‘I’m just a guy with a guitar,’ says the eminently reasonable Tyler Ramsey. The singer-songwriter, guitarist, and ex-Band Of Horses member arrives in York on 4 April 2026 to play the Blue Bird Café, Acomb’s capital of culture.
By Miles Salter
I tell him he’ll enjoy the venue, which is inside the café and bakery. ‘You might get some cake,’ I say.
Ramsey’s York gig is part of a whistlestop tour that takes in dates in London, Oxford, Newcastle, and Glasgow. He’s a long way from home. His base is Asheville in North Carolina, USA where he lives with his wife and children.
Family life has resulted in a gorgeous song. Flying Things, from his recent album Celestun with Carl Broemel (from My Morning Jacket) is one of the best things I have heard lately. The song was inspired by a moment when Tyler and his wife Jacquie put their daughter to bed one night.
The couple read a book called ‘Dream Animals’ to their daughter, resulting in the family picking an animal to be with in dreamland. Tyler chose a hawk, Jacquie chose an owl and their daughter chose a seagull. The light off, their daughter said ‘we’re all flying things.’
The song captures something fragile and lovely. ‘Darling, it’s all right. We’ve travelled through the darkest clouds to reach the other side,’ Ramsey sings. The song speaks of family. It captures the timeless challenges of parenthood, wanting to make the world safe for children, but knowing some things can’t be fixed.
The song, and the music he has made with Broemel, feels like it’s from 1969, or 1972. I’m reminded of Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills and Nash, Jackson Browne, perhaps Don McLean’s American Pie album.
The music is gentle and undulating, unhurried, in touch with emotion. It’s music for the present tense. In one sense, Tyler Ramsey and Broemel are being counter cultural. Celestun is dominated by instrumentals, and these ask something of audiences – to be present, to forget the distractions of iPhones and news updates from a demented world.
‘Let’s make a record nobody wants,’ Broemel suggested, half-joking. On tour, audiences responded. ‘We definitely noticed that people reacted… people expressed that they needed what we had given them… a moment of calm,’ Ramsey says.
For Ramsey, music provides a shelter of sorts. ‘I play at home, and it’s generally because I need to take myself out of the world… it’s a meditative thing for me.’
In a world where all musicians draw attention to themselves, Ramsey’s approach seems less egotistical. This approach, he admits, may not have done him any favours.
He’s released six solo albums, most recently New Lost Ages in 2024, but avoids silly stunts for the Instagram audience. For a musician, he seems very grounded. ‘I try to be grounded and calm,’ he says. ‘I’m just a guy with a guitar most of the time. I think the life I lead is pretty grounded. I’m focused on fairly simple goals.’
He lives in North Carolina with his wife and their two children. When he describes their lifestyle in the countryside, with a log cabin and a nearby creek, it sounds idyllic. I mention Man On The Run, the recent Paul McCartney film showing the ex-Beatle’s life in Scotland with Linda and his children.
Ramsey talks of his songwriting heroes including two Canadians, Ron Sexsmith and Neil Young. He saw Sexsmith play a solo gig at The Grey Eagle in Asheville and says ‘he was like an old jazz musician, in tune with intonation and timing… and Neil Young is such an inspiration. I love that he makes music in different ways, so creatively, fearlessly, and unapologetically.’
On Celestun, he and Broemel cover Young’s pastoral and sleepy Sail Away. We talk about Young’s darkly prophetic Rocking In The Free World, a song that grows more prescient with every passing year.
Ramsey’s high voice is reminiscent of Young’s, and audiences have commented on the similarity. He’s been able to share a stage with Young a couple of times, including at Bridge School Benefit gigs, a series of charity concerts that ran across several decades.
‘I owe my tinnitus to Rocking in the Free World,’ says Ramsey, chuckling slightly. Ramsey was standing near guitar amps on stage with Young and others in Central Park when The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach tore into blistering solos. It was loud.
Ramsey was fortunate. He was a member of Band Of Horses from 2007 to 2017. He hit the band at the right time, just as they took off. ‘It was a wild period of time,’ he says. ‘At the start, it was very exciting. We went from a van to a bus pretty quickly; we were doing big shows. There were lots of cool things – like being on stage with Neil Young.’
The usual carnage that successful bands suffer from entered the equation like a gloomy stalker. ‘Interpersonal relationships, egos, substance abuse… we started growing apart,’ Ramsey says. He hung on for ten years but admits he should have left sooner. ‘It was time to part ways a few years before and I stayed for a while…’
We talk about the uniform curse of success, the way it comes with multiple downsides, unless members are very centred and willing to work to be real. He emphasises the need for band members to work on themselves, to keep growing, to communicate properly before they end up despising each other.
‘A band therapist might be a good idea,’ he says. This reminded me of Metallica’s Some Kind Of Monster in which band therapy sessions were filmed. It’s occasionally comic. Maybe the cameras weren’t a great idea.
Ramsey comes across as a likeable, sensitive, articulate presence. He seems to be entirely in control of his moods and attitudes. We talk about the insanity of Trump’s America. The singer-songwriter took part in a ‘No Kings’ protest concert in Asheville.
He struggles to find the words to talk about the disillusionment that liberal Americans feel about what is happening. ‘More people could use their voices,’ he offers, and likens Trump to ‘a monster.’
In the meantime, though, there’s the work of getting out there, playing gigs, being calm and centred, enjoying music and people, and getting on with life. ‘I’m writing songs to satisfy some itch that I have. The things I do, they’re mostly by myself. I want to find some sort of voice that is mine. I really enjoy every single concert where we connect with the audience. We’re all hanging out together. It’s a shared experience.’
Tyler Ramsey plays the Bluebird Café in Acomb, York on Saturday 4 April 2026.
Miles Salter is a writer and musician based in York. He’s trying to be more in the present moment. His band is Miles and The Chain Gang.
