I love when the title of a song, especially a love song, is a passive-agressive threat. Such is the case with the new single by Nick Ryan titled Don’t Make An Enemy Of Me. The lyrics are catchy as is the melody. It is somewhat rather pop, which is more than fine by me. I prefer when pop songs contain clever lyrics and fun melodies. Also the video is yet another grand effort by the director Jason Baustin of Travestee Films.
Songs come about in different ways, by different inspirations, and in unique ways. When I had a moment to talk with Nick Ryan this is what he had to say about Don’t Make An Enemy Of Me:
The song started with the chorus that I came up with one day after being pissed off with a friend of mine for essentially betraying my trust (which I reference in the bridge). I had a a session with Matthew Shell and Reginald Honore we just bounced ideas for the verses, since a lot of the songs I’ve written had this similar theme we had to differentiate them from each other and make it unique. So we came up with things I can be or could be figuratively. The first one was the “I can be a rockstar, King of Pop rich.” I flew with that one for all the other verses and it became sort of a Jeckyl and Hyde kind of thing. I wanted this song’s message to be that I am a nice person, but if you turn on me I can become your worst nightmare, if I really wanted to. But I do believe in karma, so I think that I don’t have to do anything for people to get what’s coming to them.
He went on to confess to me that he already had the melody in his head when he met up with Matthew Shell who then helped him transcribe out the chords and come up with the bridge.
It was also originally going to be a southern rock/gospel/folk song, but when we sent it out to Lazzo for guitar it turned into an 80s video game track and then even more so with Vahagn Stepanyan’s synths added after. – Nick Ryan
Nick Ryan definitely chose to work with the right people. I’m a big fan of Matthew Shell, Vahagn Stepanyan, Lazzo, and Jason David, and feel blessed to call them my friends.
Let this be one of the songs you keep on the top of your lists for 2015. This is definitely not the last time we’ll hear from the rising star Nick Ryan.