'C U Next Tuesday': The Interview with Ryan Smith

Written by Abby Power

March 15th, 2023

Fusing elements of metalcore, deathcore, and pop, Please Stand By have been dominating the underground metal scene in the Durham Region. Please Stand By emerged from Oshawa, Ontario, in 2017. Their founding member, Ryan Smith, the lead vocalist and lead screamer, felt a certain passion and energy for music. He formed the band with the original bass player, who is his best friend of 16 years; they proceeded to recruit vocalist and lead guitarist, Damian Gates, the original rhythm guitarist, and the original drummer. While the band have experienced many personnel changes throughout their 5 year journey, Please Stand By have never held back. Although they did not make their first debut until July of 2018, the band have since released an EP, Trauma, and 3 singles.

“Our music has a very grounded foundation of metalcore elements, but pulls from more metal and mainstream sub-genres,” says their frontman, Ryan Smith.

Please Stand By are a five-piece metal band. Notably, they have performed at various events and venues across the Durham Region and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). While they do frequent The Atria on King Street E. in Oshawa, Please Stand By have made their way into the Hamilton metal scene, favouriting a venue called The Doors Pub: Taco Joint and Metal Bar. Ryan stated that “it’s a great little venue, it used to be this mansion thing. The cool thing about it is that the restaurant and bar area are on the downstairs level, the actual stage and performance area is upstairs.”

Through the difficulties of the music industry, especially as an emerging band of 5 years, Please Stand By have stood by long enough. Their traditional punk and metal ideologies, such as anti-establishment and anti-racism, to name a few, have been the glue that keeps them together. Please Stand By want to see a change in the music industry, one that is more equal and inclusive, to say the least. However, they stay motivated by continuing to write and record passionately.

Most recently, Please Stand By have become an artist of TakeOver Artist Management, a student-run initiative in the Music Business program at Durham College. Ryan spoke about his influences, his musical journey as a former theatre kid, and Please Stand By’s upcoming shows. “Our next show is an underground house party, it’s a show for three people’s birthdays. That one is on March 25th in Vaughan [Ontario]. The set will feature Please Stand By, ITUS, Omnivert, Detest, and Evil Villain.”

Ryan discussed his upbringing and how he used to sing the Top 40 on the radio. “I was singing along to Sean Paul and Eminem at 6 years old.” His biggest influences included Phil Bozeman, Randy Blythe, Chris Motionless, Mike Greenwood, and Corey Taylor. Ryan was very sure to point out that he was more of an early Corey Taylor fan. “Please Stand By has a lot of crossover influences. We are influenced by Avenge Sevenfold, Dream Theatre, a lot of modern metalcore, deathcore, 2000s metal and deathcore. We also pull from elements of pop, punk, and thrash metal.” Ryan was also inspired by My Chemical Romance throughout his teen years. In the seventh grade, he auditioned for a school musical. The song he used to audition was ‘Welcome to the Black Parade’. “That was the first time music had a big influence on me,” he stated.

The last official release of a musical work by Please Stand By was in 2020. “B.L.M was a proper response to the Black Lives Matter movement,” Ryan began, “we had taken notice that nobody had done anything creatively to say something.” Ryan and his bandmates felt that it was something they should write a song about. “Metal has always been about counter-culture and rebellion, standing up for what’s right. It’s always been anti-everything.” Please Stand By were in a position where they noticed the faults within Canada as well, not just the United States. “We did not want to support a country that did not speak up about these wrongdoings of police brutality, or real people facing real problems.” B.L.M spoke of what was right. The single by Please Stand By stated that the Black Lives Matter movement was indeed a real movement. The song was a message to fans, stating “Our protests are endless / You’re gonna hear us out / Until we get our message said and done / One more time / Riot / Riot / Riot / Riot.” Listeners needed to understand that protests were taking place and that it was important to take part. It was important to cause and start a riot for human rights.

Ryan reflected upon his songwriting process, stating that “every song is different.” Often, he will begin with the lyrics and the vocal melody, tweaking words and parts along the way. “Sometimes, we write the traditional way – instrumentals, then lyrics. Sometimes it starts with a riff. The song is usually put together collectively.” The most difficult song that Ryan has written has not even been released. “It’s 6 ½ minutes,” he laughed, “it was originally supposed to be 10 minutes, but Damian did not want to write the other 4 minutes.” Ryan explained that this song has been the most experimental in comparison to other songs they have written. The vocal melodies have been some of the most difficult that the frontman has ever worked on. By not over-working himself and forcing himself to work creatively, the vocal melodies have taken more than 4 months to put together. Please Stand By have been working with various musical stylings and pulling from various inspirations. Ryan has expanded his creative palette by experimenting with more vocal stylings and allowing himself to be more open-minded, musically. Thus, Ryan is leaving his comfort zone and is gravitating towards musical stylings that he would not normally become inspired from. The band currently has 11 unreleased songs and have added very few to their setlists since the release of B.L.M. Ryan stated that his favourite song to play live, although all of them are fun to play live, is ‘C U Next Tuesday’. “There’s a part in the song, when we play it live, I will get everybody to stick their middle fingers up in the air. It's definitely a party song that you would hear at a metal party, it's a metal party song. ‘C U Next Tuesday has the best energy [in comparison] to most of our songs.”

From his experience in a local band as an emerging artist, Ryan discussed the difficulties he faces as an artist. He spoke passionately about the expectations that emerging artists are expected to live up to, and how much work is actually put into one’s career. “What difficulties haven't we run into?” he stated. “It's everything. To be expected to work a full time job, be on social media all the time, to invest in merchandise and not get a significant amount of money back from that merchandise that you spent all that money on... it's ridiculous.” Ryan faces the pressures put on by the music industry every single day. He questioned, “where does it end?” then proceeded to dive into how much a good producer costs and how much it costs to create good music videos. If there was anything he could change about the music industry, he stated that he would change “all of it, for all of it needs to be reconstructed.” The way artists are treated within the music industry was something that Ryan spoke passionately about. “The music industry needs to have more of a progressiveness for equality and inclusivity. The way artists are paid is beyond my belief.” Throughout the interview, One of the only positive attributes that kept repeating itself was the audience and the listeners - anything beyond who was listening to the music was something that could be renovated and reconstructed. “For one, I would change the way we’re paid, how backwards it is for us to get paid. Believe it or not, artists, back in the day, were in the upper echelon of society.” With that being said, Ryan is continuously motivated by giving his audience what his influences have given him. Although he did not comment on behalf of his bandmates, he recognizes that all of the members of Please Stand By are motivated by their love of music. “It’s all something we strive to do professionally. There's that unified vision of what we want.” He is driven by his passion for music and his need of writing the truth. Ryan allows the truth to be told within his songwriting, and allows his audience to run and riot. He encourages his audience to protest against what is wrong, such as what is sung in ‘B.L.M’, and encourages aspiring musicians to not give up. “Educate yourself on the music business. Know as much as you can, know when to stand your ground. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Chase that dream until it's real.”

Please Stand By are set to be featured on the upcoming ‘CENT’ LP through the Music Business Management course at Durham College. Their music can be found on all streaming platforms and are available through their Linktree at https://linktr.ee/pleasestandbyca. Please Stand By continue to dominate the metal scene within the Durham Region and explore the heights of the metal scene within the Greater Toronto Area.

All photos by Bailey Reimer.