After fighting chronic illness for the last year, Ryan Cassata is back and stronger than ever. His new album ‘Greetings from Echo Park’ is a cathartic reckoning and a radiant prayer – an intimate, unfiltered testament to survival, clarity, and the healing power of music.
Stream: ‘Greetings from Echo Park’ – Ryan Cassata
2024 was one of the worst years of Ryan Cassata’s life.
Having to take a step back from his career to focus on his Lyme disease diagnosis, it lead to a complete standstill of a career that up to this point had been steadily gaining momentum. “In 2024 I didn’t get to really tour much. I did some, like, one-off shows, but I wasn’t able to tour with my band. I spent most of that year just kind of stuck in my house and going to IV treatments.”
This debilitating stasis lead him to be unable to lift anything over 10 lbs – and often unable to get out of bed – Cassata turned to the only relief he knew, music. “When I wrote these songs, I didn’t really think I would release them. I was writing because I was in a place where I basically just needed to soothe myself with my own music, because I was not relating to any other music.”
And as it turns out, it wasn’t just Cassata who needed it. “Putting it out in the world, and like hearing from people that do have chronic illness has been probably the biggest reward, because somehow it’s reaching the people that need to hear it,” says Cassata.
This brush with death lead to a change of perspective that not only permeated our entire conversation, but seems to have changed his approach to music too.
“As soon as ‘i feel like throwing up’ came out and I heard from people that related to it, that made me change the way I was thinking about it. I have faith that who needs to hear this record is going to hear it.”
Chronicling both his struggles with Lyme disease and the larger struggles of his trans community, they were songs that allowed him to escape.
“And I needed that, because music is such an essential part of my healing.”
Luckily for us however, these personal musings were released – as Greetings from Echo Park, out now on Kill Rock Stars – and it’s Cassata’s best album to date.
Luckily for us however, these personal musings were released – as Greetings from Echo Park, out now on Kill Rock Stars – and it’s Cassata’s best album to date.The previously mentioned “I feel like throwing up” opens the album, and captures the struggles of living with a chronic illness. It’s musically upbeat, throwing you off the scent of the struggle of doing basic tasks. The perspective jumps between Cassata’s friends, who are doing everyday life tasks such as moving house, while Cassata is stuck at home in pain. The chorus is insanely catchy:
My friends, they
Will sing this really loud
But unless a stranger sings it
I won’t really feel proud
My friends think that I’m going up
But I feel like throwing up,
I feel like throwing up
Elsewhere, “Scriptures, Scripts, & Bottles” is another standout, a distillation of all of the major themes of the last few years of Cassata’s life. “This is what I’m leaning on, some sort of faith and like, basically, this is in God’s hands at this point. I’m doing all I can,” Cassata says.
A mid-tempo track about trying trying to survive with pills and prophets, it’s a powerful look into the mind of somebody at the end of their rope. Opening with a somber tone, a strummed guitar and Cassata’s high vocals, it’s instantly hooking. As it progresses, the seriousness of the topic starts to hit, while the music builds into a powerful indie pop banger.
I’m doing time
in waiting room lines
in frustration
Emergency signs,
I wince and I whine
They give me more medication
A hard hand to swallow
Scriptures, scripts and bottles!
Am I gonna make it?
I’m getting impatient
being the mystery patient
And it’s not just “Scriptures, Scripts, & Bottles” deals with religion: “The last lyrics on the entire record, I’m pleading with God. I can’t lose any more of my friends to drug addiction, so I’m saying ‘God, if you can hear me, can I keep what’s left? God, if you can hear me, save his breath.’ And I think that like summarizes the whole record, because, in a way, it feels like a prayer, like the entire record.”
This is a bold stance from someone who been to the seminary, but ultimately Cassata thinks this album is “…like a prayer, like I’m arguing with God in a way, because I just want my community to be safe.”
This faith came to a fruition one day while heading for IV treatments.
Told by the record label he needed to find another sound for the album, Cassata was searching for a new producer to collaborate with, to no avail. Until, on his way to an IV appointment he saw an old man fall, and rushed to help him up, lifting this stranger to his feet despite until recently being unable to carry his own amp at shows. Late for his appointment – and still full of the adrenaline that makes a normally very shy person extraverted – he was put in a room with another patient.
“So while I had an adrenaline rush, it made me more likely to talk to a stranger. So I just like started talking with him, and we started talking about music.” Turns out this patient was none other than Magic’s Mark Pelli, best known for hit single “Rude.” Fast forward a week and they’re working on the album together, the collective worries about chronic health and IV treatment creating a palpable sense of empathy on the record.
These songs carry the usual Cassata rock, with a pop twist that makes it addictive. It’s the kind of creation you see on crossover hits, and they work to meld the rock songs of the first half with the poppier, more electronic numbers found after the interlude.
Ultimate, Greetings From Echo Park is an album that captures a life rarely committed to tape, with all its struggles, triumphs, and contradictions. While being diagnosed with Lyme disease could have been a death sentence, for Cassata it’s started a second life that could be more powerful than ever.
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© Molly Louise Hudelson
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