Today, Detroit, Michigan-based songwriter Ryan Allen announces the release of Livin’ On A Prayer On The Edge (Setterwind Records) on April 25, 2025. He also shares the video/single “Anxious All The Time.”

The album was recorded by Allen at Elgin House Studios, and mixed and mastered by Paul Miner at Buzzbomb Studios.

A note from Allen about the record:

If you’re more than a passive music fan, chances are high that you still have that 15-year-old kid inside you that gets excited about discovering music that speaks to you. If not, well, what is wrong with you?

I still have that 15-year-old kid inside of me. My new solo record, Livin’ On A Prayer On The Edge, was made for that kid. The one who would walk into a record store and buy something just because it was on Matador and the cover art looked cool. The one who would scour album liner notes for new bands to check out. The one who read the Nirvana biography Come As You Are in one day. The one who, despite intense social anxiety, forced himself to go see underground bands in basements of vegan grocery stores and at dingy coffee shops that might have been a front for trafficking drugs. The one who drove around in his Mercury Sable with a blank cassette of Built To Spill’s There’s Nothing Wrong With Love on it without knowing who the band was for at least 6 months. The kid who might have shoplifted My Bloody Valentine’s Isn’t Everything from the discount bin at a Kmart in Port Huron, MI. Maybe you know that kid, too, because the kid is you.

Livin’ On A Prayer On The Edge is the most ME record I’ve ever made. Not only do I play all the instruments on it (save for the lovely Rhodes piano that guides album closer “In The Next Life”; that’s courtesy of my friend Sam Stapp), but because it’s a reflection of everything that has influenced my songwriting since I picked up a guitar and asked my dad to teach me the chords to Pearl Jam’s “Black” in 1992. I recorded it all by myself in my basement with limited punches (every drum track is an entire take) and limited gear (the Shure SM57 still works wonders); it was lovingly mixed and mastered by my musical righthand man, Paul Miner, in sunny California. I gave him one direction: MAKE IT SOUND HUGE. And he did.

Dive into the record and you’ll immediately hear those big, loud, crunchy ’90s guitars that bands like Teenage Fanclub and Dinosaur Jr. made famous (“I Should (But I Don’t Really Wanna),” “Lost In A Daze”). You’ll get contemplative, shoegaze-y nods to Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine (“Anxious All The Time,” “Conspiracy Theory”). You’ll stumble upon swaggy street punk (“Devil’s Juice”), Big Star-influenced rockers (“After I’m Dead”), short, pop nuggets that wouldn’t sound out of place on GBV’s Alien Lanes (“When I’m Gone,” “Spider Sally,” “The Construction Man”), Beatle-esque jangle (“Company’s Eyes”), and groovy, Stereolab-indebted numbers with killer bass lines (“So What Who Cares”). The whole thing ends with “In The Next Life,” a send off to a recently passed friend, featuring that beautiful Rhodes part I was talking about earlier.

Subject matter wise, I’m still ruminating on topics that seem more relevant as I age, with songs about wanting to stay in with my sweetie more than go out, feeling lost in a maze of anxiety, achieving eternal life through the simple act of writing a song, discovering that you’re more punk as an adult than you were as a kid, the useless act of trying to climb the corporate ladder, blindly following dangerous false prophets, and so much more.

If you’ve liked anything I’ve ever done, you might just love Livin On A Prayer On The Edge; if you haven’t, then you won’t like this either. But I’m at the point where I kind of don’t care. I’m going to keep writing songs and making records until I die, livin’ on a prayer on the edge, one day at a time.

Ryan Allen has been writing songs and playing live since the mid 1990s in bands like Red Shirt Brigade, Tiny Steps, Friendly Foes, The Cold Wave, Destroy This Place and more. He is best known as the frontman for Thunderbirds Are Now!, who released three full length records to critical acclaim, including Justamustache and Make History on Frenchkiss Records in the early 2000s.

Aside from releasing 7 total solo records (not to mention numerous EPs, singles, and collections), his main focus for the past 10 years has been fronting the well-loved power pop band Extra Arms. He is also a member of melodic hardcore outfit Big Life and plays drums in indie rock project Speed Circuit. No, he does not sleep.

Ryan’s live band includes Jordan VonZynda (Hidebehind, Big Life) on drums and Sean Gauvreau (Big Life, Grey Gardens) on bass.

Photo courtesy of Jodi Lynn Burton, artwork by Jacob Weston.