Singer-songwriter Lizzie Weber joins me in the studio to talk about her new album, Wraiths in the Wake, making music through grief, and the pressure

Lizzie is based in St. Louis, and her third album was co-produced with Nathan Yaccino, whose credits include Soundgarden and Brandi Carlile. We get into the loss and betrayal behind the record, her love of ’90s music, and how the right collaborators can take a song somewhere you couldn’t have gone alone.

We also talk about AI-generated music, social media becoming the music industry’s gatekeeper, and wanting to share your work without selling every part of yourself. I share how losing my mom led me to start this podcast, and we compare what we each get out of writing, recording, and performing.

Along the way: booking a tour of Japan through Twitter, opening for Ben Folds and The Swell Season, collaborating with Markéta Irglová, and a little music theory that somehow ends with The Lego Movie.

Listen to Wraiths in the Wake:
https://lizzieweber.bandcamp.com/album/wraiths-in-the-wake

Find Lizzie’s music, social accounts, and tour dates:
https://linktr.ee/lizzieweber

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Before a song ever makes it into the studio, there's a phase almost nobody gets to see.

Singer-songwriter Ruby Rae and I sit down with the original voice memos for her upcoming record and begin the pre-production process in real time. We listen through unfinished demos, talk about the stories behind the songs, explore possible arrangements, and figure out what this album wants to become before anyone presses record.

Mark Needham is a Los Angeles & Nashville based RIAA Diamond selling, Grammy nominated record producer and mixer, whose credits include a diverse array of internationally recognized superstar artists including The Killers, Imagine Dragons, Dolly Parton, Fleetwood Mac, Shakira, Pink, Chris Isaak and many more. For more information go to: markneedham.com

Atticus Roness (Recording Artist/Songwriter) talks about bringing real rock & roll energy into the modern music world, without just copying the past. Atticus breaks down his upcoming album Rock ’n’ Roll Hit Parade, working with Will Turpin of Collective Soul, chasing big hooks, building eras like Bowie and Taylor Swift, and why he’s drawn to the “’90s-’60s” sound of bands like Oasis, Nirvana, Third Eye Blind, Blur, Supergrass, The Lemonheads, and more.We also get into sobriety, meeting Noel Gallagher in London, the difference between background music and music that demands your attention, songwriting as therapy, nutrition, health, and what it means to be an independent artist trying to carve out your own lane.Follow Atticus Roness:https://www.instagram.com/stories/atticusroness/Follow Ryan / Music Row Hideout:https://www.instagram.com/ryanmeetsworldpod/

Caroline Romano joins Ryan Meets World to talk about her new EP It Took Me Falling, the shift from heartbreak songs to real love, and the alt-rock/emo/pop influences that shaped her sound, from Paramore and My Chemical Romance to Taylor Swift and Queen.

Justin C. Key is a psychiatrist and author of The Hospital at the End of the World, a sci-fi medical thriller about artificial intelligence, healthcare, and the fight to keep medicine human.

In this episode, Justin C. Key joins Ryan Poole to talk about the strange and complicated future of AI in medicine.

The conversation explores where artificial intelligence could genuinely help doctors, where large language models can go wrong, and why human judgment, empathy, and patient care still matter.

Justin also shares the story behind The Hospital at the End of the World, including why he set the novel in New Orleans, how he imagined an AI-dominated medical future before ChatGPT became mainstream, and how his background in psychiatry shaped the book’s ideas about medicine, technology, spirituality, and healing.

The conversation also gets into what psychiatrists actually do, the difference between psychiatry and therapy, schizophrenia, mental illness stigma, medication, family members trying to help loved ones from the outside, and why people with serious mental health conditions are more often victims of violence than perpetrators.

Along the way, Ryan and Justin also discuss microplastics, LaCroix, Spindrift, alternative medicine, the “woo woo” side of health culture, Harry Potter, Michael Crichton, medical school, sci-fi storytelling, and why school stories are such a powerful way to explore big ideas.

This episode is for fans of science fiction, medical thrillers, AI ethics, psychiatry, mental health conversations, speculative fiction, horror, and stories about the future of healthcare.

Featuring Justin C. Key, author of The Hospital at the End of the World.

Grammy Award Winning Photographer Alan Messer shares unbelievable first-hand stories about working around John Lennon, George Harrison, Johnny Cash, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Ravi Shankar, Merle Haggard, Dwight Yoakam, Tanya Tucker, Steve Earle, Robert Duvall, and many more. He talks about how he got his start with Beatles photographer Dezo Hoffman, what it was like being a young photographer in London in the late ’60s, and how he eventually became one of Nashville’s most respected music photographers.

We also get into:

• The time John Lennon told him to get out of his chair

• How George Harrison picked him out of a crowd of photographers

• What it was like working with Johnny Cash for decades

• The difference between shooting on film vs. digital

• Album covers, iconic images, and what makes a great photograph

• How Alan helped shape the visual history of Nashville music

Guest: Alan Messer

Website: alanmesser.com

Jonathan Wyndham is an artist and producer from Nashville, Tennessee. He has toured and recorded as a session guitarist for artists like Jessie James Decker and Colbie Caillat. In 2014 he gained notoriety as a contestant on The Voice Season 7. In 2020, he shifted his focus to his own music, releasing his debut album the following year.