Hi friends — over the weekend, Ryan’s gated garage was broken into and several cars were fleeced, including his own, resulting in all of his gear being stolen. I won’t pretend to be better with words about the impact of this loss than he is, so here’s the full story:

 

Four years ago, my best friend Mark gave me his old Telecaster, which he’d had for years and had completely stopped using. It was like meeting a hidden part of myself I had always aspired to and couldn’t reach before. I spent the next years, records, touring all over, big moments, all the quiet times of lockdown and composition pouring every emotion I had into this one beautiful piece of wood, magic, and American engineering.

 

Over the weekend, someone broke into my building’s gated garage and raided several vehicles, including mine, where they snatched my guitar and pedalboard. I NEVER leave them in the car but had planned to turn around several times over the weekend with errands, production, rehearsals, and so forth -- and after living here for seven years, got bit hard. We’ve filed a police report, footage is hopefully being compiled to be handed off to LAPD, and so forth, but let’s be honest, I don’t have a ton of faith that anything will come of it.

Friday and Saturday, we have huge shows in the desert, including the @coconutspaceship Coachella / Salton Sea charity popup. So as you see, the timing couldn’t have been better. And beyond that, a full slate of summer and fall events, including hopefully shows in the northwest, recording, and of course June Gloom 2022.

 

But I feel like one of the best parts of me is missing. I don’t really place a ton of value in material possessions. But this far surpasses those. This is the means by which I let you know our whole mission, which is to make you always feel fearless... to know that taking risks and being bold is what we were born to do. We all have our own struggles, and I have plenty, but at the end of the day we are all struggling in the same direction. It works because we are all working together, because we all believe that when we come together at our shows, we can finally be fearless, can take that home, and make our lives worth living in spite of a world that is often cruel and makes no sense.

 

I wasn’t going to make a big thing of it, but then the people I listen to when I don’t feel fearless reminded me it’s okay to ask for help. So they have started a gofundme which is l1nked and I have my trusty venmo @ryantrask if you’re interested. I’m too broke really for proper insurance and we’re hoping to track down the serial in the original docs. If you can’t contribute but want to help, you’re welcome to pass on the info, it’s a roughly 1998 or 1999 cherry red American Telecaster and the pedalboard pic is attached.