The Carter Administration

By Melinda Hanna

Photo by Jonathon Kingsbury

Remember when you were a bratty, hopeful 13-year-old kid, and your father came home with a pawn shop-bought guitar after weeks of you begging, pleading, and mowing the lawn? And months, if not years, from that day on, your only purpose in life, you felt, was to be in a band and just play music for the rest of your life?

Well, that naïve little 13-year-old just turned 30. There are bills to pay now. Insurance to cover. Maybe even a spouse to think about. The dream of just making music has long ago given way to just making rent.

Ryan Ervin, lead singer and guitarist for The Carter Administration, knows the feeling all too well. The band will turn 10 next year and, unfortunately, the Tennessee trio will most likely have to celebrate their anniversary after they all get off work. “I won’t say we all have day jobs, but [we] do have stuff we’re all responsible for during the day that we more or less get paid for,” he laughs.

Because of their “daily responsibilities,” the boys have not ventured too far from their Nashville home. “We play a lot of weekend shows, but yeah, we don’t get out of Nashville too much,” says Ervin. “Part of it is because we do have jobs, but it’s mostly because all of us are 30 or older and that stuff was really fun to do 10 years ago but the thought of driving around, sleeping in a van or on some dude’s floor night after night — it’s really not for us.”

Ervin speaks about his band with both the indifference of a guy with other things to take care of and the realistic wariness of a person who has been a part of the scene for years.

He formed the band after meeting drummer Todd Kemp and guitarist Todd Anderson at a party back in 1998. Over the next two years, the band recorded three EPs, and in 2000 put out the impressive and explosive Betty Ford Start Packing, the Carters Are Coming, their first full-length. Anderson left the band in 2001, but Kemp and Ervin kept the band alive as a duo with Ervin moving to guitar, and together they recorded another EP, Two Man Advantage. They then expanded back to a trio, adding Andy Whillhite on bass.

But despite their extensive history recording as a band, Ervin feels there is an obvious newness to them now, and he perks up when asked about their future, which is looking bright after friends in the band Apollo Up! started spreading the word to Nashville label Theory 8’s president Aaron Hartley. The Carter Administration signed on in 2005 and quickly released Air Guitar Force One.

Fast-forward through two years of extensive shows (both inside and outside Nashville), work, and another EP. The band released Here Comes the Copout last month, and Ervin could not be happier with the results.

“We took our time with this one, and we think it shows,” he says. “It’s The Carter Administration, but it’s more mature. It really reflects who we are and where we are as a band.”

Indeed, the band’s latest release is noticeably more polished and cohesive than their previous efforts. The songs are catchier and the music is more complex yet it still maintains the band’s signature, raw sound.

And while he does hope the band’s music will reach further out than the suburbs of Tennessee’s capital city, Ervin is simply content that he gets to make a record at all. It’s adamantly clear that the younger Ryan’s dream of just wanting to strum his guitar is still in full effect, even if he has to give some custody of his life to the grown up responsibilities he’s accrued in the meantime.

“The fact is, I’ve always wanted to be in a band,” he says. “And even though we aren’t yet at a point where we can do this for a living full-time, I’m extremely happy with what we have accomplished so far, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for us.”