Ruth: Washington rockers who are anything but One Foot In, One Foot Out

Thursday 26th June 2008

Susanne Martin reports on the post-'90s indie rock band RUTH and their critically acclaimed 'Secondhand Dreaming' album

Ruth
Ruth

New to the Cross Rhythms playlist is a great rock song, "One Foot In, One Foot Out". The track by Washington-based indie rock band Ruth deftly nails the spirit of compromise tragically found in some churches and believers. The lyric goes, "You're all I want, you're all I need/I can't ride the fence, it's tearing me apart/One foot in, one foot out/I can't keep this straight now." "One Foot In, One Foot Out" is one of several memorable tracks released on Ruth's 2007 album 'Secondhand Dreaming' on Tooth & Nail Records. So who are this most interesting and passionate band? Mike Rimmer met up with Ruth - Dustin Matthew Ruth (vocals, guitar), Nick Wiinikka (guitar), Brett Van Liew (bass) and Reed (drums) - and in a Nashville hotel room threw the 20-something foursome some questions. Mike asked songwriter and vocalist Dustin how he'd first got into music. "I picked up the guitar when I was 14. Where did that desire come from? Obviously God knows beginning from end, he had that planned and mapped out for us. In Psalms it says to seek the Lord first and he'll give you the desires of your heart. Our desire is to play music. We don't conceive of it, we're not that creative - God's awesomely creative and he puts that desire in our hearts. And that's also why we called the album 'Secondhand Dreaming'."

During his teenage years Dustin had moved from his hometown for a period to Los Angeles. As he commented, "I did learn quite a bit about the music business, even if it was through falling on my face quite a bit." Upon arriving home, Dustin began looking for answers in the wrong places. After several months of "jamming" with friends and forming a new band, he soon found himself soiled in the world. He was surrounded by a group of people pursuing an empty dream: partying, drugs, purposelessness, and a path to an empty existence. It was a close friend who clued the rock'n'roll wannabe into a better way of living. Said Dustin, "After years of trying on my own, I decided to commit my plans to God, to submit my life to the Lord and stop living without purpose inside my goals. It took a couple years but I found a committed group of guys who wanted the same thing, and Ruth were born."

Mike Rimmer asked about the band's name. Could it be to do with the Biblical character, or is it one of the guys' ex-girlfriends? "I had a dog named Ruth that died a few years ago and was a real inspiration to me," said frontman Dustin. "Nah, just kidding!" They explained that Ruth is actually an acronym for Return Us To Him. "That's basically the mission statement of our band," he added. "Just to basically turn heads in the right direction and give people hope, and that way they'll head back to where they came from, where they belong." It actually sounds way more profound than was guessed, yet Rimmer was still curious as to whether they still get booked up by someone expecting a girly pop group. Dustin said, "At shows if we're playing with a girl band or girls we know we might play a little joke and have them be Ruth for the tour or whatever. But for the most part we do get a hard time about it because of the female gender thing. Hopefully there'll be enough buzz for people to know it's four guys and not a girl and four guys. But we do have long hair some of us. They could be fooled. It's kind of a sad thing, huh."

Ruth recorded an independent EP. Remembered Dustin, "It sold a couple thousand copies and we started showcasing for labels. It wasn't long before we found ourselves on Tooth & Nail, right where we needed to be, with a huge opportunity to get the music out to many people." Ruth's album debut 'Secondhand Dreaming' was produced by CCM hitmaker Aaron Sprinkle and seemed to showcase everything that is right about post-'90s radio/pop rock - Nirvana, Radiohead, Third Eye Blind and Counting Crows laced with a hint of the singer/songwriter finesse of Ryan Adams.

At the time of the interview drummer Reed was the newest addition to the band and told the tale behind his joining. "I actually needed a place to live, and I'd known Dustin a little bit and I moved in with him because I got kicked out of my sister's house. She was pregnant," he said. "It wasn't really my room to begin with; it was more a nursery I moved into. So that's how I met all them. I actually wasn't part of the band at that time - it didn't work with God's timing but it has now, and so it's turned out to be just the perfect timing and the perfect situation."

Ruth: Washington rockers who are anything but One Foot In, One Foot Out

The album was actually recorded before Reed joined the band and so has had to follow someone else's drumming. "I've known Dustin and Nick all this time, when they've been writing the music," he said. "I was a little nervous for them to go up to the compound and record this with a studio drummer just because I've been friends with them and I'm kind of protective of the music, but he did a great job. His name is Aaron Milasko, he's an amazing drummer and it was odd at first playing someone else's drum parts but I love him and I mean if anyone sees us live and they like something I do, it's something that he wrote which is kind of cool." For Nick and Dustin working with producer Aaron Sprinkle was definitely a highlight. "He was really good. He definitely stretched us in a lot of a ways but gave us freedom in ways we didn't expect," said guitarist Nick. "Some of the ideas he brought to the table were stuff we would have never thought of but in the end it definitely made the record better."

The track "Cross The Line" was the first single released to radio from the album. Reed explained a bit about the inspiration behind it: "It's basically taking that first step of faith, letting go of everything you know and grabbing onto God and trusting that he can handle everything you have to give him, all your bad things and your good things and, yeah, taking that first step." Ruth certainly took a bold first step into the industry with their album, set with their vision to minister through it. The guys told Rimmer a bit more about where they're coming from spiritually. Dustin started, "'Return us to him' is kind of our overall theme of what we really like the music to do. You know, it's not really our job to return people to God; we let them know who God is. It's his job, it's his work and he prepares hearts. The music is his music and he blesses me with the songs and has blessed all these guys with the talents that they have and has brought us together and orchestrated this entire thing. So our hope is that people would get more than just a great tune. We hope they would be able to listen to it and be moved a little bit and get hope from it. The 'return us to him' thing kind of goes along with everybody's story as we have all fallen short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23. Us especially, we're screw ups, we mess things up, but this music has returned us to who God wants us to be and is a process for us to be serving him the way we should. So, that's really the goal of the band; that the music would do that for other people as well."

One of the band's favourite songs on the album is "Here In New York." Dustin explained why, "It has a lot of great people playing on it and basically it's just about having that desire to get out of our home town. Get out, and let people know who God is. Take this ministry he has given us and further it. We went to New York as a band for the first time three or four weeks ago doing a music video there and met a lot of cool people out on Coney Island. So basically, 'Here In New York' just talks about having the Lord's Spirit rain down. I think all countries, all people all around the world need God. We're all the same, all falling short of the glory of God. But right now we're on this kind of smaller scale just dealing with the United States, as that's where we're touring and that's what we're doing right now. So, that song kind of embraces that idea of getting it across to the US." CR

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.
About Susanne Martin
Susanne MartinSusanne Martin is studying journalism at Staffordshire University.


 

Reader Comments

Posted by povas in India @ 15:52 on Jan 21 2009

very good



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