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Jason Ritter talks The Perfect Age of Rock and Roll

By Anne Brodie Aug 8, 2011, 15:15 GMT

A rock star retreats to his hometown after his sophomore album flops. ...more

Jason Ritter is the introspective, singer songwriter Eric in The Perfect Age of Rock and Roll, a coming of age story of two lifelong friends.  It traces Eric’s turbulent, co-dependent relationship with glam rocker Spyder (Kevin Zegers) set against the raucous, anything goes world of music.  

Ritter’s career is in serious upswing mode with roles recently announced in several film projects, including Marc Webber’s Man without a Head, Free Samples and a new hour-long TV series. 

Monsters and Critics spoke with Ritter from Los Angeles about The Perfect Age of Rock and Roll, a film that touched and inspired him.

M&C: You play Eric, a gifted songwriter. What’s his story?

Ritter: I think he’s one of these guys who has really used music to escape from his everyday life, his dad wasn’t around and the gift of music, complicated gift of music, his relationship with it, it’s a gift that took his father and the only thing that makes him happy at all. 

He hides from the world and doesn’t have too easy a time with relationships with people or relies on pills for a while, but music is what makes him feel alive and present.

M&C: Eric’s lifelong friend of Spyder, a glam stole his music, and yet he maintains this love hate relationship.  Why? 

Ritter: A lot of times someone who is reclusive or shy someone will gravitate to someone dynamic and energetic even in a destructive way.  You seek out the opposite. Eric really enjoyed Spyder's charisma and energy and passion for living as friend before he stabbed him in the back. 

He does have a love hate thing; they both came from difficult families. His dad’s abusive and these two kids found and saved each other from the strange nature of their families. 

They’ve gone beyond friends to brothers, even if they fight or want to strangle or stab each other in the back or forgive, it is always with the understanding of the love that’s there between them.

M&C: Did you know Kevin previously?

Ritter: We got to know each other before, he’s one of those guys I’d run into over the years at various mutual friend's places.  He was always was a nice guy – this is the first time we shot a film together. 

We got really close and found in each other the aspects our lives that mirrored our characters.  We sort of developed that relationship.  It’s a strange thing we are such different people and feeling mutual? But there were some things Kevin and I was jealous of each other about.  We both admired certain things in each other, wishing we had what the other had. 

They need both sides. Spyder tells me that the songs would have stayed in the basement. The music is there you need the gloss energy and drive to get it out to get there. 

Without substance it's empty without substance is empty and meaningless need.

M&C: You worked closely in an ensemble with Kevin, Taryn Manning and Peter Fonda.  What was that like?

Ritter: That is one thing that I tried to a certain extent, not to a point where it's unhealthy but I enjoy trying to create as much in my real life with the other actors as I can as far as depending on our relationship. I spent time with Peter Fonda too. 

We had a whole long complicated history, he helped enable Spyder’s drug use and took him away from me but I know it’s not his fault.  Then I can do less acting.  I think it was because I saw E Tu Mama Tambien and I was blown away by Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna. 

I found out they were long-time friends in real life and that made sense. They had history and didn’t have to fake that in the film.   It’s easy to fake chemistry but it’s hard to fake years together. 

M&C: Taryn’s character Rose plays Eric’s girlfriend and Spyder’s road manager and that further complicates things. 

Ritter: Taryn’s character is a music lover and she’s drawn to both of these guys for their differences.  If Spyder and Eric are two halves of the same person, a lot of these rock stars have this creative side and a destructive side and sometimes that destructive side makes them proficient at their instrument. 

Rock and roll stars have this creative aide and destructive side and they are always on the run and it can overtake them.  It’s dangerous and exciting to watch and I think Taryn's character is drawn to both of these guys.  She falls back into the familiar empty rock and roll world and sacrifices the real thing she has with Eric. 

All of a sudden Eric has this road trip something he’s dreamed of for years, his whole life, because he thought Spyder had abandoned him, and he was falling in love and moving too fast for her but she begins to mean a lot to him.  He makes mistakes and allows himself to get too close.

M&C: How authentic would you say this depiction of the rock life is?

Ritter: The writer director did a lot of research and looked at lot of different bands, especially the singer, songwriter genius types and the charismatic front man.  It’s a difficult balance because they need each other.

Bands break up and they go out and so do albums and the magic of those two people together is lost.   It was pretty authentic, especially the party and drug stuff which was taken right form the Guns ‘n’ Roses handbook, and Motley Crue. 

It was different for Spyder who was a glam rocker, he used uppers and downers and cocaine and felt like he was on top of the world and then it was the quiet, seductive thing, heroin and the self-inflicted quiet.

M&C: You were born into a family of actors, the late great John Ritter and Nancy Morgan.  Is acting a natural fit?

Ritter: Initially it felt natural and inevitable.  When I became a teenager, though, the idea of attention was terrible, I didn’t want anyone to see me.  That was when I started finding music on a bass guitar.

It would let me hide in the back of a band and eventually I started playing guitar.  At the end of high school got a small part in school fundraiser.  I had so much fun doing it and had perspective of a child enjoying the attention.  Acting after high school wasn’t for the attention, it was the work, once I realized I could be happy with any attention in any capacity. 

I like writing and have thought of doing it.  I would love to but I get critical and end up with a blank page and deleting out of sheer frustration.  I started something two days ago and deleted it and then later I thought, “That wasn’t so bad.”  I’m going to stop deleting!

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