and the title is exactly what the song is about. To make it better, the title was chosen for our Record of the Week, meaning that it’s going to be played on the Breakfast show and throughout the day in the week.

The two spoke a bit about their thoughts on the meanings of songs. Ryan said that he likes to write songs that can stand on their own. To quote him directly, “I just write songs”. Although he brought up that he’s made young women and grown men cry with certain songs. Casey said that he likes personal songs but it has to be something someone can relate to. Ryan added that songs can mean different things to different people and that a song can belong to everyone.

We discussed a little how the songwriting process goes for the musicians. Ryan said that it’s all about the lyrics and that he’s a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to lyrics. Casey said that it starts if he hears a phrase somewhere and gets the thought that it would be a good song title. He said that other times it depends on the guitar he chooses. Each guitar means a different song. The ideas come from anywhere. Other than the lyrics, the melody is very important. If a song has good lyrics but a boring melody then you don’t create something good. The topic of song titles also got discussed and the two said that if they get a song title idea, they search it up and if it has more than 3 results or a song with over a million streams then that title gets scrapped. In short, a good hook and unique title makes a song memorable.