About Ryan Pollie's No Woman No Cry
“My dad used to always play this song for me growing up, so it had a nostalgic thing for me already,” said Los Angeles-based singer and songwriter Ryan Pollie of the classic Bob Marley song “No Woman No Cry”. “But I was going through a tough breakup from a 5 year relationship, and the song came on. I started crying, and realized it’d be a day well spent to get to know the song better and I knew there was a feeling of comfort in the lyrics that would be helpful for me to sing aloud and tell myself.”
Pollie had released two albums as Los Angeles Police Department and as he started working on his self-titled studio album he prepared himself to shed the protective barrier of his old band name — to make music, simply, as himself. And then he got cancer. Nearing the end of his twenties, Pollie had already been mulling over the big questions: spirituality, purpose, the fleeting nature of existence. "I just wrote a record about mortality and whether or not I believe in anything, and then I'm faced with the biggest challenge of my life," he says.
Open, searching, and vulnerable, Ryan Pollie, his self-titled debut album for ANTI-, was released in May of this year. Living through illness becomes just one chapter in a record that celebrates living in general and all the difficulties and surprises that come with it. More than anything, Ryan Pollie is a testament to the power of vulnerability — to the magic that happens when you open yourself up and invite the world inside, no matter how frightening or uncertain it may be.