Ryan Cook comes home for Coal Shed Festival

By Michael Gorman

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

For Ryan Cook, playing country music has become as natural as it is for his family to make milk.

Much has been made about the one-time heavy metal singer's transition to old-time country music. But anyone who watches him perform — and Yarmouth County will have two chances this weekend when Cook plays Kelley's Pub on Friday at 10 p.m. and then the Coal Shed Music Festival on Saturday at 10:30 p.m. — can tell he's enjoying himself.

Cook is a natural showman, calling out solos from the rest of the band and interacting with the crowd. And while there's no question that certain elements of the show are just that, show, at this point the now Halifax-based Cook says he feels like what he's doing is a natural progression.

"The approach that we have is the same approach that we had 10 years ago when I was playing in heavy metal and punk groups," he says. "We all got together and wrote our own songs and then went out and played them. That aspect hasn't changed at all."

For Cook, the idea of being a songwriter is important. He'll be the first to admit that he isn't the strongest musician in the world. That's one reason he surrounds himself with a band full of well-heeled and skilled players. Instead, Cook prefers to focus on his voice and the process of writing material.

Along with his band, Sunny Acres, Cook has played extensively since their Yarmouth debut last Christmas. With appearances at the Hank Snow Tribute, the Fox Mountain County Festival, an opening slot for CCMA nominee Aaron Pritchett and a weekly summer gig at the Rodeo Lounge in Dartmouth, word is spreading about the group.

Cook says his music is getting a good reception. His biggest challenge, he says, is getting the word out that he's not part of the new-country sound. Cook says that while there is a demographic that isn't interested in that sound, most people seem to have an ear for his old-time country songs that channel the likes of Ray Price and George Jones.

"This is more or less a throw-back to honky tonk," he says. "The way (country music) is now it's like wrestling; they create different characters. They create the good Christian guy who doesn't drink or smoke and is married. And they've got the outlaws and all this different stuff . . . It's hard to find anything real in that."