But she surprised me by saying, “I don’t want to go either.”
I remember sitting up on the table and looking over at her, but she was staring straight into the blue sky. “You don’t?” I asked.
“I don’t and I do,” she said. “I’ll miss the pine trees. I won’t know anyone. And I won’t have you.”
She slid her eyes over to me when she said it, and I saw that they were full of tears. The whole time I thought she’d been thrilled to move; all she’d talked about nonstop was the town house her parents were renting and the music equipment she had to pack and the weather that would never feel cold—at least to us Hamiltonians. I’d even tortured myself with the idea that she might be glad to finally get out of our quiet little town.
“But there’s just something in me that says if I don’t take this chance, I’ll never get it again,” she said. “I don’t know what it is. I have all these ideas—so many ideas, Mari, and I have to get them out somehow. I have todosomething with them. If I just sit on them and waste them, it gives me this itchy, horrible feeling. And thenI listen to other people creating stuff and think,I could have done that.OrI could do better.And it makes me feel ... guilty, I guess. That I didn’t try harder.”
I nodded. It wasn’t something I could completely relate to or understand, but as I got older, I recognized that feeling in other artists I met. I’ve thought a lot about the compulsion to create over the years. Ryan’s wealth was beside the point, especially at the outset; there was no guarantee that she could make any money off of this, at least no more than she was already gathering with festival winnings. A near fifteen-year-old wasn’t equipped to understand income in that sense, anyway.
Ryan was driven by something beyond herself. And it was powerful enough to force her past fear and discomfort to become something that was truly exceptional.
It was the last time in my life that I viewed her as a kid just like me.
Skip
Ryan Holding moved to Austin in the summer of 2004, a week before her fifteenth birthday. I primarily communicated through her parents at that time; I said to her father, take a week, a month, whatever you need, have her settle in and enjoy her summer for a little bit.
Nothing doing. Ryan showed up with her mother to my office the following Monday and wanted to schedule some studio time.
“I’m free now,” I told her. “Let’s head up and hash this thing out.”
Barb brought a book of crosswords and a copy ofWoman’s Dayand sat quietly in the corner of our studios while we talked.
“You’re eager,” I told her. “Didn’t you want to take some time to celebrate your birthday?”
She shrugged and said, “We went out to dinner. It’s more important to me that I don’t let you change your mind about all this.”
I chuckled. “We signed a contract, so I’m not going to change my mind. At least not until I see how your first album performs.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Barb raise an eyebrow. But hey, I wanted to set expectations early, and Ryan looked like she could handle it. I do my best to never, ever be unkind and to be the best possible advocate for all my artists. But this was a business relationship, a transactional one, and any new sign-on would go through a probationary period in my book until I could trust them. I would hope that Ryan held me to the same standards—her parents certainly did.
For her part, Ryan nodded at my comment. So I went on and said, “Here’s what I’d like to get out of the next year or so in plain terms in case no one’s laid it out for you yet. We’ll produce an album together, your debut album. It sounds like you’re an adept songwriter, but if you get stuck, we’ve got folks to help out. I’ll work on getting you some more appearances. Festivals, yes, but some meatier gigs if we can swing it—opening acts whenever possible.” I watched her face for any confusion or hesitancy as I was making my little speech, but she seemed to be tracking. Then I said, “But it’s also very important to me whatyou’dlike to get out of the next year. What do you want out of this opportunity, Ryan?”
She didn’t stop to think, didn’t miss a beat. She looked at me with clear green eyes and said, “Everything.”
“Everything?” I repeated.
“And more.” She had the faintest smile on her face when she said it.
That was Ryan—she always had me on my toes. She was earnest and self-deprecating at the same time, serious and focused and laid-back all at once. Sometimes I thought I knew what she was thinking, and then something entirely different would come out of her mouth.
I don’t ... I don’t mean to talk about her in the past tense so much. I know why you’re here, and I wish I could help. But all I can do is tell you about the Ryan I knew and the career she had up until the end.
Ron Sanchez,Ryan’s classmate in Austin, Texas
Yep, I went to school with Ryan Holding. We were lab partners. Even if it was only for the better part of a year, that’ll be my claim to fame untilI die. I bring it up at parties. The farther from Austin I am, the more of a reaction it gets—she ended up having a lot of random connections with people around here. My sister-in-law’s dad was the one who rented Ryan’s parents their town house. I think my connection is better, though. I got to actually know her.
I mean, sort of. She was real sweet even if she wasn’t around a lot. Not the type of person you’d think would end up a billionaire. But she did keep to herself. I always felt like I was the one doing all the talking—rambling on about some stupid sketch I saw onSaturday Night Live, describing what I had for lunch, reading off the lab instructions to her. It was about halfway through the semester that I realized she was askingmea lot of questions and not really answering many of her own.
Like, I knew she was kind of a different duck. We all did. A lot of people around school had parents and family that worked in the Austin music scene, but no one was actually building acareerin it—especially not freshmen. But Ryan was in and out of class a lot, and constantly did makeup work, so it was pretty obvious she was up tosomething.
It made for a little bit of bullying, nothing major. One kid, David Zaminski, would sort of holler at her when she came in late to her locker—Did Ryan have a special appointment again? Wow, so nice of you to join us, Ryan!—but for the most part, she was left alone because people didn’t see much of her. The general story was that she was working as a backup singer on a Kidz Bop CD or something. No one guessed that she was producing herownalbum, even though she was constantly scribbling in this little notebook she carried around. David tried to grab it from her once, but she swung her backpack around so quickly that she knocked it out of his hands and ran away. I was pretty impressed.
So I asked her at lab, “What’s in that notebook you carry?”
“Just stuff.” She shrugged.
