Just a few weeks ago, Ryan Beatty experienced what he describes as the finest musical recital of his life. The 31-year-old singer-songwriter took the stage at Los Angeles’ iconic Greek Theatre, headlining a show on his Arms Over Armor Tour in front of more than 5,000 people. For an artist who grew up in California and spent his formative years navigating the music industry, it was a profound full-circle moment—the biggest hometown headline performance of his career.
Speaking by phone from Texas on an off day between tour stops, Beatty was still glowing from the memory. “That’s what I was saying on stage, it’s like a recital,” he said. “I’m in a suit, all my friends and family were there. The crowd was insane, it was so inspiring. It made me fall in love with performing again in some ways.”
The Greek Theatre show stood in stark contrast to his previous Los Angeles appearance just a couple of months earlier. That gig was an intentionally intimate underplay at the Masonic Lodge at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where Beatty offered audiences a glimpse of the highlights from his latest album, Sweet Fortune. The record is a gorgeous, genre-blurring collection that sits at the intersection of pop, folk, and R&B, capturing the jubilance, warmth, and quiet thrill of being in a loving relationship.
That thematic direction marks a significant shift from his 2023 album Calico, which was, at its core, a breakup record. For many songwriters who have spent years channeling romantic sorrow into their art, the challenge of writing from a place of genuine happiness can feel unexpectedly intimidating. Beatty admits that the transition was not entirely smooth.
“I think when you’ve been living in the same state of longing, hoping and wanting and facing heartbreak, when something positive happens, it’s almost more uncomfortable than the feeling you’d been used to,” he explained. “When I felt like I was in something good and beautiful, I wanted to protect it, I was afraid to write about it because I hadn’t done that before. And ultimately, I wanted to make sure I was honoring it in a way that I could stand by.”
Sweet Fortune was made with a set of trusted collaborators, including Clairo and longtime producer Ethan Gruska. Beatty said he wanted to “speak romantically in a sonic way” throughout the project, and that intention is audible in every track. The album’s rich arrangements and tender melodies create a warm, immersive environment that mirrors the emotional landscape of the lyrics.
One of the most striking motifs on the album is flowers. The imagery appears early and often, from the opening song “Phantom,” where a subject “parodies the spring and wilts away,” to the closing track “Fleur De Lis.” On that final song, Beatty croons about two lovers who will “bloom together or wither alone.” The chorus finds him singing, “I’ll throw seeds and reap what I sow / ‘cause in the dirt, all my flowers will grow.”
For Beatty, the floral symbolism is deeply personal. “I think it reflects on how sensitive a garden can be, and anything beautiful you have to tend to to keep it alive, whether that’s a relationship or something else you believe in,” he said. “I think with ‘Fleur De Lis,’ I think I closed out the album in a really beautiful way. Ultimately it’s saying I have to tend to the things that maybe are hard to face or take a risk on. And that’s the message I wanted to leave the listener with.”
Beatty’s journey to this point has been anything but linear. He grew up in the suburbs of Fresno and moved to Los Angeles as a teenager to chase his musical ambitions. He first gained attention by posting covers on YouTube, and quickly found himself folded into the machinery of the mainstream pop industry. He was marketed as a young teen-pop star, drawing inevitable comparisons to artists like Justin Bieber and building momentum on the Radio Disney circuit. But by 2013, at age 18, Beatty decided to walk away from that path. Legal disputes with his former management and label kept him from releasing new music for several years, with his solo output remaining quiet until 2016.
When he did return, it was on his own terms. The years that followed proved far more artistically enriching than the traditional pop-star trajectory he had initially been placed on. Beatty became a frequent collaborator with the rap collective Brockhampton, contributed backing vocals to Tyler, the Creator’s Grammy-winning album Igor, and co-wrote four songs on Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, including the fan favorite “Bodyguard.” His work on that project earned him a Grammy for album of the year, a milestone that acknowledged his skill as a songwriter behind the scenes.
His solo discography has grown steadily as well. He released his lauded, self-released debut Boy in Jeans in 2018, following it with Dreaming of David in 2020, Calico in 2023, and now Sweet Fortune. Each album has shown a different side of Beatty’s artistry, from the bedroom-pop intimacy of his early work to the more expansive, folk-inflected sound of his recent records.
Despite his success writing for other artists, Beatty describes that part of his career as “a happy accident.” He doesn’t rule out taking more outside writing sessions, but he is clear about where his artistic heart remains. Writing for himself, he says, “is the thing I’ll do for the rest of my life.”
He draws a clear distinction between the two disciplines. “It’s definitely a different muscle, but it shares the same sentiment, which is that I have to feel completely connected to it, and when you’re writing for someone else, you have to have the realization that you are not ever going to fully know their perspective, you can’t be fully in their head,” Beatty explained. “[Writing for other artists] is nice because it lets you take a break from being totally in your head about yourself and lets you try things you might not try for yourself.”
At the time of the interview, Beatty was about 20 shows into the Arms Over Armor Tour, with just over a dozen performances remaining for the year. That includes a sold-out show at Brooklyn Paramount in New York on Saturday. With more than half the tour behind him, Beatty said the main focus has been keeping each concert fresh. He has been experimenting with melodies, reimagining songs in a live context, and leaning into the energy of the crowd.
“I think the love songs really connect live,” Beatty said. “Looking out into the crowd and seeing couples holding each other as they’re listening to ‘Sweet Fortune’ or ‘Too Many Ways,’ there’s so much sweetness in the room.”
His upcoming schedule will take him across Europe and the U.K. for a 10-date run, wrapping up in London on November 7. Beyond that, Beatty is hesitant to make any hard commitments about what comes next. The album is out, the tour is rolling, and for now he is content to remain present.
“I just have to take it one day at a time,” he said.
It’s a fitting attitude for an artist who has learned to trust his own timeline. Beatty’s career has been marked by reinvention and patience, by knowing when to step away from the spotlight and when to step back into it. Sweet Fortune feels like the work of someone who has finally found a steady, grounded sense of joy—someone unafraid to write about love in all its fragility and beauty. Whether he is performing for thousands at the Greek Theatre or crafting tender songs in a studio, Ryan Beatty has carved out a space that is entirely his own. And if the warmth radiating from his latest album and live shows is any indication, he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.
