Ryan Montbleau

For as long as he can remember, Ryan Montbleau’s been a seeker. From the jungles of Peru to the volcanoes of Hawaii, from the beaches of Costa Rica to the streets of Brooklyn, from the backseat of a 16-passenger van to backstage at Carnegie Hall, the acclaimed singer/songwriter has spent much of his life crisscrossing the globe on a perpetual search for meaning, purpose, and understanding. It’s a quest that’s guided him both personally and professionally over the years, one that’s come to define not only his music, but his very sense of self. And yet, listening to Montbleau’s ambitious new multi-part album, Wood, Fire, Water, and Air, there is a profound sense of satisfaction in sitting still, a recognition that perhaps all those spiritual treasures he’s been chasing for so long were closer than he thought.

“My whole adult life has been this journey of trying to figure out where home is,” Montbleau reflects. “I think I’ve finally found it.”

Set to roll out across four distinct EPs, Wood, Fire, Water, and Air marks Montbleau’s first studio release since putting down permanent roots in Burlington, Vermont, where he recently purchased a house after more than two decades of living on the road. While much of the material here was written in fits and starts over the past several years, it’s clear that the desire for stability was very much on Montbleau’s mind even before he settled on the banks of Lake Champlain, and the songs reflect a maturity and self-awareness that can only come from the difficult work of rigorous self-examination. Montbleau is quick to credit therapy for his growth of late, but he sings about more than just himself here, mixing sly humor and deep revelations as he meditates on the ties that bind all of us perfectly imperfect humans together. Taken as a whole, it’s a broad, insightful collection balancing boisterous rock and roll energy with intimate folk introspection, a sprawling, magnetic record all about listening, letting go, and living life.

“I’ve been through a lot over these past few years,” says Montbleau, “and I’ve experienced some monumental shifts in my perspective. The only way for me to write about it was to just get as honest and vulnerable as I could.”

Honesty and vulnerability have been hallmarks of Montbleau’s career since the early 2000’s, when he first began performing around his native Massachusetts. In the years to come, he’d go on to collaborate with artists as diverse as Martin Sexton, Trombone Shorty, Tall Heights, and Galactic, and rack up more than 100 million streams on Spotify alone. Along the way, Montbleau would share bills with stars like Tedeschi Trucks Band, Ani DiFranco, The Wood Brothers, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Mavis Staples, but it was his ecstatic headline shows—often more than 200 of them a year—that solidified his reputation as a roots rock powerhouse and an inexorable road warrior. NPR’s Mountain Stage compared his “eloquent, soulful songwriting” to Bill Withers and James Taylor, while Relix celebrated his “poetic Americana,” and The Boston Herald raved that “he’s made a career of confident, danceable positivity.”

That positivity would serve Montbleau well on the long and winding road to Wood, Fire, Water, and Air. Work on the record first began in the summer of 2019 at the gorgeous Guilford Sound studio in southern Vermont, where Montbleau and producer Adam Landry (Deer Tick, Rayland Baxter) laid down basic tracks with a rotating cast of players. At the time, Montbleau had little idea what he was getting himself into.

“I honestly didn’t know what this project was going to be for a very long time,” he explains. “All I knew was that I had a bunch of songs I was really excited about, and that I wanted to take a new approach to recording them.”

For much of his career, Montbleau had worked fast and loose in the studio, capturing music as raw and organically as possible. This time around, though, he found himself craving a bolder, more fully realized sound, and by the time he finished basic tracking in Guilford, it was clear that his work had only just begun. What followed was a yearlong odyssey of adding, subtracting, revising, and reimagining, as Montbleau and mixer/engineer James Bridges fleshed out the sessions with a broad array of instruments, textures, and colors.

“It took a long time for me to get to a place where I could trust myself enough to stretch out like this,” says Montbleau, who experimented with synthesizers and drum machines and added piano and mandolin to his repertoire for the project. “I’d always kind of deferred to other people’s expertise in the studio, but learning to trust my ears and get my hands dirty with the music was a totally empowering experience.”

As the songs took shape, it became clear to Montbleau that there were discrete themes at work within the larger collection, both sonically and emotionally. Rather than release the entire 15-track record all at once, then, he decided he would unveil the album more deliberately over the course of four separate EPs, each inspired by an element of the natural world. First up: Wood, a rustic, earthy trio of tracks taking stock of just what it means to be human in these bewildering times. Songs like the playful “Perfect” and soulful “Ankles” wrap weighty ruminations inside deceptively lighthearted packages, and the spare, stripped-down arrangements make for an ideal bridge between Montbleau’s earlier work and the more adventurous sounds to come on the album’s second installment, Fire. Infused with an infectious energy and feel-good pop optimism, Fire showcases the rock and roll side of Montbleau’s personality, celebrating the joy and liberation that comes with learning to live in the moment.

“The songs on Fire were a chance for me to just let loose and have fun,” says Montbleau. “They were an opportunity to not overthink things for a change, to trust my gut and follow what felt good.”

The arrival of Water quickly cools things down, though, bringing the music back to Earth with a more sober, meditative quality. Montbleau wrote several of the tracks while doing medicine work in Peru, and the healing, regenerative nature of that trip is obvious on songs like the dreamy “Forgiveness,” which features extensive keyboard contributions from avant-garde icon John Medeski. By the time we reach the album’s final chapter, Air, Montbleau seems to have found peace within himself, coming to terms with the transient, fleeting nature of our existence. “Just know that you are not alone,” he sings on “The Dust,” “and that’s all you get to know now.”

“Even though COVID kind of upended everything with my career, this past year has been a rare chance for me to stay put for a while and focus on what really matters,” says Montbleau, who recently invited his girlfriend and her daughter to move in with him in Burlington. “I feel like I finally have a real family life now, and I’m living on stable ground for the first time.”

That doesn’t mean the hunt for purpose and meaning is over. Ryan Montbleau will always be a seeker, and that’s alright. As Wood, Fire, Water, and Air so beautifully demonstrates, sometimes the search is its own reward.

“There was something special about performing there again after going into that same studio as a young buck trying to figure out how to make my first records,” reflects Montbleau. “Coming back, I was a decade more confident, a decade stronger in my craft. It felt like coming full circle.”

For his performance that night, Montbleau was backed not by his usual touring band, but by the acclaimed Boston duo Tall Heights (cellist Paul Wright and guitarist Tim Harrington). The collaboration yielded fresh perspective on Montbleau’s catalog, fleshing out his stripped-down acoustic performances with gorgeous vocal blends and elegant instrumental arrangements. Soulful and spontaneous, the set showcased the magic that can happen when three consummate musicians surrender themselves to the songs, when a trio of gifted artists follow their instincts to craft a whole far greater than the sum of its parts.

“Tall Heights’ sound just naturally wraps around mine in a way that’s really unique,” says Montbleau. “Their harmonies and tones are so dialed in with each other, and their voices gel around mine perfectly. When we get together, something special tends to happen.”

Recorded in front of an intimate audience, the resulting collection combines the pristine audio quality of a studio record with the contagious energy of a live album, an ideal fit for Montbleau’s intimate, honest lyrics and spirited, dynamic delivery. The unusual setting pushed him to step outside his comfort zone and take bold artistic risks, assembling a setlist that was equal parts reimagined retrospective and trial-by-fire as he mixed stripped-down versions of songs from throughout his career with brand new tracks recorded for the first time that night. “Less is more” was the mantra, and while Montbleau may be best known for his barn-burning full-band shows, he’s no stranger to the raw acoustic setting.

“I’ve been touring solo about half the year lately, and my last release was a solo record where I really stripped the songs down to their bare bones,” says Montbleau. “I felt like those were some of the best songs I’ve written in my entire life, and this record is a perfect continuation of that. The music’s fleshed out a little bit more, but at its essence, it’s still me just pouring my heart out.”

Montbleau’s been pouring his heart out in song since the early 2000’s, when he first began performing around his native Massachusetts. He’d go on to collaborate with Martin Sexton, Trombone Shorty, and Galactic among others, and share bills and stages with artists as diverse as Tedeschi Trucks Band, Ani DiFranco, The Wood Brothers, Rodrigo y Gabriela, and Mavis Staples, but it was Montbleau’s ecstatic headline shows—often more than 200 of them a year—that solidified his reputation as a live powerhouse and an inexorable road warrior. NPR’s Mountain Stage compared his “eloquent, soulful songwriting” to Bill Withers and James Taylor, while Relix hailed his “poetic Americana,” and The Boston Herald raved that “he’s made a career of confident, danceable positivity.”

Montbleau’s never been one to rest on his laurels, though, and ‘Woodstock Sessions’ opens with a brand new song called “Looking Glass,” a gentle, pensive track that proves his lyrical prowess and melodic gifts are sharper now than ever before. “Busy people in the burning sand / Take a look up from your looking glass when you can,” he sings, his raspy voice ensconced in velvet harmony over top of intricate fingerpicking.

“That song was written just in time for the session and it was buzzing to get out,” explains Montbleau. “It's about the modern day-to-day, the ways we connect and the isolation we experience from staring at our screens all day and all night.”

The desire for connection, for a true human bond, is a recurring theme in Montbleau’s writing. The bittersweet “Our Own Place” searches for a home that’s perpetually just out of reach, while the brooding “Ships In The Night” ruminates on our polarized political climate, and the heartfelt “The Country and The Town” (a song commissioned by PBS in Montbleau’s newly-adopted home of Vermont) celebrates the power of community. Montbleau’s live shows are nothing if not communal affairs, and the confessional “Help Me” reaches out a helping hand out for anyone struggling through hard times.

“There’s still this shame tied up in mental illness or mental struggles,” says Montbleau. “So many people experience dark, even suicidal thoughts, and we need to talk about that more, collectively as a society and individually as friends and families. I wrote this song when I was going through those feelings myself, and I share it in the hopes that it can help other folks dealing with the same thing.”

Montbleau’s songs have a way of weaving themselves into the fabric of his listeners’ lives that way, offering up hope and light in moments of darkness and doubt. The tender “Carry” pledges to always be there to pick up a lover’s slack, while the striving “Chariot (I Know)” insists upon love and faith in the face of uncertainty, and the lilting “All Or Nothing” (which was originally recorded and released as a single with Tall Heights) promises better days to come. Selecting which ten tracks to include on the album from the nearly three-and-a-half-hour concert wasn’t easy—there’s no way to include every fan favorite—but Montbleau ultimately let the spirit of the songs guide him.

“I’m not trying to put out my greatest hits,” he concludes. “I’m just trying to create the best and most timely art I can.”

A lot may have changed since Ryan Montbleau first set foot in Applehead Recording, but some things will always stay the same.