Audrey Ryan’s latest album is entitled Thick Skin.

After seeing your CD release show with a 12-piece orchestra, how are you going to go about doing your live show?

Well, out of the ten songs on Thick Skin, I’m able to play about five of those songs live as a one-man band. I think I can get the point across fairly well. But it’s still not going to be quite the same as that. That’s why it was a one-night only thing. Unfortunately, I’m not Sufjan Stevens and I can’t afford 10 or 12 people to play with me every time. Songs like “Way I Am” is an accordion song so if you play it solo or with other people it’s still pretty close. The CD was kind of ambitious, though. It was a twenty to thirty track thing for every song, so it’s hard to replicate.

Another thing I noticed at your release show was that your mom was playing piano on a few songs. Obviously they’re supportive but what do your parents think of your music?

Good question. I think they like it but they’re also my parents so they’re not going to be too critical. For my father it’s been a bit more of a journey. I have several records out and he likes some of them more than others. He’s more into pop music like the Beatles so anything I do that’s up the pop vein he likes. But if I get too experimental or personal, for that matter – if the subject matter is about my love life or family members, he doesn’t like that. But for the most part I think he likes it. I sent him a CD and he told me what tracks he liked.

My mom is just very supportive in general. I don’t think I’ve heard much criticism from her. But they’re both musicians, too. Not professionally but my mom plays piano and my dad taught me how to play guitar. They’re very directly responsible for how I became a musician, although maybe not a songwriter.

One of the songs that stuck out to me the most on the new album was “Dangling.” And correct me if I’m wrong, but it almost seems to have apocalyptic connotations, so it leads me to wonder, what inspired that?

I wrote that song a while ago but I re-wrote it in the last year. I don’t generally write songs that are universal or philosophical. I don’t believe in being preachy because I’m a little too open to things. But with that song I started to think about what the world was like before there were so many people. Literally now, a parking space is $300,000 in Back Bay so I was just wondering what it was like before people owned things or before people existed at all. If you look down from tens of thousands of feet you see little squares and it’s because of ownership and this idea of private property, which is well ingrained in our society and pretty much every other society. But it’s fascinating to think of a time before that because we’ve changed the landscape so much. So I was just thinking of how different it is.

As far as the apocalyptic thing, that was me wondering where things are going to go. This idea of ownership and land and change and that everything is futile, which is the whole idea of dangling. It’s all very unknown and I’ve thought before how a rock could hit us any second and it would all be over.

One of the songs on Thick Skin, “Nostalgia,” is from an earlier album. Why did you decide to re-record it?

On my first record from 2004, it was most people’s favorite song. That was seven years ago and my life and music have changed dramatically. It was one of those songs that I felt I could do over again and while melodically it may sound the same I could make it completely different if I had other instruments. Also, my voice is different. I project a lot more and my voice is gravelly even though I don’t smoke. I’m glad I did it over again because some people seemed to like the second version. I’m not afraid of re-recording. I might do it again actually. On this record, the last song, “If You Go,” I have a totally different version of it as a one-man band where I loop the xylophone and the chords are different. So on my next record I may record “If You Go, Part 2.” I’m not afraid of re-recording the same song if it’s a good song.

A lot of your songs deal with depression as well as handling the monotony of life. I was wondering if you see the two as being connected.

Absolutely. A lot of people are depressed because their routines are mundane or because they have a routine at all. Even though I may have a number of songs on depression or the mundane I don’t particularly consider myself a depressed person. I see how important it is to nurture or care for things in your life that you actually love and that inspire you. Yeah, I tend to write songs about the dark aspects and should probably write more about the bright aspects but it’s often easier to write a sad song than a positive song. I think just living in a large city in New England where the weather is crappy half the year and not crappy the other half, you see people go through cycles. It’s the East Coast and a lot of people are sort of edgy and standoffish and cold to begin with. And then if you layer on top of that that they might possibly be depressed it can definitely bring out some dark feelings.

I’m also very much a people watcher and I go to the grocery store and when I see someone yelling at their children I’m thinking, “Well, they shouldn’t yell at their children but I’m sure they’re also stressed out because they only have 30 minutes to do all their grocery shopping for the week and they work two jobs and are on food stamps.” There’s just layers upon layers in life. I also think about class differences, too.

So depression has been a theme for me but it probably also has to do with me having a mental health background.

What do you mean by that?

I went back to get my masters in counseling psychology about two years ago. I have this other life where I study mental health so I have a pretty good fascination with it.

So are you a practicing counselor?

Yeah. I practice part-time. And the other part is music. The music being what it is, you need to be self-sustaining for the long term for when you get old. I do cognitive-behavioral therapy. It’s a part of my life and I see it a lot so it will probably be a big part of my songwriting.

Without sounding cliché, is music therapy for you?

That’s not cliché – it’s cathartic for me. Therapy is therapy for me.

Sometimes I will write a song and it will serve as a cathartic, therapeutic thing for me. Last summer I was bummed out for a couple of weeks and it was based around some things in my life and I wrote this song, which I haven’t even been playing because it was so relevant to that couple of weeks when I was bummed out. So I wrote the song and it captured that moment and then I moved on. Obviously it was the thing I needed to do to put a stamp on it and send it away. So music can be therapeutic but I think just being creative is the biggest thing. I think if you have a creative outlet it’s going to be cathartic for you because so much of life is not.

When I get a chance to lock myself in a room and play music, it’s the best couple hours of the week. Performing is another ball of wax but I find the creative process of writing to be very cathartic.

How is performing different?

Performing is more of an ordeal. I have to go to my performance space, which is on the second story of my building. Because I’m a one-woman band I have a ton of crap and I have to go pick it up, bring it downstairs, load it into the car, go to the gig, load it out of my car and take it into the club. And if the club is in a weird part of town it can be hard for me to park and get close to the club. Then I have to set up – it takes hours. A gig where you play for forty minutes can take four or five hours of your day. You have to watch the other performers if there are any and you have to wait to get paid and again, you have to load in and load out. There’s so much involved with performing that it’s not always fun. Maybe the part when you’re on stage and if the show is going well and people are responding to the music – that’s really fun.

But would you say that the money is more with the live performance?

Well, nowadays, yeah. It’s also in merchandise. I make most of my money from performing live but I also make money from licensing on TV shows and movies. It’s a great way to make money but it’s very competitive. But you get what you get and it’s hard to be proactive about it. I have a couple of companies that represent me and once in a while they’ll email me and tell me I was on some show I’ve never watched before and that’s great as long as I get a check from BMI.

But the new model is definitely that you have to perform live and you have to be good at it. People are starting to be smarter consumers of live music. If you’re not that good your friends will come see you but you’ll never build a fanbase.

Do you feel like you’ve built a fanbase around Boston?

Yeah, I do. It took me a long time and I’m not going to lie – I wasn’t that good when I started out seven or eight years ago. I was not a particularly good live act. I was probably a decent songwriter and maybe a decent singer and guitar player but I’ve developed significantly. I’m a trial and error person. I didn’t hone my craft and get really good at it and then started playing out. I immediately started playing out before I knew what I was doing. I probably scared some people away but luckily I’ve been around long enough and there have been enough people that have moved in and out of the city that people that do come see me now will get on the mailing list and keep coming.

Now I can play Club Passim and get a hundred people there or get a couple hundred people to come to my CD release show at The Nave. As long as I promote a show and give it some effort people will actually show up. And that’s great because seven years ago if I played it was just my friends. And now I don’t even have to rely on my friends to come to shows. It’s nice that they do but I’ve realized that you just can’t rely on your friends to be your fans because it’s a false sense of accomplishment. They’re doing it out of loyalty. You’ve got to look out in the audience and see people you don’t know and that’s when you know you’re doing okay.