Ruby — 21 April 2021 on Rocket Shop Radio Hour

Ruby joined host Tom Proctor on ‘Rocket Shop,’ Big Heavy World’s weekly local Vermont music radio hour on 105.9 FM The Radiator. Catch up with them at facebook.com/rubymakingmusic.

June 2021 Update: Ruby has changed their name to The Burning Sun.

The band Ruby, opened up Rocket Shop with Cascades, a song from their newest album Marrow. While originally a 4-person group, Katy Hellman and Steve Lebele came as a stripped-down version of themselves as they look for 2 additional band members. 

Marrow was recorded pre-COVID, in summer 2019, with songs being written almost 2 years prior. Katy explained that she felt some trepidation in the fall of 2019 and into the uncertainty of this year, unsure if she still resonated with the music she had written so long ago. The consensus was yes. After coming back to the music she described herself falling into the “trippy little world” like a “dreamscape” where you don’t know where the songs are going to go next. This psychedelic warped feel allows the songs to have distinct parts and “leave you on the edge of your seat”, as she describes it. The album was recorded with Benny Yurko down in New York City with a few of his friends. The reason for such a gap between the recording and the release was mainly due to the anxiety revolving around promotion, emailing, and all the “computer stuff”. 

With Julia Caesar, Katy’s prior project, there were “explicitly political” elements which reflected her involvement in the political environment and activism at the time. While Julia Caesar was recorded in the middle of Trump’s presidency, this album was geared towards more internal healing rather than a political message, while many of the same themes come up as in the end both are a very similar journey. 

Big Heavy World got an exclusive preview as Ruby played “Embers”, a song on their upcoming album. This newest album has been a work in progress this past year with 20 songs already written. COVID afforded Ruby the space for a lot of creative time, so now it is a matter of narrowing down the list of songs to be on the album. Most of this record was written on a classical guitar and is describes as having a “brighter feel” while maintaining moments of “punchy stuff” reminiscent of their last album. The process this time around was inspired by Aldous Harding and Andy Shelf. While different in sound, their precise instrumentation guided this album in a less “soupy direction” with acoustic guitar being the primary instrument at the center of this record. 

With Marrow having been released fairly recently and a new album on the way, Tom asks what the band will take away from their most recent record to this new one. Ruby responds that they want to focus more energy on the precision of the parts as last time was much more random. They want to learn to “speak the language” and better communicate the way they want their music to sound in the production process. Katy explains that she is looking to find a “translator” they can trust that can translate the rhythm and sounds that they want into the proper vocabulary to be interpreted by the production team. They didn’t exactly know what sound they wanted the first time, but now that they have a sense of clarity, the band is pushing to advocate for exactly what they want. 

When asked about how they think the music industry will have to react to the pandemic, Katy responds that when they were based in Philadelphia, they felt they were “having to play a game of capitalism to be a band”.  Throughout Julia Caesar, Katy describes this tension between competition, expectations from the public, and the pressure to always do better. She finally took a step back and asked herself “Who am I trying to appease right now?”, and realized she was no longer interested in pleasing the public. She would rather talk with other musicians to understand what should be done and created during this uncertain time. Katy has created a life for herself where her income is not dependent on the music industry and therefore no longer has to play this “game” to make a living. 

Ruby then played “The Tension”, another song from Marrow. This was written near the time when they were planning to move to Philly. It speaks to the angst and uncertainty, very similar emotions to what can be described today where we have this “feeling of stretching out into something new”. 

Other than the music video produced in October for the song “Marrow”, there has not been much promotion of the album. The band is looking to August to hopefully have some concrete gigs line up but in the meantime, Ruby struggles with outside pressures and expectations of having a full and polished band before a live performance. 

Ruby ended Rocket Shop with one more song, “My Name”, to be heard on their upcoming album. 

Ruby can be found on Instagram, Facebook, Apple Music, and Spotify.   

June 2021 Update: Linktree for The Burning Sun

Text by Flore Barrillon - Photo by Abbey Berger-Knorr