Ruhala’s singular operating style is a credit to Red Herring ’s simultaneous idiosyncrasy and unity: each track bears the earmarks of his tendencies for saccharine melodies, clear instrumentation, and a sort of ethereal, out-of-time placelessness-and yet each could also be from a different artist. Apart from strings-played respectively by longtime Brandi Carlile collaborator Josh Neumann and Andrew Joslyn -Ruhala wrote and performed each instrument on the record, including guitar, piano, bass, drums, baritone ukulele, xylophone, vibraphone, and all vocals.
Over a few months in late 2019, Ruhala and Hadlock sifted through a stockpile of prepared demos and assembled the 12 songs that comprise Red Herring. To execute his wide-lens vision, Ruhala worked with producer Ryan Hadlock (The Lumineers, Vance Joy, Ra Ra Riot) at his legendary secluded Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, Washington. “Sometimes these feelings intermingle with each other.” “For me, this record represents the moments in life where there is a sense of confusion to whether we’re living in a comedy or a tragedy,” says Ruhala. On his studio debut Red Herring, Ruhala elevates this formula, applying his genre-agnostic blueprint to a set of songs that comprise a no-concept concept record: a varied LP which explores the tragedy and comedy-often, both at once-that color and confound the modern 22-year-old’s existence. On previous releases-2015’s Young Alumni and 2016’s Spoonfed -Ruhala worked almost exclusively on his own, writing and recording every instrument on his records in attics and bedrooms across Detroit. This eclectic work is the product of one mind.
Ruhala’s music is at once precise and playful, skipping breezily between decades and their attendant musical aesthetics while executing them with care and sincerity. Hala (pronounced haw-luh ) is the performance moniker of Detroit-based musician Ian Ruhala.