Bill Ryder-Jones on growing up with grief on the latest episode of Before They Knew Better

In this week’s episode of Before They Knew Better, indie hero Bill Ryder-Jones joins us for a very raw, personal chat about his childhood and what it is to grow up in the wake of an event of devastating trauma.

He talks about losing his older brother Daniel, who tragically fell off a cliff on a family holiday when Bill was seven, and the salvation of joining The Coral as a teenager, alongside tales from West Kirby County Primary (later eulogised in his album of the same name) and more.

Speaking on the podcast about the complexities of grief, Bill says: “There are so many people who aren’t over their childhood. So many of my friends are locked to one day, or two days, from 30 years ago. And there’s this expectation that you work on yourself and overcome things, and it’s such pressure. I find that a really challenging part of the modern world, where we’re all expected to work on ourselves; [the idea that] if I want all the things that I think I deserve, I need to get over the things that happened to me. And there’s a huge amount of people out there who - much like me - are locked in something that they don’t want, never asked for, didn’t deserve, and are making the best out of it they can.”

Before They Knew Better - available to listen now on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, YouTube, and all major podcast platforms - is DIY’s podcast digging into your favourite musicians’ early years, with a new episode landing every Tuesday morning.

You can listen to the latest episode with Bill Ryder-Jones in full below.