About
Born on the Isle Of Wight at 7:30am on the 18th August, Ryan had a very happy childhood being raised by his amazingly tenacious and intelligent mother and having sister Claire and brother Andrew to help keep him out of trouble. School days were fairly uneventful until at the age of 13 someone showed him how to play the ‘Heartbeat’ riff on the guitar – by the time he had mastered it (at 16) he decided it was time to try a different song and so embarked upon his mission to learn as much of the cool music he was listening to at the time. His other sister Kiri was at hand too to show him some cool riffs
His first musical purchase was PABLO HONEY – Radiohead that he bought at the airport on his way to Germany for a holiday (to improve his German language skills) This was followed by EVERYTHING MUST GO – Manic Street Preachers and POSTCARDS FROM HEAVEN – Lighthouse Family. His music taste has been very varied over the years and enjoys checking out unsigned music as well. Most recently his influences have been Andy McKee, Erik Mongrain, John Mayer and whoever was responsible for writing the thousands of songs he has learned to play over the past few years
Ryan’s guitar style is a mixed bag of genres and techniques rolled into varied original pieces… One minute he’s plucking and tapping the next he’s strumming and whacking! His percussive style is very well executed and tight with the beat while simultaneously strumming or picking complex melodies along with his own unique vocal sound.
With hundreds of live performances under his belt in such a relatively short 5-6 years (currently around 400 in the last 2 years alone) he has grown to be a great live performer with a huge repertoire of covers to keep any audience happy as well as his painstakingly thought out original material. He has supported well known artists such as REEF, COLIN MACINTYRE, ERIK MONGRAIN, THE AUTOMATIC & CHESNEY HAWKES and has also played at the C.I.A (Cardiff International Arena) in front of 2000 student doctors. His largest audience however was at the Twickenham Rugby ground in front of 8000 revelers. In 2008 Ryan entered the LIVE & UNSIGNED competition and got to the national finals in London. He won BATH’S GOT TALENT in the same year. Most recently Ryan was awarded $15,000 from music website Slicethepie.com to record his 2nd album
As well as writing and performing his own music he enjoys working on various other musical projects. Whether he is playing for soulful singer/songwriter Lorna Thomas, performing with vocal sensation Matt Baker or working with CHET on acoustic hip-hop and VTKTM (Visions To Kill The Mainstream) or performing in one of many covers bands circulating around the Bristol area he is always willing to try his hand at anything and enjoys both the challenge and the experience.
Ryan is now trying to realize his next ambition and hopes to be able to play around the UK on tour to his ever growing fanbase with new material from his his upcoming full production album as well as re-working tracks from ’7 Blank Tiles’ A live DVD is on the cards too as well as a remix album called ‘SHUFFLE’ (you can hear some samples in the MUSIC tab
His anticipated 2nd album is due for release in 2012, the first single of which (SECRET) is out on August 18th 2011
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Latest published article in The Scene magazine from Apr 2011
Here is a very in depth INTERVIEW from Jan 2010
You can learn/read more in INTERVIEWS, hear what people think about him in the TESTIMONIALS and REVIEWS sections of the site. Also Ryan keeps an online diary in INVESTMENT BLOG but you will need to register to the site to access it.
