Ryan Colton Music

Photo Credit: Andrew Thornton The first instrument I ever learned to play was saxophone. I  remember vividly when the music directors from the middle and  high schools came to my elementary school with some older  students to show my 5th grade class the different band  instruments that we had the option to learn if we choose to do so for the following year. I was immediately memorized when one  of the high school students busted out their saxophone and started playing a jazzy riff. I had heard lots of saxophone before that  by means of my parents record collections. But unlike the jazz  records most budding musicians typically gravitate towards for  inspiration, my knowledge of the instrument came more from a variety of pop or rock records I had been listening to since I could ever remember. The main riff to " Maneater " by Hall & Oates , the crazy solo in the bridge of " Urgent " by Foreigner , Dick Parry's solo in 7/8 time during " Money " ...

Being on the tail end of the Gen X demographic, I came of age during one of the greatest decades of music: the 1990s. My first introduction to " Grunge " was hearing the roaring guitars and crushing bass and drums that rattled through the common wall that separated my bedroom from my older sisters'. She was hip to what was cool with the new "alternative" music that would end up shaping my musical tastes and sensibilities into who I am today as a musician.  I grew up in a small town where at first, the local radio stations paid little attention to the new type of rock n' roll that was sweeping through the countries' teenage population. But I did have MTV, and MTV knew what was up. I typically would stay up late on the weekends to watch episodes of " 120 Minutes " or " Headbanger's Ball " so that I could stay abreast of all the latest and greatest that "Alternative" music had to offer. But as time went on, one of my favori...

I'm happy to report that my first single officially available for streaming, " Gaslight " was released on September 22nd. This song came together in a bit of a whirlwind. My good friend and partner in crime in my cover band The Upside , Rick Mudd asked me if he could lay down some drum tracks at my home recording studio, Distilled Sounds . I had been listening to a lot of early 90's punk like Social D , Face to Face , and Bad Religion . I've always like the speed and aggression those bands had to their songs and even though the arrangements are fairly simple, they are catchy and have meaning to them. My sister has been battling brain cancer going on two years now and it's really taken a toll on her mentally and physically in the past few months. This created the perfect storm for a songwriting session and I quickly put together some scratch tracks so that Rick could record drums for me while he was here to work on his material. The arrangement came together qu...

 I've been wanting to do this for a long time... The past couple of years have been kind of rough musically - I've seen the collapse of one of my most successful projects, The Here and Now come to an end and also had to deal with the loss of one of the members of that band, George Broyer, who passed away in early September 2021.  On the upside (literally), I did start a new project with some guys I've known for awhile called, well "The Upside". What makes this so different from anything else I've ever done, is in addition to playing guitar, I am co-lead singer of this group. I've never had to be a front man before, but honestly, I've been loving it. It's taken me out of my comfort zone and I've really been forced to learn how to use my voice for something more than just background vocals. Trying to figure out my vocal range and what songs suit my voice best has been challenging but very rewarding at the same time.  And since this band isn't...

So my two cents on the new Tool song that was released yesterday, " Fear Inoculum ". I'm a big Tool fan. They are probably one of my favorite bands from the 90's/early 00's. It's been 13 years since they put out any new music. 13 years. The only other lapse between albums that long by a major band in recent memory is Guns N' Roses with "Chinese Democracy", which came out 15 years after their previous release, 1993's "The Spaghetti Incident". Granted, that album also only featured one original member of the band on it. My daughter wasn't even born yet when Tool's "10,000 Days" was released in April, 2006. I realize that in these 13 years they had a lot going on with lawsuits over album artwork , family commitments, and lead vocalist Maynard James Keenan deciding that he wanted to start a winery as well as maintain regular album releases/touring with his two other side projects, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. P...

Last weekend I got in a little studio time in as I recorded lead guitar on two songs for my good friend (and lead singer of The Here and Now ), Chad Mosson. Chad's been writing and recording his own songs for some time now; he released three singles last year ( two of which I also played on ) and plans on releasing even more material over the next few months. The cool thing about these two songs is that the rest of the band (Rick Mudd on drums and George Broyer on bass guitar) would also be contributing and playing on them. We did some pre-production work with Chad in the weeks leading up to the studio sessions. Chad recorded some basic demos of each song at my home studio which were shared amongst everyone and we also rehearsed together in various configurations to hone our parts and tighten up the arrangements. Full Circle Owner/Engineer Dan Uphoff working his magic. The studio sessions were done at Full Circle Recording in Chester, VA over the course of three days. Ric...

When gigging with my cover band The Here and Now , I typically am using a pretty large pedalboard setup. That band covers a lot of music from the 80's and 90's and therefore is very effects intensive. My main setup consists of a Pedaltrain Novo 32 board loaded with a Line 6 Helix LT , DigiTech Whammy DT , EHX Synth9 , Friedman BE-OD , and a Shure Wireless . It's a great sounding setup, especially when running into my Vox AC15C1 amp. But sometimes taking out a rig this large is not feasible due to various reasons (stage size, etc.). Pedals, board, power supply, and cables laid out  and ready to go.  Recently, I decided to build a smaller, more portable setup that I could use as a more "grab and go" type of setup. I wanted something small enough that I could take to rehearsals, jams, and studio sessions, yet still get a lot of the same tones and functionality that I can get with my larger board. Line 6 recently released a smaller version of the Helix cal...